Shutter Island: The Life of the Mind

[robertpaulsen]

Shutter Island: The Life of the Mind



It's always an event to see a new Scorsese movie in the theater for me. Whatever the story, whatever the subject, whatever the genre, Scorsese's command of the language of cinema usually ensures that the movie will have his inimitable stamp on it. Unfortunately, as many great things as Shutter Island has going for it, it just doesn't have that unique Scorsese stamp on it, and it suffers as a result.

The story is set in 1954 at a mental hospital located on an island in Boston Harbor. Federal Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) is investigating the disappearance of Rachel Solando, a patient institutionalized after murdering her children who escaped from her cell and, in the words of the head of Ashecliffe Hospital Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley), "We don't know how she got out of her room. It's as if she evaporated, straight through the walls".

Daniels has his hands full investigating this. In addition to the mysterious nature of the case, he is working with a new partner, Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo). Attempting to establish a bond, Daniels confides in Aule that he specifically requested the case on Shutter Island because one of the patients confined there was a gardener at his house years ago named Laeddis, who lit the lawn on fire which killed his wife. When not investigating the case, Daniels is haunted by visions of his dead wife, Dolores (Michele Williams). On top of all this there is a hurricane passing by Shutter Island that allows even more patients to escape their cells.

Through all of this, DiCaprio commands the screen in every scene he's in. From the first shot where he struggles with seasickness to the last stunned realization of what is happening, DiCaprio's intensity is what makes the movie compelling. It's almost as if he's making up for a lack of intensity on the part of Scorsese. The dark foreboding look of uncertainty and paranoia is there in Robert Richardson's excellent cinematography, but where there could have been cinematic moments of frenetic scariness, instead Scorsese went with long sweeping shots to perhaps try to capture the totality of gloom and dread there. As a result, there is a lack of energy that makes this picture evocative rather than provocative. It's scary looking without having a single scary moment.

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http://americanjudas.blogspot.com/2010/02/shutter-island-life-of-mind.html