Shutter Island
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DVD details
Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark RuffaloBrand: Paramount
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language); French (Dubbed); Spanish (Dubbed)
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 138 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2010-06-08
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Paramount
DVD Reviews of Shutter Island
DVD Review: Glossy, intensely "cinematic" thriller may not add up entirely - but it's an amazing ride anyway
Summary: 5 Stars
Like many people who follow upcoming movies fairly intensely, I had the ending to Martin Scorsese's newest spoiled for me months ago. Don't worry dear reader, I'm going to try my hardest not to do the same to you. But I'm not sure that it mattered so much, really, for me - I think I would have guessed that SOMETHING funny was going on pretty quickly. It's a film that builds slowly and steadily towards the final revelation, piling on clues in almost every scene - some are quite subtle, some I think would be picked up on even by viewers not so sharp-eyed, by viewers who haven't seen as many films as I have. To the film's credit, though, I think even people following pretty closely probably won't figure out precisely what is strange about, or wrong with Teddy and his partner Chuck, though most ought to know that something is pretty rotten in the state of Denmark before the halfway point.
Well just who are Teddy and Chuck then? Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) are a couple of US Marshalls come to investigate an escaped prisoner at Shutter Island, a facility for the criminally insane and dangerous in Boston Harbor, in 1954. Apparently a woman, Rachel Solando, who was committed for having drowned her three children, has escaped from a locked room and cannot be found anywhere - though the island is walled by sheer cliffs except in a small beach area where the pier stands, and the weather is so inhospitable that no one could have gotten off to the mainland. Something's not right though, and as Teddy and Chuck try to figure out what happened to Rachel they begin to wonder just what the doctors, led by Dr. John Cawley (Ben Kingsley) are doing with the patients - and Teddy starts to experience nightmares and flashbacks to his own experiences in World War II, which seem to mirror some of the feelings he's having, and perhaps even the events that are occuring in the present day.
To say too much more about the film risks revealing too much; suffice it to say that for me this was a beautifully put together psychological thriller and puzzler, and that far from being an example of the director in "mainstream" mode as some critics have asserted - selling out and dumbing himself down - it's in fact a tribute to the glossy studio filmmaking of old as much as it is a contemporary work. The whole film has an aura of uber-reality or just classic "Hollywood studio" reality that fit both the noirish setting and the increasing psychological fantasy angle. Notice how the sky in most shots looks a little odd - a little digitally altered I think. Various elements of the landscape often seem to stand out more harshly than they should - or, occasionally, they look softer. When Teddy's in the cave and the camera looks out it appears completely fake and set-like to me; when he's in the jeep with the warden it's done with rear-projection, or it beautifully mimics the process; the effect is much like that in a Hitchcock film from the mid 50s - THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH or VERTIGO. The blood in the fantasy scenes, in particular that of the Nazi commandant, is overly rich and bright - the phonograph too looks really burnished and bright like old Technicolor. SHUTTER ISLAND for any flaws it might have as a narrative, is one of the most beautifully shot and lit films I've seen in a long time, with impeccable art direction and production design.
About the narrative, again - without revealing too much, I will say that the revelation, when it comes, is a little too tidy, a little too wrapped-up-nice I think, given the wild fantastic moods that the film has developed up until this point. And for me that was a bit of a problem - I think it could have stood a more "open" ending, and I think many will agree that it's just a bit too talky, a bit too much of the "now, this is why this happened and what it REALLY meant". But at the same time - this isn't David Lynch, though at times there's a faint Lynchian surrealism at work. This is Scorsese channelling Hitchcock at times, and perhaps Samuel Fuller (whose film SHOCK CORRIDOR is also set in an institution for the criminally insane), and his late friend Michael Powell, whose color films of the 40s had a similar glossiness and artificiality, a heightened or altered reality that wasn't quite fantasy but wasn't everyday either. I was also reminded, interestingly enough, of Alex Proyas' film DARK CITY which is another film with a very hermetic, closed-in and noirish pulpy atmosphere (SHUTTER ISLAND takes place entirely on the island save for a couple of flashbacks, just as DARK CITY never leaves the eponymous city, and involves a hero with a possibly faulty memory).
The use of music recalls other films as well - most of it is rather scary late 20th century classical work by composers like Scelsi, Cage and Ligeti, with a significant role played by the earlier Mahler Piano Quintet. This isn't the world of the film noir or old Hollywood, more likely something out of a Stanley Kubrick film, and there are some moments where SHUTTER ISLAND seems ready to ascend to the heights of 2001 or THE SHINING. I'm not trying to suggest that Scorsese is aping or copying all of these other great filmmakers - merely that he is building on their foundations, and giving cineastes like me an extra level of fun; and I don't think the film requires any great cinematic knowledge to succeed, either. If he doesn't quite, in my opinion, reach the level of some of these great masterpieces, it's probably because the narrative at the end can't really break its bounds and reach for the stars - or for the madness - that it seems to be heading towards. But darn, it's a fun ride.
The cast is excellent, particularly I think Ruffalo in a subtle and very demanding role that has to reveal itself very, very slowly; but for the most part this is Scorsese's show and that of his behind-the-camera people including screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis (adapting a Dennis Lehane novel), music supervisor Robbie Robertson, his usual editor Thelma Schoonmaker, and perhaps especially cinematographer Robert Richardson. SHUTTER ISLAND creates an environment of dread and unease, a just-not-quite real world that will bear many repeated viewings even though the secret is known and the story unravelled.
Description of Shutter Island
Academy AwardŽ winning director Martin Scorses once again teams up with Leonardo DiCaprio in this spine-chilling thriller that critics say ?sizzles with so much suspense that it?s hot to the touch.?** When U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (DiCaprio) arrives at the asylum for the criminally insane on Shutter Island, what starts as a routine investigation quickly takes a sinister turn. As the investigation unfolds and Teddy uncovers more shocking and terrifying truths about the island, he learns there are some places that never let you go. **Peter Travers, Rolling StoneBestsellers in DVD
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