Shutter Island

When I first saw Shutter Island it absolutely blew me away. It was a film that I knew nothing about and I picked it up relatively cheap on the recommendation of a woman who I did not know. It was a complete unknown. However, skipping forward two and a half years and it is one of my favourite films. It is the film that cemented Leonardo Di Caprio as one of my favourite actors, and to this day whenever I watch it I pick up new things about the story.

Basically it’s about a guy called Teddy Daniels who is sent to investigate an escaped patient at a hospital for the criminally insane. Alongside his partner Chuck, he investigates her disappearance in the eerily creepy hospital. However, things start to get a little bit mysterious and scary. Added to Teddy’s flashbacks to his experiences in the war and his hallucinations of his dead wife, the audience is soon aware that something isn’t right. By the time the twist came around there was no way I saw it coming, and even at the end there is an ambiguity which leaves me pondering the outcome for hours after I see it.

Like Gangs of New York, The Aviator and The Departed before it, Shutter Island is another collaboration between Martin Scorsese and Leonardo Di Caprio. Of all the Di Caprio-Scorsese films I have seen (three out of five) this one is the one I enjoyed the most. While it is not Scorsese’s best film in terms of direction and impact and what not, I found it so fantastically enjoyable that I rank it up there with some of his best work (much to the dismay of many Scorsese purists I’m sure).

Leonardo Di Caprio is fantastic in the film. He plays a character who starts out angry, and by the end of the film, what with everything that has gone on, is positively fuming. If you haven’t seen the film before then skip over the next couple of sentences because there will be spoilers. Ready? Good. His acting is so convincing that even when Dr Cawley and Chuck were telling him the truth about his identity, I was fairly convinced that it was part of the plot to trap him there. This is a credit both to Di Caprio’s involvement in his character, and to the writers for making the story so absorbing. I have nothing but praise for Di Caprio in this film and, although it is not one of the best acting performances ever, it comes in a film that is so engaging and enjoyable that it is hard not to like his character, and feel for him at the end of the film.

Ben Kingsley is riveting as the enigmatic Dr Cawley. Throughout the film, largely due to the emerging plot around Ashecliffe, the audience is unsure whether he is trustworthy or not. Ben Kingsley, in the nicest possible way of course, has an appearance that breeds a certain ambiguity about his character. At the end of the film though (spoilers) he is revealed as an inherently caring man who always wants what is best for his patients. Although there is evidence of this throughout, it only becomes apparent when the audience is made aware of the twist.

Shutter Island is based on a book by the same name. The film does follow the book relatively closely. However, the ending of the film and the book are relatively different. While there are some parts of the book that the film would be unable to include (for obvious reasons of time) the film adds one line in at the end (“is it better to die as a good man or to live as a monster?”). This is the line which makes the ending so much of a mindblower. However, it isn’t in the book and creates a more pointed sense of ambiguity. The inclusion of this line points much more towards one direction of the sane-insane ending. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though, and I fully trust Scorsese’s judgement on this one. Ultimately, he has directed more candidate films for the ‘best of all time’ than I have.

When you watch the film for a second time, with knowledge of how it is going to play out, it becomes much better as you are able to appreciate every little bit of information that points you in the direction of the conclusion. From the initial reactions of the guards when Teddy and Chuck arrive through to the fear that the patients have of the marshalls, the exchange between the Warden (Ted Levine) and Teddy, and the nature of Dr Naehring’s (Max von Sydow) conversations with Teddy. Everything becomes apparent the second time and this is why I enjoy the film so much, even now when I have seen it more times than I can remember. I pick up new bits of information every time I watch it, and it is a film with many different layers to it. That probably sounds weird, but it is a film with every last bit of Scorsese’s subtext as his other masterpieces. There is ambiguity over the positioning of the lighthouse and the angles from which it is viewed, as well as the flashbacks Teddy has.

Ultimately, Shutter Island is one of those films that you have to make your own mind up about. Personally, (spoilers) I think that he is sane but realises that he is too dangerous to risk relapsing again and sacrifices himself. I cannot recommend that you watch Shutter Island strongly enough, just so you can make your own mind up about what is going on. It is a fantastic film, very enjoyable, and captures your attention without difficulty. Unmissable in my opinion. 

Other films starring Leonardo Di Caprio
Django Unchained - http://mattsthoughtsonmovies.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/django-unchained.htmlThe Great Gatsby - http://mattsthoughtsonmovies.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/the-great-gatsby.html

Other films directed by Martin Scorsese
Casino - http://mattsthoughtsonmovies.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/casino_28.htmlRaging Bull - http://mattsthoughtsonmovies.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/raging-bull.html

Other Scorsese-Di Caprio films
The Departed - http://mattsthoughtsonmovies.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/the-departed.html
The Aviator - http://mattsthoughtsonmovies.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/the-aviator.html

The Exorcist

The Exorcist is a classic horror film, and seems to be the one that most people ‘break their horror duck’ with. It was hugely controversial when it was released, and continues to be very scary to this day. Although the parts of the film which provide the background and set the scene are beyond dull in my eyes, the actual action of the film is wonderfully chilling, scary, uncomfortable and imposing.

The Exorcist was the first horror film to be nominated for the Best Picture award at the Academy Awards. This is unsurprising when you consider that in the context of 1973, this film would have been absolutely groundbreaking. There’s quite a lot of backstory to the movie, but it basically focuses on a little girl who has been possessed by a demon and the attempts to exorcise her of this demon. There are some unforgettable scenes, some chilling moments, and some amazing special effects (for the time) which all add up to create the film which arguably first brought horror into the consciousness of the general public.

Ellen Burstyn plays the mother who is the focus of the initial part of the film. She is an actress and doesn’t believe in God. I have a feeling this might have changed somewhat by the end of the film though. Her character is fairly mundane to be honest. One day she notices her daughter is behaving oddly and so she tries to find some answers from neurosurgeons, psychiatrists and then, when all else seems to provide no solution, an exorcist. She does manage to convey the terror that a mother, or anyone, would experience in the situations she finds herself in perfectly, and this is to her credit. The exorcist she calls is played by Jason Miller. Miller does very well, and considering that Jack Nicholson was the original choice for the role, I think Miller brings something to the role that Nicholson wouldn’t. If Nicholson was cast I fear the film would have focussed too much on him and would be less of a classic. As it stands, all the cast perform on a level playing field, and this contributes to the overall success of the movie, at least in my eyes.

Max von Sydow plays the other priest at the exorcism, and does so marvellously. His character is depicted in a manner very faithful to the novel by William Blatty. His character, Lankester Merrin, had previously encountered the demon featured in the film many years ago. This means that naturally, he is the only one who knows enough to defeat the demon. However, during the exorcism Merrin dies, and so it is up to Miller’s character to complete the exorcism himself. Von Sydow is a fantastic actor and his casting in The Exorcist can only have been a good move. The little girl in this film, Regan, is played by a young Linda Blair, who is phenomenal. I’m not sure how much of her performance was actually her, but she is incredible throughout the film and is genuinely terrifying in the scenes where the demon has a stronger hold on her.

As with any popular horror film though, there is always a series of ill-advised sequels, and The Exorcist is no exception. Now I haven’t seen these sequels, but a quick search on IMDb tells me that The Exorcist sequels were a bad idea as well. The original film has a rating of 8.0, and Exorcist II: The Heretic has a rating of 3.6. One to steer clear of I think. The Exorcist III is rated at 6.0, and Exorcist: The Beginning is a 5.0. Personally, I’m not going to make any great effort to watch the sequels.

There are so many aspects of The Exorcist that make it an absolutely classic film, and the music is definitely one of them. The Tubular Bells score is so chilling and the film was so iconic that it took what was a piece of music by Mike Oldfield and turned it into one of the most recognisable pieces of music in cinema history. For me, it is the horror equivalent of the James Bond theme. Anyone who has seen The Exorcist will know how chilling the score is, and this contributes massively to the general atmosphere and experience of watching the film. I've searched for it on YouTube in an attempt to link it here and within seconds of the piece starting I have chills, it’s that imposing!

Another reason why The Exorcist is so popular is the number of ghost stories and legends around the film. The author of the original book has said that there were a number of ‘strange occurrences’ during the filming. There was a fire in the studio, and on several occasions a priest was reportedly brought in to bless the set. On one occasion the crew was blessed. There were a number of accidents around the harness used to film some of the ‘hovering’ scenes, and shortly after one actor has finished filming he died of the flu. While these are probably simple coincidences that can occur on any film set, the nature of the film in question is such that everyone is looking for an extra chill to make The Exorcist a little bit more terrifying.

The Exorcist is an absolutely classic film, and one that any horror fan simply has to see. It’s success is not only measured in terms of its reputation, but also on its box office takings. It had a budget of around 10.5 million dollars and since its release in 1973 it is estimated to have made 441 million dollars! Now that’s not bad for a horror film. If you do watch this, and I can only recommend it, make sure you have someone there with you, because there are scenes where you will be horrified.