Martin Scorserse and Shutter island

 


From all movie guide; The most renowned filmmaker of his era, Martin defined the state of modern American cinema during the 1970s and '80s. A consummate storyteller and visual stylist who lived and breathed movies, won fame translating his passion and energy into a brand of film making that crackled with kinetic excitement. 

In April 1979, Martin began to work on the Raging Bull, a film based on the autobiography of a boxer Jake LaMotta.

Another example of his achievement that is more relevant to us is the thriller Shutter Island :

  Analyses of the Shutter island

The opening scene of this thriller is very dramatic and mysterious because of the misty sky and the atmosphere overall was very dark and we could not see where the camera was taking us at the beginning, which adds to the mysteriousness, until we can slowly see that it actually discovers a boat, slowly sailing in the angry looking sea. Also the atmospheric music, which was playing in the background whilst there was mist on the top of the sea reaching into the sky, covering the whole sky shot in a misty dust, has made the story even more dramatic, because the music makes us feel nervous and tensed. This dramatic opening seen, is not just to keep an audience watching, but to also explain from the beginning what the story is going to be about, so from this, we can imagine that the rest of the film is going to be quite scary and mysterious.

As they got there, they had found themselves outside an institute "for criminally insane" as it was described in the previous shot. The place had a barbed wire all the way around it, which makes us think of concentration camps and automatically makes us wonder on how the people in there are getting treated, and also are the patients that dangerous and that insane that they really don't want them escaping, so much so they have put barbed wire around the whole institute?





Another very important effect are the flash backs that the protagonist kept having.

This flashback shows that he obviously has experienced some sort of trauma or a scary event that provokes his mind and the fact that when he has seen that woman on the picture that has been missing, he got this flashback whilst he was looking at this image, which shows that may be because of the way she was dressed, or looked, (because she did look a bit like the people in the flashback), the memory came back. In the actual flashback we can see lots of people and they are not being treated very well. We could almost say that they are in some sort of concentration camp, because of the atmosphere and the mise-en-scene, and the lighting. The atmosphere is very tensed and makes the audience feel tensed too, i think this is because all these people are shut in a camp and surrounded by barbed wire. The mis-en-scene makes us feel like the place is very cold and dirty. We can see this by looking at the barbed wire and people in general are wearing dirty clothing. The lightning is very dark and grey looking which adds to the huge depression of this flashback.

Another of the protagonist's flashback however, shows us something very different.....

He remembers a woman (his girlfriend) that has died in the past. We know that it is his girlfriend  because of the fact that they are both smiling and the look on her face in this little clip shows that she obviously loves him. The main thing about this flashback is that this had confirmed to us that the flashbacks are definitely from past and from something that has already happened to him and left an impact on him i.e in due to this flashback we can see that he had clearly loved her and perhaps is still missing her. the lighting in this flashback is completely different to the previous one and the institute that he is in, because this flashback shows the happy times. We know because of both characters smiling and the lighting is a lot more brighter compare to the last one, which had seem very grey and horrible place.

The contrast between the wards ( ward A, ward B and ward C, which ward C had looked the worst one of them all and automatically, we know that all the problems are going to occur there, because that would be the perfect convention of a thriller. The ward C looks different because it looks duller and more scarier than the others. It is the least looked after ward of them all, which its self gives a sense of mysteriousness and leaves us wondering what kind of people are going to be there. The editing from one shot to another when we first got introduced to the different ward was very quick transitions when we flick between the ward A to a ward B, but it paused when it showed us ward C, which itself gives a sense of significance.

This is a wide shot of ward C.  This shot explains how secure these patients are, also emphasising on the damp, unwelcoming environment they are controlled in.

As they arrive, they get asked to get rid off any weapons that they might have, which are presented as our mis-en-scene; so the protagonist got rid of his guns. This shows that he is an inspector or CSI of some sort because he carries a gun and also it shows that whenever they are going, it is obviously going to be dangerous, if they feel the need to carry their guns on them.

When they were on their way inside of the ward, the protagonist was looking at some of the patients, and one, a woman has stood out quite dramatically; 



This woman has lack of hair on her head which leaves us to imagine that she has literally pulled her hair out, which shows that she is clearly mentally ill. Her face is very bony, eyes are dark and blood shot, leaving her very scary and dangerous looking, because this is an ill woman that clearly doesn't know what she is doing half the time, which leaves us to think why is she there and what made her to go that way. The fact that she has her finger on her mouth shows that she has perhaps hiding something or knows something that he doesn't. Also this is a point of view shot, so it intimidates us more because we are at the eye level with her, which is very scary. And also it is a close up of her, which adds a sense of claustrophobia, because we feel like she is too close and we can't escape quick enough, which is a good way of getting the audience involved.

The thunder and lighting foreshadows the fact that there is something bad about to happen, because we associate thunder with something scary, and is a typical convention of a thriller, as well as the music, which was very painful and made us feel very tensed and on edge, which makes the atmosphere very dramatic, when combined with the lighting and thunder.

In another of Marshall's flashback, all of a sudden, all the papers are falling onto a puddle of blood, onto the floor, which shows that some sort of violence has happened there, which reveals that Marshall was definitely in the war and has experienced some sort of brutality in there to only remember some bits (flashbacks) of the war.