Shutter island

bobman1235

The Departed? Really? Probably my least favorite of all his movies.

I actually really liked the Aviator.

hearingimpared

bobman1235 wrote: »

The Departed? Really? Probably my least favorite of all his movies.

I actually really liked the Aviator.

Really Bob? After I saw it from a Netflix rental, I went right out and bought it. I don't think it is anywhere near his best movie but I really liked it.

What didn't you like about it?

bobman1235

Not that I didn't like it, I just think he has a great body of work and that isn't that high on the list of them.

Horrible Boston accents aside, I just think the story is one of the weakest / least compelling. I dunno, to each his own. Still a good movie, but given that movies like "Goodfellas" exist I can't imagine anyone saying its his best.

hearingimpared

bobman1235 wrote: »

Not that I didn't like it, I just think he has a great body of work and that isn't that high on the list of them.

Horrible Boston accents aside, I just think the story is one of the weakest / least compelling. I dunno, to each his own. Still a good movie, but given that movies like "Goodfellas" exist I can't imagine anyone saying its his best.

LOL! As much as I liked The Departed, it would be hard say it in the same sentence with Goodfellas . . . I just did:eek: but you get my drift!

mutelight

I tend to only watch good movies once every few months if that but I saw this movie in the theater and then when I purchased it on BD, watched it the day of purchase again. Really enjoyed this movie and love picking up on all the cues throughout.

berryrock

I like when a movie fills the screen. Of course, I wondered why the extras would be transferred in this manner when the whole screen was filled, but the film could not? Again, maybe just me, but once I realised the black, I can not focus on them, and begin to annoy me.

shack

berryrock wrote:

I like when a movie fills the screen. Of course, I wondered why the extras would be transferred in this manner when the whole screen was filled, but the film could not? Again, maybe just me, but once I realised the black, I can not focus on them, and begin to annoy me.

Fullscreen (aka pan n scan) is the work of the devil and should be avoided at all cost.

Why would anyone want to see this?:



Instead of this?:

bobman1235

Don't feed the spammers shack

Willow

watched it this weekend, it was just ok, I'd have to say the music that was playing when they arrived on the island was pretty bad as was the cheap green screen when they were on the boat as was the scene when the warden was driving leo back after his stay in the rocks. As with others I too pretty much called it from the start.

shack

bobman1235 wrote: »

Don't feed the spammers shack

OOPS. I missed that.

ESavinon

Ron Temple wrote: »

...and that was what they were shooting for. My wife felt the same way.

Unfortunately, I was on to the twist within 20 minutes and all the suspense, turns and twists all felt like the air had been let out of them as it inevitably led to a foregone conclusion. It felt heavy and slow for me and I didn't enjoy it. I recognize that alot of thought and effort went into this one to make the 2nd and 3rd viewing enjoyable when watching the other actors responses in each scene, but I caught most of it the first time through. It's a bummer being such a genius :D. However, I'm not the only one this happened to when viewing other threads on other forums. In fact it was quite common...so I guess I'm not so special :eek:.

+1.
I saw it last night and immediately found the movie slow and heavy.
It was predictable from the start.

Norm Apter

I just watched this over the weekend. I found it pretty interesting, and upon completion I still felt it was open to interpretation (i.e. it left me with questions). I found the following "dissertation" on a different forum, though it was originally copied and pasted from a post on IMBD. If you haven't seen the film or if you've seen it and found it boring, then you probably won't be interested in this. But if the film left you with some questions, as it did for me, you might find this interesting.

*SPOILER ALERT*

"What is the subtext in Shutter Island? To put it simply, Teddy Daniels is a veteran of WWII, who has become a **** hunter. Shutter Island is a psychiatric ward qua concentration camp staffed by expatriated ****. There is so much evidence for this interpretation that I can't believe it hasn't already been pointed out. The "role play" scenario is a plot device that Scorsese uses to weave the superficial plot arc under which he then develops this deeper meaning.

Supporting evidence:
If it were really a role play, then the staff wouldn't have lied to and obstructed Teddy in the myriad of ways that they do:

(1) During the initial search for Rachel, the guard tells Teddy that the lighthouse is empty, that it's already been searched, and that it is a "sewage treatment" plant. To being with, the lighthouse we initially see isn't the same lighthouse we see for the rest of the film (the reason why Teddy doesn't find any evidence of lobotomies in the lighthouse is because it's not the lighthouse where the lobotomies are conducted!). In any event, why doesn't he find the sewage treatment equipment at the lighthouse when he gest inside at the end of the film? The guard lied. What reason would the guard have to lie to Teddy if they weren't trying to conceal anything?

(2) Scorsese purposely designed the gateway entrance of Shutter Island to look like Auschwitz. This is symbolic, and for a reason that is relevant to the plot and meaning of the film (more later).

(3) When the guards request Teddy's gun, here again we have a SYMBOLIC act that needs to be situated within its proper HISTORICAL context (recall what the Germans did to the Jews prior to the Holocaust). Also, note that Chuck's gun is handed over in a hulster; Teddy's is not (this matters for the ending).

(4) Teddy is never allowed to see the Island's files. Again, if this is truly a role play, and Teddy is given "free run of the island" as Cawley says he is, why can't he see the files?

(5) The psychiatrist tries to give Teddy a sedative in the hallway. Again, why try to stop the role play with a sedative? This doesn't fit with the notion that Teddy is being given free reign over the island.

(6) Chuck disappears when Teddy is talking to George (this is relevant to the end.)

(7) Cawley's second-hand man is introduced in a red chair, learing over a devilish fire, with his back turned (this is a metaphor for the fact that the psychiatrist is an evil, expatriated **** psychiatrist).

(8) In line with (7), Teddy recognizes the accent as German. In other words, Teddy instinctively outs the psychiatrist as an expatriated ****. The fact that Teddy is able to do so points to the fact that Teddy is more than just a mere deluded mental patient.

(9) Cawley's living quarters are a metaphor for the "devil's den." This is why Teddy and Chuck are INVITED over. Get it? It's a metaphor folks.

(10) The tie that Teddy is wearing while on the island doesn't match the tie he imagines himself wearing when he finds his wife and "children." This is signficant. It suggests that this scene of his wife and kids is a hallucination, not a memory. In other words, there are elements of the “memory” which are fictionalized (more on this later).

(11) Use of cigarettes and "aspirin" are obviously intended to suggest that Teddy is being drugged.

(12) In the scene with his “kids,” Teddy only displays an emotional connection for his “daughter,” not the sons. This is because his "daughter" is actually a victim from a concentration camp. The two boys aren't even his sons; he didn't have sons! And the girl is not his daughter. He's being brainwashed into confabulating the idea that a girl he saw at the concentration camp is his daughter (more support for this in a moment).

(13) Scorsese directly references Schindler's List by having the girl wear red shoes. This is symbolic. She is the only one of the kids that is actually rooted in the reality of Teddy's past. Also, this highlights the importance of the Holocaust subtext, and also unifies the interpretation that Shutter Island is actually run by expatriated ****.

(14) The warden is clearly a ****. Why would Cawley, if truly a benign psychatrist, surround himself with a **** like the warden and obvious former **** like Dr. Naehring? Again, the very grounds of Shutter Island harken back to a death camp. In addition, the staff all represent the archetypes of a concentration camp staff (we have the clinical psychiatrists like Mengele, the guards who are like **** SS guards, and an ambivalent, obedient set of ordilies who "go along to get along" just as the German populance did during WWII.)

Now, for the final scenes:

(1) The gun that they tell Teddy is his is actually Chuck's (remember the holster?) Why lie and tell Teddy it is his gun when it's Chuck? Answer: they're further trying to destabilze his mind.

(2) The document that they produce showing that he is Andrew could easily have been forged. The reason they know all the details about what Teddy thinks is going on is because TEDDY ALREADY TOLD CHUCK during the storm. This also explains Chuck's mysterious diappearnce when Teddy's talking to George; Chuck is reporting back to Cawley.

(3)There is no sewage treatment plant at the lighthouse. The guard was lying. Why lie if there's nothing going on? Answer: there is, but it's happening at the OTHER lighthouse (the one that Teddy sees the first time, but never revisits).

Also, if it's a role play, why does Cawley tell Teddy he doesn't have a partner after Teddy refuses a cigartte in the ward? Cawley is obiously breaking character early, and he does this because he is miffed that Teddy is succumbing to the experiment in the way that the staff has hoped.

But what about the note you say? Well, the note PROVES Teddy is sane. It's simple math. If Teddy is Andrew, then the guy with the scar across his face (Andrew) and Rachel are fake. That means that there are 65 patients, not 66 on the island. But Cawley insists that there are 66 patients. Thus, for the note to make sense, there must be 66 patients on the island. But if Teddy is Andrew there are only 65 in which case the note makes no sense. The answer is that Andrew and Rachel do exist, and the 67th patient is Teddy qua Teddy. Teddy becomes the 67th patient the second he smokes the laced cigarette on the boat. They try to induce insanity to turn Teddy into a "Ghost." This serves two purposes: first, it eliminates the possibility of Teddy exposing Shutter Island as a modern day Auschwitz, and it also enables them to experiment on a perfect subject (someone who is highly intelligent with a set of skills that would make him the perfect weapon). This is why they have him lobotomized at the end of the movie. The psychological experiment fails and they no longer have any use for Teddy, so they have him lobotomized. Who makes this decision? The psychiatrists. Just like how the psychiatrists at the concentration campes decided who would be experimented on, who would be put to labor, and who would be murdered. Once the people on Shutter Island no longer have the need to experiment on Teddy, they dispatch him. Again, the literal plot here is metaphorical for what happened at the death camps.

When Teddy talks about the monster and the hero, he's not talking about himself. He's telling Chuck that Chuck and the others on the island are monsters. This is why he has a brief look of disdain on his face as he stands up. Then, in a moment of unscripted emotion, Chuck calls Teddy "Teddy." He has no reason to call him Teddy if he truly isn't Teddy. If there even ever had been a role play, it was already over. There never was a role play. The explanation of role play is their attempt to induce insanity in Teddy. This is also why the try to tell him that his gun is a toy when the gun is actually Chuck's? They're tyring to make him question the most basic things about reality, knowing that, by doing so, they might get him so destabalized that their mind control experiment will work. When it fails, they're forced to get rid of him a la a prisoner at Auschwitz or Dachau. This isn't suprising, of course, since Shutter Island is staffed by expatriated ****. Teddy, from his war experience, new this. And that's why they ultimately lured him to the island to conduct a psychological experiment on him, and then had him murdered when it failed.

Like I said, Scorsese is an auter. The Holocaust flashbacks aren't incidental. They are crucial to the meaning of the film. The **** archetypes embodied by many of the staff are not incidental. The fact that the gateway is meant to look like Auschwitz is not incidental. The "obvious" film noir plot arc, a lone crazy man who eventually realizes his insanity, is just Scorese's skeletal structure to tell the real story he wants to. He's not making another Memento. He's not making another Psycho where the audience has to sit through an uncessary twenty minute explanation of what should have been obvious within the first fifteen minutes of the film. Sorry, he's not doing that. He's better than that. But it's in the subtext and most viewers lack the historical knowledge of WWII and Hollywood film history to see how Scorsese appropriating classical film noir motifs and then weaving them in an entirely new, creative way.

The end."