Shutter Island Analysis

Shutter Island Analysis 

What is the film?
Shutter Island is a 2010 American psychological thriller film directed by Martin Scorsese. The film is based on Dennis Lehane's 2003 novel of the same name. Production started in March 2008. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as U.S. Marshal Edward "Teddy" Daniels, who is investigating a psychiatric facility on the titular island.

The analysis




•The police officers uniforms shows how important and the authority they have it makes the audience look up to them and makes the audience feel like they are there to protect them. 

•The shots of the officer’s faces show that he is serious and not thrilled and not impressed when Leonardo makes a joke about the mental state of the third building. 

•The shots used always makes the officers more important but they always show the reactions of the faces. The removal of the gun makes the audience on edge as now they have no protection now and they have to put their trust and lives in their hands.

•The shot of the creepy lady makes the audience get goose bumps and get creped out as the way she looks is strange it makes you want to know what’s wrong with her, why has she got no hair? Has she ripped it out? , as she is in the side of the shot it makes her look even more crazy and the way she is telling him to sh with her finger it makes you feel uncomfortable and makes you think why is she doing that. 

•The shots also show Leonardo’s face to show hi reaction which he is freaked out by her. The talking and everything else but some cricket noises are only heard to make the scene even more creepy and uncomfortable, the shot also slows down. 

•The close up on her face shows the way she looks, the creepy smile with the black teeth the cut along her neck, her pale skin and crazy eyes, and her few strands of hair which is left makes people feel very scared and know that she is crazy. You can also see that her hands are cuffed together and that her doctor is standing very close to her.   

•The shot of the door handle shows the security, it also shows the claustrophobic feel of being locked in, which also relates to the shot of Leonardo on the boat surround by the water but this time it’s by walls.

•  The strange pictures on the wall of the doctor’s office makes the audience think what is actually happening in this prison.

• The shot was framed to only show their faces to show what he is saying and that there is no sympathy and that he only wants to get on with the investigation. 

 

•When the doctor talks about one of the women who was a war widower and that she had killed her own children and then Leonardo has a flashback of the concentration camps and of dead frozen children and women. But the audience doesn’t know if it’s the characters flashback or just someone else’s.

•The close up on the little piece of paper. 

•The doctors are always standing close to the patients. 

•The shot moves onto the creepy shore and rocks with the black water with the men all looking out. The doctor is doing a voice over as it’s the end of the conversation of the pervious shot.

•The officers don’t care if the prisoner is dead as they say bluntly to the investigators ‘her body would wash up there if she drowned’. 
•The clock is framed in the shot to show reality as they have been so isolated. 

•The people laughing makes it known that none of them care and they think that it is all funny, they seem crazy themselves as they are almost mocking the marshals as they aren’t used to strangers or anything not different happening as they have been so isolated from the real world.

•The lighting in this shot of the doctor and a guy trying to make a call makes it eerie and creepy and because the call doesn’t work it really shows how isolated the island is. 

•The thunder and lightning with the music makes the audience know something is going to happen and it makes the suspense raise more.

•As he is in a posher building then before he has a flashback again of the war. 

•The pan of the old guy going from hidden in the chair to seeing his face instead of him moving to show his importance. 

•Teddy has another flashback of the war shows that he has been there before. And that he was a soldier. 

•The flashbacks with the war and blood make the audience uncomfortable. 

•All the things in the room, the weather, and even the music makes you feel uncomfortable. 

•The psychiatrist analyses teddy. 

•The music increased in tempo as the flashback makes you know it’s a flashback and as it speeds up it shows how teddy lets a guy bleed to death. The flashbacks shows all the soldiers and then it looks up at teddy to show what the dying guy sees which is teddy. This makes the audience look at teddy in a different way as they know what he has done and seen.

•Teddy speaks German and he knows that the boss is German and he is illegally in the country.