Spoilers – sort of – in terms of scene locations, just go see the movie already!

Shutter Island’s story can only be set on an island.  US Marshall Teddy Daniels has to be trapped without any way of contacting the outside world for the story to be plausible.  As he tries to uncover the mystery of Ashcliffe, the island itself becomes another main character in the film: a monster threatening to devour anyone who sets foot onshore.

The setting is one of the scariest parts of the film.  It offers no sanctuary.  If the doctors do not get you the harsh elements will.  According to the Shutter Island Production Notes, Teddy and his partner Chuck are “confronted with a disorienting realm of imposing brick buildings, elongated corridors, claustrophobic cells and craggy, water-logged surroundings.”

The production designer tasked with bringing this world to life was two-time Academy Award winner, Dante Ferretti.  He’s worked with Scorsese on seven productions now including the film that earned him his first Oscar, The Aviator.

More near and dear to my own heart, Ferretti also earned an Oscar for art direction for Sweeney Todd.  Sweeney Todd has a brief scene in a similar Gothic mental hospital setting.  It’s very brief, so you may not remember it.  Judge Turpin has Johanna committed when she refuses to marry him and Anthony enters the ward to save her.  I don’t think Scorsese hired him based on that scene, of course, since they’d already established a working relationship, but it’s interesting to consider the visual similarities in films by two such powerful but dissimilar auteurs, Scorsese and Tim Burton.

The location they chose for Ashcliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane was the Medfield State Hospital in Medfield, Massachussetts.  Medfield closed in the 1960s, but was never redone, making it an ideal midcentury period setting.

“My job was very clear,” says Ferretti.  “Marty wanted American Gothic and so American Gothic is what we created on the grounds of Medfield.”

He continues: “I designed several Gothic-looking entrances and additions to the buildings that were already standing.  Then, we built a long, rectangular wall around the buildings and the grounds not only to create a compound, but also to give a sense that we were in a confined, almost prison-like space, even to suggest that we were on an island within an island.  We also created a lush-looking lawn within the compound, with flowerbeds and rock gardens that the patients carefully tend.  We also reworked and redesigned all the interiors, including the orderlies’ quarters and rest areas, the hospital corridors, the cafeteria, Dr. Cawley’s office and the patients’ quarters.  I’d say we built 60% of what you see at Medfield from scratch.  We even built Ashecliffe’s graveyard, which is key to the plot.”

The mansion where Dr. Cawley lives was shot at Turner Hill Golf Club in Ipswich, Massachusetts and Dachau Concentration Camp was actually an abandoned textile mill in Taunton, Massachusetts.  The lighthouse was from East Point in Nahant, Massachusetts.

Since Medfield is not on an island, but Ashcliffe is, and various buildings were shot at different locations, seamless post production work needed to tie all the locations together on an island.  The exterior of the island was shot at Peddocks Island in the Boston Harbor.  Watching the movie, I never had the sense that the world did not look and feel exactly as we saw it.  That is to say, they did a superb job making it seem like one cohesive location.

The consistent weather, the threatening skies and damp chilly feeling, helped make it seem like one world.  Visual effects supervisor Rob Legato and visual effects producer Ron Ames used digital effects to darken the skies and bring out the grey in each shot.

“They helped to create the very special look of the cliffs, the water, the cave, the sky, and this also became part of the creation of a state of mind,” says Scorsese. “It was a major challenge all very, very well-thought-out shot by shot.”

Most of the hurricane effects were not added digitally, however, causing great discomfort to cast and crew.

Recalls DiCaprio: “If there wasn’t a crane dropping water on you then it was guys with fire hoses or a giant fan blowing air into your face.  But the result was that it ended up feeling very real to us.  It added to the sense that these characters are confined to this island, that there’s really no way out, and to the increasingly emotional impact to which the story builds.”

If you want to read more about specific water effects or costume design I recommend you download the free Production Notes available on the Shutter Island website.  They’re fascinating.  I hope the eventual DVD includes a making of feature as well.  Have I mentioned I love this film?

Slated to release later this year and currently shooting in one of my favorite cities, Edinburgh, I’m looking forward to Burke and Hare.  The film is based on the true story of a team of serial killers who murdered victims and then sold their bodies to Dr. Robert Knox.  The bodies were dissected in front of anatomy classes at Barclay’s anatomy school in Surgeon’s Square.

The duo killed at least 17 unlucky people between 1827 and 1828 before they were caught after a tenant found a body under her bed.  With insufficient evidence to convict them both, Hare was granted immunity in exchange for testifying against Burke who was hanged for both of their crimes.

The film is being directed by John Landis which surprises me, both because he hasn’t done a feature in more than ten years and because he’s a comedy director.  Some of his films include Animal House, Blues Brothers, and one of my favorites, The Three Amigos.  He also directed Michael Jackson’s Thriller video.  Apparently this telling of the Burke and Hare story is going to be a black comedy.  I could see that going either way.  If you’re open to serial murder as a comedy device (which I’m a little ashamed to say I kind of am) the idea that someone is hiding bodies under furniture is pretty funny.  If you take life and death seriously and consider that what these men were doing was terribly wrong, it’s not so funny.

The cast is promising.  Simon Pegg from Shaun of the Dead plays William Burke.  Andy Serkis, the voice of Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, plays William Hare.  Isla Fischer from Confessions of a Shopaholic and Wedding Crashers plays Burke’s girlfriend.  The always fantastic Tom Wilkinson from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Michael Clayton plays Dr. Knox.  But, the most exciting casting choice is Tim Curry as Dr. Monroe, because who doesn’t love Tim Curry?

This one has SPOILERS so I would save it until after I’d seen the film!!!

I’ve made no secret of my interest in the iconography of old fashioned asylums (straight jackets for instance). One of the reasons Shutter Island is so powerful is the view it gives you into an otherwise inaccessible world.

The film takes place in 1954, a period of transition in mental health treatments between the archaic method of locking the insane in a cell and throwing away the key, the recent advances in brain surgery (i.e. lobotomy) and the state-of-the-art drugs.

Scorsese was so concerned with accuracy that he brought on Dr. James Gilligan as a consultant. Dr. Gilligan served as director for the Massachusetts’ prison mental hospital for the criminally insane in the 1970s and currently teaches at NYU. I found Dr. Gilligan’s perspective on the film in production notes that were available online.

“Marty made it clear that, within the fictional world of the story, he wanted the hospital to be depicted realistically,” Dr. Gilligan says. “We worked together to make sure the story reflected a true war that was going on in the mid-20th century within the psychiatric community: a war between those clinicians who wanted to treat these patients with new forms of psychotherapy, education and medicine, and those who regarded the violent mentally ill as incurable and advocated controlling their behavior by inflicting irreversible brain damage, including indiscriminate use of shock treatment and crude forms of brain surgery, such as lobotomies.”

Portugese neurologist Dr. Egas Moniz pioneered the technique of prefrontal lobotomy in the 1930s. By severing nerve fibers in the emotional cortex of the brain, doctors observed that patients became calmer. Some contended that they lost all trace of self and became vegetables, but when dealing with the dangerously criminally insane that could be considered an improvement. The surgery was touted as a mental health panacea, however, and people with minor depression, retardation and disobedient teens were put under the knife. Shockingly 40,000 Americans underwent the procedure in the 1940s. Moniz earned a Nobel Prize for his work with lobotomies.

There is no way to reverse the effects of a lobotomy. In some ways I see it as a fate worse than death. Teddy Daniels was given a choice. He could avoid the lobotomy if he would dismantle his defensive mechanisms and face the reality of his past, but for him, that was the fate worse than death. Tragic.

We only appreciate the true tragedy because the structure of the film allows us a window into Teddy Daniels mind. We see everything he sees, even hallucinations. Throughout the film I cringed at the thought of what was happening to people in the lighthouse because I accepted the conspiracy. It’s almost nicer to think that someone is experimenting on the insane than that Teddy had to make that up to live with himself.

“Films are a powerful artistic medium for depicting unconscious mental states, dreams and hallucinations,” Dr. Gilligan says. “The story of Shutter Island may not literally reflect how psychiatrists would today go about treating those who are psychotic, violent, suicidal and deeply traumatized, but what it does do is brilliantly express metaphorically what is going on in the minds and psyches of the characters.”

One of the reasons that I thought Shutter Island was Hitchcockian was the soundtrack.  I assumed that whoever had scored the film was heavily influenced by Bernard Hermann who composed the music for several Hitchcock films including North By Northwest and Psycho and Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver.  Therefore I was incredibly surprised to discover that there was no composer for the film.

Instead, Scorsese asked his longtime friend, Robbie Robertson, from the late 1960s rock group The Band, to create a soundtrack using existing pieces.  What shocks me is that I could not tell the difference between this collage and an original score because I am usually annoyingly sensitive to musical choices (for instance James Horner’s score almost ruined Troy for me and Hans Zimmer’s scores for the second two Pirates of the Caribbean movies are nowhere near as good as Klaus Badelt’s score for the first film).

The music Robertson curated to accompany the film were right on in terms of atmosphere and pacing that you don’t immediately notice they are by different artists. Did any one else have that experience while watching the film? Or was I so engrossed that my typically sensitive ear had a day off?

You can listen to samples or purchase the soundtrack on Amazon.

Shutter Island Soundtrack (Songs / Score) (OST) – Track List
1. Fog Tropes – Orchestra of St. Lukes, conducted by John Adams
2. Symphony # 3: Passacaglia – Allegro Moderato – National Polish Radio Symphony, conducted by Antonio Wit
3. Music for Marcel Duchamp – Philipp Vandré, prepared piano
4. Hommage à John Cage – Nam June Paik
5. Lontono – Wiener Philharmoniker, conducted by Claudio Abbado
6. Rothko Chapel 2 – UC Berkeley Chamber Chorus
7. Cry – Johnnie Ray
8. On the Nature of Daylight – Max Richter
9. Uaxuctum: The Legend of the Mayan City which they Destroyed Themselves for Religious Reasons – 3rd Movement – Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Peter Rundel
10. Quartet for Strings and Piano in A Minor – Prazek Quartet
11. Christian Zeal and Activity – John Adams/Edo de Waart & San Francisco Symphony
12. Suite for Symphonic Strings: Nocturne – The New Professional Orchestra, conducted by Rebecca Miller
13. Lizard Point – Brian Eno
14. Four Hymns: II for cello and double bass – Torleif Thedeen & Entcho Radoukanov
15. Root of an Unfocus – Boris Berman
16. Prelude – The Bay – Ingram Marshall
17. Wheel of Fortune – Kay Starr

I loved Shutter Island.  It was a near-perfect film for me.  I rarely feel so passionate about new movies these days and I want to celebrate the film so I’m going to post about it all week.  I will try to warn readers at the beginning of each post if spoilers are coming.  This post should be safe, but probably less interesting if you haven’t seen the movie yet (what are you waiting for?).

Today’s post focuses on recent interviews with iconic director Martin Scorsese.  Filmo Filia has an excellent in-depth discussion with him:

Q: What were your influences that fed into the making of Shutter Island?

A: There were films that we looked at. The mood and tone of the Val Lewton (producer) films from the early 1940s are great. I showed I Walked With A Zombie and Cat People – terrible titles but great works of poetry. Both of these were produced by Lewton and directed by Jacques Tourneur and there’s another Lewton picture, The Isle of the Dead, which is directed by Mark Robson, and is also very interesting. And certainly we looked at (Roman) Polanski’s films – Cul-de-sac, Repulsion and the ultimate one of this kind, Rosemary’s Baby. Even when you know the ending of Rosemary’s Baby you can watch that film many, many times because it’s fascinating to see how everybody is behaving. The actors are extraordinary and the way he shot it is brilliant – it’s a film that keeps revealing itself through the behaviour of the characters. So that was a big one. I showed Leo and Mark two films right away – Laura and Out of the Past. Actually, I showed them to Sir Ben Kingsley, too, and he hadn’t seen them. At the end of Out of the Past, Leo started applauding and he said ‘I think that’s the coolest movie I’ve ever seen..’

I absolutely saw Rosemary’s Baby influences in Shutter Island.  One film he doesn’t mention, that I feel had some similarities is A Few Good Men.

Q: Does the nature of your collaboration with Leonardo DiCaprio change over the years?

A: I don’t think our collaboration necessarily changes over time. But it is getting more intense. This film was very difficult for Leo because there was so much to uncover and the more we did uncover the further there was to go. And we would try things we hadn’t even thought of before, but it was really very complex. And Leo was so dedicated and for him it was like living in that world for so long.

Q: So it wasn’t a good place to be?

A: No, it wasn’t, no. That last night I remember we just looked at each other and I said ‘thank you’ and we gave each other a big hug and that was it. We just left and went our separate way. I thanked the crew and that was it, I went home. And I didn’t see anybody after that for like two months. Leo went away and then when he came back we were looping some scenes and he would look up at the screen and say ‘oh that scene – what a horrible day!’ Or ‘I remember we went through hell on that day, fuck it!’ And then another scene would come up and he would go ‘oh that was worse!” (laughs) And each scene that came up he would go ‘oh this was terrible..’ Meaning that it was a hard day and all the agony, the vomiting (in one scene), the running through the forest, the this, the that, the everything. It was just very hard work. We hadn’t anticipated it; we were like two novices going into this claustrophobic world. But he wasn’t afraid to go there and he took it.

Q: OK, how about the scene with Leonardo and the rats…

A: Again, the rats were in the script. We had about 100, we added some more later, but we had about 100 on the day…

Q: I don’t know how Leo is with rats, but it wouldn’t be one of my favourite ways to spend the day..

A: He didn’t like it – that was one of the tougher days. Or I should say weeks. (laughs) Especially when he put his hand and one of them touched it and he kind of recoils back – that’s all real. We had about 100 rats, and they were actually great – they were handled very well and they, we had to be very careful not to hurt any.

To read the rest of the interview or watch an accompanying video interview click here.

An interview posted on Can Mag talks more about what Scorsese hoped to achieve visually.

“There’s no doubt the cubism is in the framing and the cutting and the story structure. We had just been doing too a documentary on cubism in cinema, on the influence in cinema of Picasso and so it’s certainly in my head, but again I saw the imagery and there’s no doubt about it. I’ve said before, if you had a mansion built in the 19th century and you have an exterior and it’s nighttime and storming and rain and the camera’s tracking down and going down on it, it immediately brings to mind an image from gothic thrillers, 19th century literature and the turn of the century and the 20th century German expressionism. So the idea was to try to touch upon that, to say yes, this is the reference but there’s something else going on. But this was the set and so it’s always been a balancing act to sort of have our cake and eat it too in a way of dealing with the references to visual style that reflect and meaning, it becomes certain meanings automatically, without losing the emotional impact of the picture which is really very primal, a very primal internal struggle.”

The setting was another main character in the movie. The island has its own life force and I definitely want to talk more about art direction later this week.