SHUTTER ISLAND

US, 2010, 138 minutes, Colour.
Leonardo Di Caprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Max von Sydow, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson, Jackie Earle Haley, Ted Levine, John Carroll Lynch, Elias Koteas.
Directed by Martin Scorsese.

For four decades, Martin Scorsese has been directing strong, often grim, intense films from Mean Streets and Taxi Driver in the 1970s to his Oscar-winning The Departed in 2006. Here is another film in that vein – and very intense.

Recently, two films based on novels by Boston-based Dennis Lehane have been acclaimed: Clint Eastwood's Mystic River and, perhaps unanticipated, Ben Affleck's Gone Baby Gone. They were crime and police stories, very effectively told. His Shutter Island is rather different. It is set in the 1950s, memories of World War II still powerful, and for the central character here, flashbacks to his experiences at the liberation of Dachau, the victims, the commandant and the guards. It is also a time of transition in the understanding of treatment for mental patients and the criminally insane. The chief psychiatrist on Shutter Island, the isolated rock mass in Boston harbour which serves as the principal US institution for the criminally insane, explains that there had been barbaric treatments for beating out the behaviour and attitudes by punishment; then techniques for brain surgery like lobotomy followed as well as the developments of tranquilising medication; at this stage of the 1940s and 1950s (Freud died in 1939) psychiatrists were proposing talk, understanding and therapy.

The action of the film takes place over a few days as two US marshalls, Leonardo di Caprio and Mark Rufalo, arrive on the ferry to investigate the disappearance of an inmate. As with some of the Gothic movies of the 1940s and 1950s (Dark Corner, The Snake Pit), the buildings can be intimidating (described as being a fort built during the Civil War), the corridors frightening and the behaviour of doctors and orderlies mystifying.

The film offers a lot of detail as the two marshalls conduct interviews, search the grounds and the buildings, much of it in a raging storm accompanied by a melange of music from a range of composers, from pounding chords, cacophanous tones and classics like Mahler. The dialogue is stimulating, offering many ideas about mental illness and its treatment.

Leonardo di Caprio, in his fourth film with Scorsese, looks older and bulkier and gives a thoughtful performance. Others in the cast include Ben Kingsley and Max von Sydow as the doctors and some distinctive performances by Michelle Williams as di Caprio's wife, Emily Mortimer as an inmate, Patricia Clarkson as a doctor, Jackie Earle Haley as a high security patient.

The screenplay demands constant attention right up to the last image on screen and the dilemma in the final question posed by di Caprio.

1.Dennis Lehane’s novels? Massachusetts, Boston? Crime thrillers? The adaptation for the screen?

2.The work of Martin Scorsese, vivid and intense films, nervy, strong visuals, musical score, the 50s style of camerawork and close-ups, the Gothic atmosphere, the island, the buildings?

3.The tradition of institution films: isolated, the buildings, the grounds, sinister? Interiors, rooms, corridors? Storms, cliffs, pounding sea? Lighthouse? Their use in a 21st century film?

4.The score and the range of tones, pounding chords, cacophony, Mahler, strings? The song poem of Bitter Earth during the final credits?

5.Themes of insanity, violent criminals, the criminally insane, staff, doctors, psychiatrists, therapy, the possibilities for cure and healing?

6.The tracing of the various methods: anti-psychiatry, the illustrations on the wall, the barbaric treatment of the insane, the shift to surgery, lobotomy, pharmacy and pills, tranquilising? The transition to psychiatry, getting to a person, communicating, getting them to face the truth? The pros and cons? The speeches of Doctor Cawley and Doctor Naehring? The explanations given by Rachel 2 to Teddy?

7.The framework of the film: the visit of the marshals, the ferry, isolation, the storm? Whether it was a charade, a re-enactment? Audience response? Teddy, his state as a marshal, the job on the island, Chuck as his partner, the plausibility of his taking on this mission? Chuck and the explanations, the conspiracy theory that the authorities understood him, that he was part of the plan? The visit, the action and the search, treatment? Teddy’s reactions? The quest, the revelation, the therapy?

8.The ending, the final image of the lighthouse and its meaning? Andrew’s final question? The dilemma? Better to live as a monster or to die insane? What was happening, in Teddy/Andrew’s mind? In the mind of the doctors?

9.Teddy, his being sick on the ferry, something amiss, fear of water, the headaches? His questions to Chuck, not knowing him, Chuck coming from Seattle? Chuck's awkward getting his gun out? The boat, the captain, the island looming, the Gothic tone, the captain wanting them to land quickly?

10.The introduction to McPherson? His talk, the drive, the explanations of the institution? The various blocks? The Civil War building? The protocols, handing over their guns, their use of identification, entering the institution? The meeting with Doctor Cawley, the discussions? The wide-ranging search for Rachel, in the grounds, within the building, seeing the guards in the grounds? The woman warning Teddy in the grounds? The staff at work? The inmates at work in the garden, chained?

11.Teddy as an agent, his job, asking questions? The flashbacks of his memories, Dachau, as military, the recurring images, the liberation of Dachau, the wounded commandant and his death, Teddy pushing the gun from him? The victims, the guards, the line-up, their being shot, the murders? The shower of documents?

12.Teddy and Dolores, the marriage, Dolores appearing to him, talking to him, warning him, looking out the window, seeing her burnt back? The little girl wanting him to save her? His dreaming and his sudden waking? The story of Dolores and the burning of the apartment block, asphyxiated? Dolores and the ashes? The story of Laeddis and his being a firebug, setting fire to the apartment? Teddy and his wanting to find him, to confront him?

13.The search, the interviews with the staff, the nurse explaining the therapy session, the doctor absent on holidays, Rachel not wearing shoes, the finding of the note about who is number sixty-seven? Eventually finding Rachel, the interview, her attack on Teddy, imagining to be Jim, her husband, her story of murdering her children? Teddy and his being jolted? Her later appearing as one of the staff?

14.The cliff, climbing it, Chuck and his falling over the cliff, Teddy descending to find him, seeing the plague of rats, the fire in the cave, discovering Rachel 2, as a doctor, her story, the escape, her warnings to him? Prison, the theories of psychiatry? Her being on the move?

15.The interviews with the inmates, Breen, the questions, his crime, violence, his anger with Teddy and the pencil? The woman writing for him to run?

16.His discovering of Laeddis in the ward, the discussions, the blame? Finding George Noyce, the long story of Noyce as a student, his research, being brainwashed? The theory of brainwashing as in the Nazi regime, the experiments on Shutter Island? Rachel 2 and her asking him to think about fifty years’ time? The anticommunist activities of the period? Noyce and his blaming Teddy for being there, the struggle?

17.Doctor Naehring, his age, venerable, an expert, understanding Teddy’s defence mechanisms? Sitting in the armchair? Teddy accusing him of being a Nazi? His talk, later at meetings, the discussions with Doctor Cawley? The board meeting and Teddy coming in, the confrontation? Finding Doctor Naehring in the corridor, the injection? His later appearing at the end and the verdict on Teddy?

18.The raging storm, going out in the storm, the rain, the trees and branches breaking off, Chuck and Teddy in the cemetery, in the crypt?

19.The range of orderlies, at work, at recreation, Rachel getting past them, their being interviewed? The storm and the loosening of the chains for the prisoners, the generator breaking down, the rounding up of the prisoners? Teddy in the corridor, the matches, overcoming the difficult patient? The clothes of the orderlies, able to move about the institution more freely?

20.The aspects of the search, the superintendent and his driving, the discussion with Teddy about violence, taunting him, praising him? Violent hypotheses?

21.Teddy going to the ferry, the encounter with Doctor Naehring? The car blowing up? His going to the lighthouse, vertigo, reaching out for the document, down the cliff, swimming, the spiral staircase, no-one in the rooms? Encountering Doctor Cawley, talking with him, Doctor Sheehan coming in, the truth, the fact that he had murdered his wife?

22.The flashback. The dramatisation of the truth, his work as a marshal, coming home, Dolores in depression, drowning the girls, his going into the water, his shooting his wife? The deaths, the explanations? His admitting the truth, the background of the therapy, his recovering the truth but lapsing, the authorities and setting out this elaborate charade?

23.The finale, Teddy accepting that he was Andrew, the question of whether he should die or not, whether he was actually sane and admitting the truth or not and wanted to die? How much in his mind? In the minds of the therapists?

24.A blend of excitement in the search, the mystery, interest in the social situations, the hospitals, the institution? Insights into the human mind and psychiatry?