There is a pivotal moment in Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film Vertigo involving a spiral staircase. In Shutter Island, Martin Scorsese mirrors this scene with Leonardo DiCaprio running up a very similar spiral staircase to uncover a secret that is completely unbelievable to both him and the audience. Whether Scorsese meant to reference Vertigo is up for debate, but it cannot be denied that Shutter Island and Vertigo have much in common including an ending that divided audiences.
Warning: The following review contains spoilers about the plot of Shutter Island.
Shutter Island follows Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), two U.S. Marshals who are investigating the disappearance of a dangerous patient from the insane asylum on the titular patch of windswept rock. The patient, Rachel (Emily Mortimer), was incarcerated for killing her three children, and now she has disappeared seemingly without a trace. As Teddy continues his investigation, he begins to question the doctors, Chuck, and even his own sanity, and he uncovers a secret so dark and damning that he will never leave Shutter Island. After the credits roll, however, the audience is left to ask what really happened to Teddy Daniels on Shutter Island.
Before I delve into the similarities between Shutter Island and Vertigo, I have to gush like a little school girl film nerd. Shutter Island is a breathtakingly beautiful film which should preferably be viewed on Blu-ray. The world that Scorsese has created in Shutter Island is immersive, and difficult to look away from, even during the film's most horrific scenes. Even viewers who don’t like the story can walk away knowing that they just sat through two hours of flawless visual film making, and who can complain about that?
The similarities between Vertigo and Shutter Island are hard to miss, and one of the biggest tells is the core plot of each film. In Vertigo, Scottie thinks that he is following his friend’s wife because she is insane while in Shutter Island, Teddy thinks that he is coming to the island to investigate a disappearance. Both characters were swept in the chaos of murder, mistaken identities, and conspiracies because they were lied to by people who they trusted, and at the end of the film, neither Teddy nor Scottie has anyone left to believe in.
Teddy’s background as a liberator of a concentration camp in Nazi Germany plays heavily into the plot and tints Teddy’s perception as he uncovers new clues. He is a man wracked with guilt because he could not save the victims who died in the concentration camp before his military unit arrived. He is haunted by their faces, particularly faces of children, and he believes that if he stops the doctors from using the mental patients as lab rats, he will redeem himself. In Vertigo, James Stewart’s character Scottie is also filled with guilt because he thinks that Madeleine would still be alive if he had only gotten to her before she jumped. Teddy and Scottie are both plagued by the thought that they were too late to save an innocent life, and guilt is the key factor behind their motivations. For audiences who buy into the final twist in Shutter Island, guilt is the key force behind the entire film. Without Teddy’s guilt, whether it be for the victims of the concentration camp or for his own children, there would be no story altogether.
The easiest similarity between Vertigo and Shutter Island is the shocking twist ending, and like Vertigo, I think that people are getting so caught up in the plausibility of the twist that they can’t see the forest for the trees. Vertigo and Shutter Island are both films about conspiracy, but they are both about so much more than that. Vertigo is about the dangers of obsessive love, and even though Judy Barton was Madeleine in disguise, the audience was still creeped out when Scottie dressed up Judy to look like Madeleine. Shutter Island is much the same way. Whether the viewer thinks that Teddy is crazy or not, they are witnessing the actions of a man whose life is controlled by his regrets and unwillingness to forgive himself for either failing to save his wife or for killing his wife. I applaud Scorsese for showing a man’s inner torment in a truly original way and for transporting me for two hours into the mind of a man who is either completely insane or a man who knows too much to ever be allowed to leave Shutter Island.
Blu-ray Bonus Features
The featurettes Behind the Shutters and Into the Lighthouse give insight into specific scenes in the film, the musical score, and the performances by Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, and Michelle Williams. I particularly liked Scorsese talking about the reactions of the nurses in the interrogation scene, and I thought his analysis along with the cast’s comments gave a better overall idea of what their intentions were with the film.
"Shutter Island" is on sale June 8, 2010 and is rated R. Action, Crime, Crime-Thriller, Drama, Horror, Mystery, Thriller. Directed by Martin Scorsese. Written by Laeta Kalogridis, Dennis Lehane. Starring Ben Kingsley, Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Michelle Williams.
