Scorsese has fun with Hitchcock, noir on "Shutter Island"

Martin Scorsese knows film history. Watch any interview with him or read any books or articles which quote him and you learn that he not only knows, almost obsessively, about the movies, he lives and breathes them. There has probably not been a more staunch supporter of film preservation within Hollywood than Scorsese. He will pop up on Turner Classic Movies preaching on the dangers of pan and scan conversion of widescreen films to television or appear on an American Film Institute specials offering praise towards giant filmmakers like John Ford, Stanley Kubrick, and the Master of Suspense Alfred Hitchcock. And it is Hitchcock whom Scorsese acknowledges and evokes with his newest film, Shutter Island.
Shutter Island opens on the choppy waves of New England as federal marshals Teddy Daniels and Chuck Aule, played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo, sail towards the ominous island of the film's title. The image of the large ferry sailing towards a place of mystery, cloaked in fog reminds us of the crew that sails towards the island at the beginning of the classic King Kong. But monsters of a different kind await on the island, for it is home to a mental institution which houses violent, criminally insane individuals. Daniels and Aule have been ordered to the facility to investigate the disappearance of one of the institution's patients. Ran by the pipe-smoking, level-headed Dr. John Cawley, played by Ben Kingsley, the institution appears to be hiding a dark, sinister secret too chilling for Daniels or Aule to understand. Notions of experimental surgeries, possibly performed by ex-Nazis, begin to haunt Teddy, as does the image of his dead wife (a gorgeously haunting Michelle Williams, here seen only in flashbacks). Teddy, too, has his own secrets as we learn that he helped liberate a concentration camp as a soldier during World War II and was witness to the atrocities of the Nazis. Soon, Teddy plunges deep within the twisting and winding corridors of the island searching for the truth of the missing person he has been sent to find, while simultaneously wandering through the mazes of own mind in a search of the median between sanity and insanity.
Scorsese is purely having fun with Shutter Island. As soon as Teddy and Chuck arrive on the island and begin their drive to the institution, we are greeted with a bombastic, deadly score that conjures Bernard Herrmann's greatest efforts with Alfred Hitchcock. The score does a fantastic job of illustrating the eerie feeling that the island itself is emitting and it sets the tone for the picture the same way Herrmann's scores for Psycho and Vertigo did. We do not hear scores this over-the-top or pronounced today- but it would fit in nicely with, say, film noir and Hitchcock of the 40s and 50s.
As well, Scorsese has an exacting feel for the film noir genre and displays it effectively. DiCaprio and Ruffalo investigate the island full private-eye style with a cigarette hanging from their lips and a fedora on their heads- all the while a foggy atmosphere and stormy weather, reflecting the situations the find at the institution, literally engulfs them. This represents some of the stylistic basics of film noir and it's great to see Scorsese use those traits here.
Perhaps Vertigo is the Hitchcock film that Shutter Island pays tribute to the most. Much must be said of Leonardo DiCaprio's obsessive, strenuous performance. As James Stewart epitomized the everyman for Hitchcock, so has DiCaprio for Scorsese. The two have made this, their fourth movie together, after success in establishing a partnership on Gangs of New York, The Aviator, and The Departed. Here, DiCaprio is at his best. Like Stewart in Vertigo, he is a man haunted with the uncontrollable desire to know the truth about the case he has been sent to investigate. Both men are haunted by the deaths of an attractive blond female who now linger in their memories- and not for the better. These memories cause catastrophic damage to the psyche of both men. Teddy's fate at the end of this film could probably have been the same fate of Scottie once he left the bell tower following the death of Kim Novak's Judy at the end of Vertigo. DiCaprio portrays loss, obsession, and causes us to feel his paranoia as he becomes more and more involved in the island's startling secrets. This is an extremely strong performance and DiCaprio has once again proven, along with Revolutionary Road, that he is quickly becoming one of America's leading actors.
Ultimately, this is Scorsese having a good time. He is not trying to hammer home a message to his audience or convey a heavy-handed theme. Because of this, it does not have the weight of Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, The Last Temptation of Christ, or Goodfellas. However, this is entertaining as hell and falls on the same path as Scorsese's own Cape Fear remake in the horror/ suspense nature of it. The ending is one which may divide audiences because it essentially asks them to buy into a 180 degree turn. With modern audiences, this can be sometimes hard to do and some may find it disappointing, campy, and completely deceptive. But those movie goers will be missing the point. Shutter Island is genre story-telling by a master filmmaker who is conscious of where his film has come from and has the cinematic tools from film's history to tell it.

GRADE: A-