With the recent documentary series Mr. Scorsese about the life and work of Martin Scorsese, he says his collaboration with Leonardo DiCaprio has been a way he can work to do more expensive projects. It’s been one of the most unusual collaborations as the director and former teen idol turned Oscar winner have a good track record. DiCaprio picks his projects more seriously now sometimes going one or two years between his movies.
That might be why some people were scratching their heads when they heard the two were making a movie called Shutter Island that looks like a generic Raymond Chandler style thriller. But there’s more to it than some would seem. This was the first movie Scorsese made after winning the Best Director Oscar in 2007 for The Departed. And the movie is based on a novel by Dennis Lehane whose previous adaptations of Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone made people reconsider the directing style of both Clint Eastwood and Ben Affleck, respectively.
Before I go any further, this post will contain a lot of spoilers. But a movie like Shutter Island isn’t a Whodunit, but more of a What-Did-We-Miss. As most people have noted, even the title Shutter Island is an anagram of Truth and Lies. This is important later on in the movie. Directors often show us only what they want us to see. From the start, we meet U.S. Marshal Edward “Teddy” Daniels (DiCaprio) and his new partner, Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) as they are on a ferry going across Boston Harbor to Shutter Island which is the location of Ashecliff Hospital of the Criminally Insane.
They are tracking the reported disappearance of patient Rachel Soldano. Teddy also believes that a pyromaniac Anthony Laedis is also on the island. Teddy tells Chuck that his wife, Dolores (Michelle Williams), was killed in an apartment fire caused by Laedis. From the start we don’t assume much, but there is the question of why are the two marshals meeting for the first time on the ferry. We see Teddy in the bathroom sick so we just presume he has seasickness.
Later, when they get to the island, they are met by security and instructed by Deputy Warden McPherson (John Carrol Lynch) to surrender their service revolvers. Chuck fumbles a little with his and we can see McPherson doesn’t look too happy the two men are there. We just presume it’s a cliche of jurisdictional grievances. But we later learn what is really happening.
SPOILERS AHEAD!!! Do not read any further if you haven’t seen the movie.
Chuck isn’t a U.S. Marshal. And Teddy once was, but he is a patient at the hospital whose real name is Anthony Laedis, which is an anagram of Edward Daniels. They were given toy guns to make it look like they had real guns. Chuck fumbles with his holster because he’s not trained enough in weapons handling. He’s actually Anthony’s psychiatrist Dr. Lester Sheehan who has been working along with senior psychiatrist Dr. John Cawley (Ben Kinsley) in creating an elaborate ruse for Laedis to remember his true history.
Teddy/Anthony was a Marine who helped liberate the Dachau concentration camp during the last days of World War II in Europe. During a scene where the military was supposed to round all Nazi German soldiers up, one of the Marines fires and the rest of the troops open fire killing them all. (This actually happened even though the Germans weren’t killed all at once as shown in the movie. Angry and upset over the atrocities they saw, military officials tortured and killed many of the Germans. Some even allowed the Jewish prisoners who were able to get some revenge on the Germans. Despite these actions, no one was ever court martialed)
Teddy/Anthony has been living with the post-traumatic stress of what he witnessed including seeing young kids lying dead in the snow. This was probably a trigger when Anthony actually shot Dolores at their lakeside home when she drowned their three young children. It was actually Dolores who burned the apartment building down and Anthony didn’t seek help. Given that the movie is set mostly in 1954, this was an era in which mental illness wasn’t taken as seriously. Because he was a U.S. Marshal, Anthony was constantly on the road tracking criminals leaving Dolores at home with no one to turn to. It’s been reported more in recent years that both “housewives” during this period actually struggled with mental issues because of the isolation.
During his stay at Ashecliffe, Teddy/Anthony has exhibited violent behaviors and this is a last-ditch effort by Cawley and Sheehan as they don’t want him to have to suffer a lobotomy. If you watch the movie closely, you’ll notice that even though Teddy/Anthony is a smoker, he never has cigarettes or even matches except during one scene where he thinks he finds Solando (Patricia Clarkson) hiding in a cave. Yet, as they are always interviewing patients pretending to be Marshals, a security guard is also seen in the background behind Teddy/Anthony but never behind Chuck.
You can even see one woman patient glance at Chuck/Lester when asked a question as if she’s checking to see if she should answer. Later, we see her pretend to drink a glass of water but there is no glass in her hand. It’s a sly trick of the camera by Scorsese and Robert Richardson, director of photography. There’s also another woman patient who is seen raking leaves who looks directing at Teddy/Anthony and makes a “Shhh” gesture with her finger. A lot of people have interpreted this as she is telling him they are not supposed to say anything.
The patients know about the ruse as do the orderlies and guards. There’s an old acting phrase that “there are no small roles, only small actors.” This is the movie where every extra is important to the movie’s plot. You can sense in every scene where the orderlies and the guards are going through with this but they are unable to say or do anything as they just give Teddy/Anthony disgruntled looks as he tries to order them around. Even the interaction Teddy/Anthony has with the main warden (Ted Levine), there is tension where you can tell at any minute, the warden is going to spill the beans. Yet he stops himself because he knows the psychiatrists need Anthony to still believe he’s Teddy.
It’s a complicated idea for a movie and one it would take a skilled director like Scorsese as well as his trusted long-time friend and film editor Thelma Schoonmaker not to screw up. It’s also the closest Scorsese has come in his long career to making a horror movie even though a psychological thriller might be the more appropriate term. Yes, he did do that Cape Fear remake and some might argue Taxi Driver and even Bringing Out the Dead are horror.
But as a man who once studied to enter the priesthood, Scorsese is more worried about the horrors that exist in our own minds. Anthony may not have fired the first shot at Dachau killing the soldiers but he participated in the massacre. And there was no treatment. I once spoke with a WWII vet who said it bluntly and matter of fact, he turned to bottle to cope like most veterans did. If that’s how military reacts to seeing women and children killed, imagine what goes through their mind when they return home to find their own kids murdered?
There’s been a lot of speculation on the final scene as Anthony talks to Lester one last time addressing him as Chuck. He asks the psychiatrist if it would be worse to “live as a monster or die as a good man” knowing that by continuing the ruse he’s Teddy, he’ll be lobotomized. Yet, he’s accepted his fate because he can’t really kill himself but this is the next possible thing. The line is not in Lehane’s book. The author later said in an interview, “Personally, I think he has a momentary flash…. It’s just one moment of sanity mixed in the midst of all the other delusions.”
This has also led to a fan theory that Shutter Island is an anagram of Ted Kills Liars and the only way Anthony can end the hallucinations, lies and deceit is to keep acting like he’s Teddy even though he’s accepted that he’s really Anthony.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 