Shutter Island (15.)
Directed by Martin Scorsese.
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Kingsley, Mark Ruffalo, Michelle Williams, Max Von Sydow, Emily Mortimer. 138 mins.
A girl has disappeared without trace on a barren island and groups of people are clambering over jagged rocks trying to find her. Earnest cineastes (think train spotters minus the appetite for adventure) in the audience will nod appreciatively as they note Scorsese’s reference to Antonioni’s classic L’Aventurra.
Shutter Island provides many such pleasures for the buffs, but precious few for anyone who might just want to see a good film. Shutter Island is Scorsese’s attempt to do a thriller through the filter of all the films he loves, but it has filtered away most of the enjoyment.
The missing girl is a patient at a high security institution for the criminally insane. Among those searching is Federal Marshall Teddy Daniels (DiCaprio) and his new partner Chuck (Ruffalo) but of course the investigation is going to prove to be a lot more complex than a simple missing persons investigation.
The film is set in the mid fifties and both the leads fit the era well. Ruffalo is particularly good; he has the air of a Dean Martin who turned up for the odd session at the Actors Studio. The aim seems to be to make a modern day equivalent of the kind of studio genre picture Scorsese grew up on. Entertainment though seems totally beyond his grasp.
It goes wrong in much the same way his Cape Fear remake went wrong - he takes a straightforward pleasure and just buries it under piles of lots of references and homages and stylistic flourishes. Almost everything in it is top quality, but it adds up to very little. He’s like a once great literary novelist who gets so caught up in his style and his writing that he’s no longer readable; you can’t see the novel for the sentences.
There’s also the basic flaw that if you are making a suspense thriller, some level of suspense is required. When the big reveal comes it should whip the carpet away from beneath us. In Shutter Island, the carpet wasn’t fitted properly to begin with and by whip-away-time most of it has already worn away. The film can’t keep its own secret; it’s a whispering campaign against itself.
The one thing I did like about Shutter Island was the music. At the end I stuck around through the final credits to see who had written the Herrmann pastiche score. In fact the score was a mix of pieces by composers such as Mahler, Ligeti, Penderecki, Cage and Eno. I shouldn't have been surprised - Scorsese turns everything into old movies, so why shouldn't turn this diverse collection of music into an old movie score.
Other Scorsese reviews
Hugo
The Last Waltz
The Wolf of Wall Street
Directed by Martin Scorsese.
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Kingsley, Mark Ruffalo, Michelle Williams, Max Von Sydow, Emily Mortimer. 138 mins.
A girl has disappeared without trace on a barren island and groups of people are clambering over jagged rocks trying to find her. Earnest cineastes (think train spotters minus the appetite for adventure) in the audience will nod appreciatively as they note Scorsese’s reference to Antonioni’s classic L’Aventurra.
Shutter Island provides many such pleasures for the buffs, but precious few for anyone who might just want to see a good film. Shutter Island is Scorsese’s attempt to do a thriller through the filter of all the films he loves, but it has filtered away most of the enjoyment.
The missing girl is a patient at a high security institution for the criminally insane. Among those searching is Federal Marshall Teddy Daniels (DiCaprio) and his new partner Chuck (Ruffalo) but of course the investigation is going to prove to be a lot more complex than a simple missing persons investigation.
The film is set in the mid fifties and both the leads fit the era well. Ruffalo is particularly good; he has the air of a Dean Martin who turned up for the odd session at the Actors Studio. The aim seems to be to make a modern day equivalent of the kind of studio genre picture Scorsese grew up on. Entertainment though seems totally beyond his grasp.
It goes wrong in much the same way his Cape Fear remake went wrong - he takes a straightforward pleasure and just buries it under piles of lots of references and homages and stylistic flourishes. Almost everything in it is top quality, but it adds up to very little. He’s like a once great literary novelist who gets so caught up in his style and his writing that he’s no longer readable; you can’t see the novel for the sentences.
There’s also the basic flaw that if you are making a suspense thriller, some level of suspense is required. When the big reveal comes it should whip the carpet away from beneath us. In Shutter Island, the carpet wasn’t fitted properly to begin with and by whip-away-time most of it has already worn away. The film can’t keep its own secret; it’s a whispering campaign against itself.
The one thing I did like about Shutter Island was the music. At the end I stuck around through the final credits to see who had written the Herrmann pastiche score. In fact the score was a mix of pieces by composers such as Mahler, Ligeti, Penderecki, Cage and Eno. I shouldn't have been surprised - Scorsese turns everything into old movies, so why shouldn't turn this diverse collection of music into an old movie score.
Other Scorsese reviews
Hugo
The Last Waltz
The Wolf of Wall Street
