Comments on: Shutter Island‘s Ancestors

By: cassandralopestamaria

cassandralopestamaria — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 05:47:47 +0000

Cool post. I am so going to watch Shutter Island.

By: M. A. Hauck

M. A. Hauck — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 02:53:41 +0000

@Mitch Farish

At one time, Scorsese wanted to be John Cassavetes. Somehow, he morphed into David Lean instead over the last decade, with the exception of Bringing Out the Dead, which I think is a masterpiece (thanks in part to Paul Schrader’s script).

He should have stuck with the former route. I’d take Cassavetes over Lean any day.

By: sitting pugs

sitting pugs — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 01:09:40 +0000

Fantastic post! I haven’t seen Shutter Island, but I’ve listened to the unabridged audio book. The ending kept me wide-eyed… Not sure I’ll watch the film.

By: kingrat

kingrat — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:47:25 +0000

Speaking of Bocklin’s paintings called “The Isle of the Dead,” they also inspired Rachmaninoff’s symphonic tone poem of the same name. One of his finest works.

By: vixstar1314

vixstar1314 — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:39:32 +0000

Cool post!
First time I saw the trailer for Shuttle Island I knew I had to watch it. My views have not changed. And I’m def going to watch it once it’s out in the UK!
Interesting details about the other films :D

By: courey

courey — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:36:52 +0000

i really enjoyed this article. i went to see Shutter Island the other day and i hated it up until the very end. i think it was roughly the last 15- 20 minutes of this movie that turned the whole thing around for me. usually movies like this do not bother me at all, i was surprise at how disturbing some of the images were through out the film. in the end i thought the twist was great and i would definitely see it again.
i am very interested to see Isle of the Dead. if anyone else is interested it looks like most of it, if not all, is posted on youtube.

By: Mitch Farish

Mitch Farish — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:21:56 +0000

So one of the film school boys (God forbid they should ever crack a book) has ripped off some truly great films whose inspiration came not from other films but from literature and art. I have an idea; why not watch “Isle of the Dead,” “Bedlam,” and “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,” and save your money, unless having everything slicked up with CGI means that much to you. Once again we are reminded of just how remarkable the Lewtons, Hitchcocks, Fords, and Langs really were, and how ordinary the Scorseses, Camerons, and Burons are.

By: Suzi Doll

Suzi Doll — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 05:21:48 +0000

I thought SHUTTER ISLAND was terrific. Scorsese’s command of the visual language of cinema is like a painter’s command of his brush. The outcome of the narrative is telegraphed by the visuals not for the purposes of “spoiling” the ending but to suggest a deeper and darker subtext. Few reviewers today have the ability to recognize and interpret visual strategies of storytelling, so small wonder that the reviews are mixed. I found this film’s real antecedent to be THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI, both in terms of content and visual design. The high-strung performances also fit into the Expressionist style, and I would not call them over the top. No one underplays in SHUTTER ISLAND, but that doesn’t make the acting over the top. Broader styles of acting (as in melodrama, horror, or other unsubtle genres) are not in vogue now, and there is a tendency to criticize any acting style that is not underplaying. I thought the performances serviced the material as did the visual techniques. The conclusion, which differs slightly from the book, recalls Scorsese’s career-long interest in the nature of the heroic protagonist, so he makes the material his own while remaining relatively faithful to the book.

By: moirafinnie

moirafinnie — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:57:53 +0000

Rob, Yes, I see what you mean about the bizarre qualities in this Val Lewton movie. I think Bedlam has a dream-like logic with many changes in tone and perspectives without resolution or an overriding unifying idea, but I suppose that reflects the disjointed perception of those confined there (and Lewton's bedeviled state of mind at RKO when he made this movie). Despite this, the movie has some images I can't forget, such as the man trying to escape from the asylum from the attic window, with the star-filled sky above, and falling to his death, the gold-painted living statue at the decadent aristocrat's party, the casual nature of his death, and Anna Lee's expression as she gradually begins to question her own sanity as she becomes more immersed in the world of the asylum. Max Von Sydow's presence in the cast of Shutter Island just might make it worth seeing. That, and the fact that I have a pretty good idea what spooky island near Boston that Dennis Lehane was writing about in his novel that inspired this movie. It really is a bit unnerving to visit.

By: R. Emmet Sweeney

R. Emmet Sweeney — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 22:54:57 +0000

Moira-

I found SHUTTER ISLAND to be an effective grand guignol-style thriller, no more, no less. I thought it was structured quite nicely, with the hallucinations slowly leaking into his waking moments, and the performances are enjoyably over-the-top (especially the all-too-brief turn by Max Von Sydow). Its grander ambitions, as a nightmare vision of bearing witness to 20th century atrocities, was not as effective for me. But it certainly has ambitions. In any case, I still think it’s a must see.

Your thoughts on Bedlam are well taken. It does have a “grotesque” humor to it, embodied in Karloff’s pathetic George Sims, who as you say is more complicated than a mere sadist, which I failed to mention in my piece. The film is strangely disjointed though, don’t you think? Its shifts from that grostesque humor to social drama to classic Lewton horror was truly bizarre. Not a judgment, just an observation. It’s a worthy curiosity, for sure.