Drama
Synopsis
A 1950s lawman (Leonardo DiCaprio) pursues a murderess who appears to have vanished from a locked room within a fortresslike psychiatric hospital.
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Max von Sydow, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson, Jackie Haley, Ted Levine, John Carroll Lynch, Elias Koteas
Producer(s): Phoenix, Appian Way, Sikelia
Crew: Director - Martin Scorsese, Screenwriter - Laeta Kalogridis, Producer - Mike Medavoy, Producer - Arnold Messer, Producer - Brad Fischer, Producer - Martin Scorsese, Executive Producer - Dennis Lehane, Executive Producer - Laeta Kalogridis, Executive Producer - Louis Phillips, Executive Producer - Chris Brigham, Executive Producer - Gianni Nunnari, Cinematographer - Robert Richardson, Production Design - Dante Ferretti, Film Editor - Thelma Schoonmaker, Costume Designer - Sandy Powell, Casting - Ellen Lewis, Casting - Meghan Rafferty, Music Supervisor - Robbie Robertson, Supervising Art Direction - Robert Guerra, Art Director - Christina Wilson, Art Director - Max Biscoe, Set Decoration - Francesca LoSchiavo
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Release Date: 02/19/2010
Running Time: 138 minutes
OFFICIAL SITE
Production Notes:
- Notes provided by Paramount Pictures -
``Between the idea And the realityBetween the motion And the act Falls the Shadow
- T.S. Eliot, ``The Hollow Men
From Oscar(R)-winning director Martin Scorsese, and based on the best-selling thriller by Dennis Lehane, comes Shutter Island, a tale of haunting mystery and psychological suspense that unfolds entirely on a fortress-like island housing a hospital for the criminally insane.
The year is 1954, at the height of the Cold War, when U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (three-time Academy Award(R) nominee Leonardo DiCaprio) and his new partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) are summoned to Shutter Island to investigate the implausible disappearance of a brilliant multiple murderess from a locked room within the impenetrable Ashecliffe Hospital. Surrounded by probing psychiatrists and dangerously psychopathic patients on the remote, windswept isle, they arrive into an eerie, volatile atmosphere that suggests nothing is quite what it seems.
With a hurricane bearing down on them, the investigation moves rapidly. Yet, as the storm escalates, the suspicions and mysteries multiply each more thrilling and terrifying than the next. There are hints and rumors of dark conspiracies, sordid medical experiments, repressive mind control, secret wards, perhaps even a hint of the supernatural, but elusive proof. Moving in the shadows of a hospital haunted by the terrible deeds of its slippery inhabitants and the unknown agendas of its equally ingenious doctors, Teddy begins to sense that the deeper he pursues the investigation the more he will be forced to confront some of
his most profound and devastating fears. And he realizes that he may never leave
the island alive.
Paramount Pictures Presents A Phoenix Pictures Production in Association with Sikelia Productions and Appian Way, A Martin Scorsese Picture, Shutter Island, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson and Max von Sydow. The film is directed by Martin Scorsese from a screenplay by Laeta Kalogridis based on the novel by Dennis Lehane. The producers are Mike Medavoy, Arnold W. Messer, Bradley J. Fischer and Martin Scorsese. The executive producers are Chris Brigham, Laeta Kalogridis, Dennis Lehane, Gianni Nunnari and Louis Phillips. The director of photography is Robert Richardson, ASC. The production designer is Dante Ferretti. The film is edited by Thelma Schoonmaker, A.C.E. The costume designer is Sandy Powell. The visual effects supervisor is Rob Legato. The co-producers are Joseph Reidy, Emma Tillinger and Amy Herman. The music supervisor is Robbie Robertson. This film has been rated R for disturbing violent content, language and some nudity.
Journey to Shutter Island: From Lehane to Scorsese
Shortly after completing his novel Mystic River, which would go on to
become an Academy Award(R)-winning film directed by Clint Eastwood, writer
Dennis Lehane radically shifted gears. Moving away from the gritty, blue-collar,
Boston settings for which he was best known, Lehane fashioned an intensely
atmospheric, terror-filled psychological shocker set at the height of 1950s Cold War
paranoia, and at the crossroads where the lines between sanity and madness, truth
and delusion begin to blur beyond recognition.
This was Shutter Island, which merged elements of Gothic mystery, pulp
fiction, conspiracy thrillers and turn-of the-screws, Edgar Allan Poe-style horror to
create a riveting and unsettling effect that took his readers by surprise. Unfolding
over just four searing days at the island-based Ashecliffe Hospital for the
Criminally Insane, in the midst of a raging Category 5 hurricane, the book
presented a most unusual criminal investigation, one that was completely cut off
from the outside world and in which the vise keeps tightening on the two lone
investigators, ultimately forcing U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels to come face-to-face
with a realm in which the human psyche has run dangerously amok, as well as
harrowing secrets, frightening memories and deeply buried truths.
The book hinged on the riddle of a murderess' inconceivable, mystifying
disappearance from the high-security facility, but within its labyrinth of eerie twists
and turns it touched on such topics as the lingering trauma of World War II, the 20th
century's potential for vast conspiracies, the debate over invasive psychiatric
treatments and, most of all, on the extraordinary power of the human psyche, in
spite of all scientific and legal efforts, to elude even the best efforts to bring it under
control.
Writing in The New York Times, Janet Maslin called the book ``startlingly original and ``instantly cinematic and it went on to become one of the best-sellers of 2003. Producer Bradley J. Fischer, a partner at Phoenix Pictures who was then producing David Fincher's thriller about a real-life serial murderer, Zodiac, picked the book off an airport kiosk and found himself so transported by its anxiety-soaked atmosphere and web of contemporary themes, he immediately wanted to bring it to the screen.
``I'd been a big fan of Dennis Lehane, yet I wasn't prepared for this novel, recalls Fischer. ``It's a thriller and a Gothic mystery, but there is also much more to it because it has so much depth and deals with serious moral issues. The dense, atmospheric plot features a series of twists and turns that leaves you reeling and is quite mind-blowing.
As soon as he could acquire the rights, Fischer jumped into action, along with company head Mike Medavoy. Also coming on board as a producer was Phoenix Pictures executive Arnold W. Messer.
Fischer approached Laeta Kalogridis, a screenwriter known for her strong affinity to suspense, adventure and depth of character. Having previously worked with Kalogridis on the Viking-era action thriller Pathfinder, the producers at Phoenix knew she had the creative potential to realize this challenging material. ``We felt Laeta would be able to take Dennis Lehane's brilliant words and make them come to life in a truly cinematic way, says Fischer.
Kalogridis, who is also one of the executive producers on Shutter Island (along with Chris Brigham, Lehane, Gianni Nunnari and Louis Phillips), was thrilled by the challenge of working with the richly woven fabric of Lehane's story, which sinuously weaves its way through flashbacks, hallucinations and fantasies, playing with chronological time and the elusive nature of moment-to-moment reality. She immersed herself in the project, exploring the broad range of unsettling topics that Lehane raises, from the horror-filled past of insane asylums, to the dark science behind prefrontal-lobe lobotomies, to such historical terrors as Nazi concentration camps and Cold War-era mind control experiments.
``Laeta was as stunned as I was by the story, comments Fischer. ``She saw that the narrative has all these different threads and layers that needed to be balanced - not an easy adaptation - but she carefully explored different directions for the characters and ways to bring in the flashbacks. We soon had a screenplay that Mike Medavoy and I were very happy with.
Even more so than Lehane's novel, which the author has said was inspired in part by his love of B movies, the screenplay brought to mind a pantheon of classic Hollywood movies, including Otto Preminger's identity-shifting mystery Laura and Sam Fuller's mental asylum exposé Shock Corridor. It was clear that doing it justice would require a director of particularly deep cinematic knowledge and an abiding love of psychological interplay.
The first name that came to Fischer's mind was Academy Award(R)-winning director Martin Scorsese. It was on a wing and a prayer that the Phoenix executives approached the prolific, almost-always engaged director because they assumed that, fresh off his Best Director Oscar(R) win for the electrifying crime thriller The Departed, he would be a long shot.
But their timing couldn't have been better. Scorsese was not only available but passionate about the style and themes of Shutter Island. When Phoenix sent him the script, he was in the thick of narrating the documentary Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows, a documentary about the distinctive creative force behind such hugely influential and wondrously ominous 1940s RKO horror films as Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie. Scorsese was in the mood for a modern take on existentially-complicated terror. ``Marty was attracted to the idea of taking on a Gothic horror tale that's shrouded in shadow and mystery, Fischer explains. ``He jumped on the idea and his excitement was enormous from the get-go. When I got the call from Marty's agent saying he wanted to direct Shutter Island, he told me, 'Marty says it reminds him of this old German movie called....called...' While he tried to recall the title, I happened to be staring across my office at a framed poster of the very film, one of my favorites, a classic silent from the Expressionist era of German cinema. 'He said it reminded him of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,' I suggested. 'Yes,' the agent shouted. 'That's it!'
Fischer continues: ``Learning that the script evoked for Marty thoughts of the same old Weimar-period horror film that it did for me was overwhelming. Yet, I wasn't surprised. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a film that always bore some similarities in my mind to Shutter Island. It's a film that Marty admires and one of many he would reference throughout shooting. From this point, things started moving very quickly. The things Marty saw in the story and all the levels he found in the material made the project so much richer than any of us had ever imagined.
Scorsese says it was his first read of the Shutter Island script that hooked him. ``I didn't know anything about the story and I started reading it at about 10:30 at night and I needed to go to bed because I had to get up early the next day, but I found I could not put the script down and was constantly surprised by the different levels of the story, he recalls.
He felt an instant link to the story's mix of classic thriller genres, from shadowy noir to boldface horror. ``This is the type of picture I like to watch, the kind of story I like to read, Scorsese explains. ``Over the years, I think I've stayed away from certain kinds of pictures that emulate the style that I find nurturing in a way, but these are the kinds of films I go back to and view repeatedly. I've always been drawn to this sort of story. What's interesting to me is how the story keeps changing, and the reality of what's happening keeps changing, and how up until the very final scene, it's all about how the truth is perceived.
He continues: ``But more than the way the story is told or the setting, for me, it's really about what happens to the character of Teddy, which I found to be very moving. That was the emotional connection.
Scorsese's approach utilized the noir-like surfaces of Kalogridis' adaptation to get at the deeper micro-dynamics and psychological machinations of the characters, fusing richly cinematic visuals with underlying emotions to lure the audience out on a thrillingly fragile edge along with Teddy Daniels. Right from the start of production, the director inspired cast and crew with a series of nighttime screenings of films, both legendary and obscure, that touched upon the themes and styles woven through Shutter Island.
Among Scorsese's choices were Preminger's Laura; Jacques Tourneur's 1947 dark noir tale of double-crosses, Out of the Past; Edward Dmytryk's 1947 thriller Crossfire, about the murder of a Jewish soldier after WWII; Nicholas Ray's 1952 police drama On Dangerous Ground; Karl Malden's 1957 directorial debut, Time Limit, an intensely psychological courtroom drama about an American soldier facing a court martial; Orson Welles' 1963 The Trial, the screen adaptation of Franz Kafka's surreal tale of a man inexplicably detained for an unknown crime; John Huston's wartime documentaries San Pietro and Let There Be Light, the latter about returning soldiers suffering from what was then dubbed ``shell shock; influential horror films including Robert Wise's The Haunting and Jack Clayton's The Innocents; and several of the Val Lewton films so essential to Scorsese's appreciation of the horror thriller genre, including the shadowy The Seventh Victim, about a woman searching for her missing sister amidst a Satanic cult.
An essential documentary was also included in the lineup: Frederick Wiseman's controversial and, at one time, banned 1967 movie exploring the treatment of inmates at a hospital for the criminally insane called Titicut Follies, which gave the cast and crew a harrowing insight into what asylums were really like in the '50s and '60s, before modern reforms improved conditions and made patients' rights a priority. Set inside the Massachusetts Correctional Institute for the Criminally Insane at Bridgewater, the film unflinchingly depicted a treatment facility in which patients were stripped naked, chained to their cell walls, force-fed and deprived of basic human dignity. The film would have a major impact. Soon after its release, public outrage was so widespread that a class-action suit was brought against Bridgewater, which in turn led to permanent changes in the way state institutions were run across the country.
``Watching Titicut Follies allowed the cast and crew to see firsthand the kind of world the film would be portraying, notes Fischer. ``It was a very powerful experience for all of us.
Exposing Shutter Island: The Characters
At the heart of Shutter Island's suspense and mounting fear is the shattering experience of Teddy Daniels, the hard-bitten war veteran and savvy U.S. Marshal who arrives at the island hospital to investigate the disappearance of a killer, only to slide deeper and deeper into an abyss of dizzying riddles, haunted memories and unrelenting fear. As his investigation runs into one obstacle after another, Teddy has reason to believe he is being manipulated, watched, perhaps drugged, and pushed to the dark, indistinct edges of his own sanity. Perhaps he is being warned away from getting at the larger truth of Shutter Island, or drawn into a horrific experiment, but there is clearly a hidden agenda tying Teddy to this impenetrable place.
To play a character so tightly wound, yet about to unravel in just a few days' time, the filmmakers had one actor in mind from the start: three-time Academy Award(R) nominee Leonardo DiCaprio, who has grown up on the screen to become one of today's most distinctive leading men. ``When we approached Marty we instantly began thinking about Leo as well, first because he was so right for the part, but also because of his incredibly successful collaboration with Scorsese, Fischer says.
Scorsese wholeheartedly backed the choice. ``Having worked with Leo on Gangs of New York, The Aviator and The Departed, I thought immediately that he should do this, he says. ``We have a way of working together now and I had faith and trust in him as an artist to achieve the many psychological and emotional states that Teddy has to reach, and to transform throughout. Have I seen him do this before? Not to this level, I think. As he gets older, he goes deeper and deeper.
DiCaprio was convinced as soon as he read the script. ``A lot of things about this character appealed to me, he explains. ``Teddy comes to Shutter Island devoted to solving a mystery and to uncover what is really going on, but he has his own innermost agenda and secrets. He's in a situation where there's a lot more to his journey than there at first appears to be. One of the great things about the story is that it's constantly jarring you. It works on so many different levels; it's like a giant layer cake.
He continues: ``I fell in love with the complexity of Teddy, with his search for the truth, which triggers something in him, and also triggered something in me. I was profoundly moved at the end.
He was also drawn to reuniting with Scorsese. ``The one thing I don't think people understand about Scorsese is how much he believes in the actors he hires and how much he depends on them doing their homework before they show up on the set, DiCaprio comments. ``He's a master filmmaker and he knows how to navigate the human mind and portray things about the human condition, but he lets the actors really dictate what he puts up on the screen.
Once he took on the role, DiCaprio was inspired to undertake his own personal research. He delved into the specialized training of a real 1950s U.S. Marshal, explored the experiences of World War II vets and learned about the psychiatric techniques used in mental institutions during the period. He also read and re-read Lehane's novel. ``When you have someone like Dennis Lehane, who creates such rich characters, it gives you a lot of ammunition and reference points, he says.
The core of his preparation, though, was a series of long, explorative talks with Scorsese. ``Marty loves to discuss everything at great length, notes DiCaprio, ``which helps you become even more specific about who your character is and more believable on the screen. We would discuss the scenes almost like forensic detectives, going through the details with a fine-tooth comb, and that's one of the most interesting, challenging, scary and fun parts of making his movies because, by the time you're on set, you're really committed to something.
In the case of this particular character, those conversations were particularly important. ``With Teddy, there were certain fine lines we couldn't cross and that was very challenging, DiCaprio explains. ``I really needed Scorsese's guidance on how far things could be pushed. There are a lot of extra subtleties you might notice on a second viewing.
Further inspiring DiCaprio was the cast that surrounded him. ``There are some remarkable performances, so rich in character detail that they just come alive, he says. ``The casting was tremendous and you believe these people you meet on Shutter Island are all real and tangible.
DiCaprio was especially excited to work with Mark Ruffalo, who plays Chuck Aule, Teddy's new partner who will also be swept up in the mysteries and conspiracies on the rocky isle. ``Mark is an actor I've wanted to work with for a long time. He's given so many fantastic, ultra-realistic performances, he says. ``His character, Chuck, has an interesting relationship with Teddy. They are starting to build trust, but are suspicious about each other's intentions. Mark really brought something to this film that needed to be there and grounded my character in a profound way.
Ruffalo has emerged as one of today's most diverse and intriguing leading men, with roles in such films as Kenneth Lonergan's You Can Count on Me, Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Michael Mann's Collateral. Says Scorsese: ``I have wanted to work with Mark since I saw him in You Can Count on Me, which I executive-produced. What you have with Mark is a strong emotional connection. He is believable on every level while playing a multi-faceted character.
Ruffalo was drawn by the lure of working with Scorsese and DiCaprio, but it was the screenplay's unforeseen wallop that really got to him. ``At first, you think it's just an interesting noir detective story but, as you go along, all these surprise events and layers emerge, along with rollercoaster twists and the script turns out to be so many other things you weren't expecting, he says. ``Things keep getting stranger and stranger and it slams you into another world. The more I read, the more I felt that playing Chuck, who has much more going on than we initially see, would be an extraordinary challenge.
That challenge weighed on Ruffalo as he began preparing for the shoot. ``There was a problem I had to solve with the part, which was how to walk the fine line of this character, he explains. ``It appears that Chuck is there to protect Teddy but, deep inside, he's also pushing him towards a reckoning. There was an interesting tightrope act involved. One of the keys, says Ruffalo, was making sure that his performance would stand up on a second viewing of the film, even after all the story's carefully built skeleton of secrets has been exposed. ``I think on second viewing, there are little clues to what's really going on, without raising any red flags, says Ruffalo. ``It's all in how I'm listening and responding to certain things, how I'm looking at Leo.
Working with a DiCaprio was a wish fulfilled for Ruffalo. ``I've been a fan of his for such a long time, he notes, ``and have watched him grow into this great leading man. I didn't know what to expect, but what I found is that he is one of the hardest working, most dedicated of actors. He works non-stop, constantly running lines and talking about the characters. It's never enough for him and, at the same time, he's very generous and giving to the other actors. I found him really impressive.
Ruffalo was further inspired by Scorsese's enthusiasm. ``This film was like a playground for Scorsese's virtuoso filmmaking, muses Ruffalo. ``It's full of fantasy sequences, flashbacks, period elegance, altered states, film noir and the supernatural, as well as a great character drama. He gets to do everything he's always loved about film. He continues: ``One of the wonderful things about working with Marty is that he truly does love actors, and he loves to create a work environment with a big playing space where you can take things in many different directions. It was a very collaborative process. We all sat down and talked about the characters. We also talked about mythology, history and, most of all, about films, using the classics for character insight and a sense of the noir style. There's a lot going on in every frame on every level, and I think that makes for a very satisfying movie experience.
Also joining in the experience was Academy Award(R) winner Ben Kingsley, who takes on the role of the brilliant Dr. Cawley, who psychoanalyzes Teddy and Chuck's every move even as he engages them to find his dangerous, missing patient. Scorsese had long hoped to work with Kingsley and was thrilled the role suited him so well. ``Ben was a natural for me because of his focus, concentration and compassion. That is what's so important about the character of Dr. Cawley - his level of dedication and his ability to find something human in his violent patients, says the director.
Kingsley was pulled in by the story and especially to his character's underlying, secret mission. ``This story is like an archeological dig where you keep finding layers under layers, he says. ``I like that and I like Dr. Cawley because there is some extraordinary stuff buried inside this character that comes to the fore. He has an interesting perspective on his profession at a period when there was a battle raging between the old therapies and the new drugs and surgical approaches like lobotomies.
In taking on the role, Kingsley brought his own vision of what Dr. Cawley would look like to the set. ``It comes from my Shakespeare days that I love to grasp the whole picture, he says. ``So I chose his green suit and his pipe, as well as his shoes, which are wonderful Oxford brogues that link him to the earth. I think of him as a man with his feet on the ground, but his head in the heights of science.
He especially enjoyed the interplay with the rest of the extraordinary cast. ``Leo is at the Hamlet stage of his life and this role gives him a tremendous opportunity to show his depth. Mark Ruffalo just radiates affection and loyalty; Michelle Williams has a stirring, beautiful vulnerability; Emily Mortimer is exquisite, like a bird beating its wings against a window; Patricia Clarkson has such stillness and intelligence and Max von Sydow, with his towering authority, is magnificent, he summarizes. ``Marty has placed them all like a painter, putting one color next to another for great effect. What a thrilling project to be involved with.
Taking on the key role of Teddy's wife Dolores is Academy Award(R) nominee Michelle Williams (Brokeback Mountain). Williams did not hesitate to jump into the unusual character. ``It's a really challenging role, which always appeals to me, she says. She admits the part got under her skin more than she anticipated. ``Playing Dolores was a lot to go through, she continues. ``It's like being in a nightmare you can't wake up from and it keeps changing and getting darker and darker as you go with the current.
To get deeper into the psychology and truth behind Dolores, Williams did a lot of reading on abnormal psychiatry, watched documentaries and talked to several doctors. ``I also talked a lot to Marty, she explains, ``because one of the most important things is to build that trust in order to go to these places together.
The period also intrigued Williams. ``It was a time in the 1950s when people felt they didn't know what was going to come next. Dolores was caught up in paranoia about war, about being spied on, about not being safe, she notes. ``I had to find compassion for what she was going through.
On camera, what Williams went through was often a drenching affair, flooded with dream-induced deluges. ``I spent the two months making this move soaking wet, she laughs. ``There were even water rigs in my hair and dress! But it's all part of Marty's storytelling, and it was so exciting to be part of that.
Says DiCaprio of Williams: ``Michelle rooted the entire film emotionally with a really engaging, intense performance that goes to the heart of who this couple is.
Dolores isn't the only woman who haunts Teddy Daniels during his journey to Ashecliffe hospital. There is also Rachel Solando, the perilously disturbed murderess whose inexplicable escape brings him to the island in the first place. Rachel appears in two incarnations, played both by Academy Award(R) nominee Patricia Clarkson (Pieces of April) and rising star Emily Mortimer (Match Point.)
Says Scorsese of Clarkson: ``Her scene with Leo in the cave is one of my favorites in the picture. She is like the Oracle of Delphi. It's this ritualistic encounter almost like an old myth. Yet, Patricia plays this character straightforwardly. There are no tricks in there. She just has got such range as an actor.
Clarkson was deeply intrigued by her character's role in the grand structure of the story. ``She's another twist and turn within the film who operates on several levels, she notes. ``When you hit my character, you think she might be the one who will provide the truth, some solace, the endpoint of the journey, but then you find out that there are many more twists to come. That's what's so beautiful about the writing in both the novel and the screenplay.
Another high point for Clarkson was working with DiCaprio. ``He makes a total transformation in this character, yet it's very subtle, fine and beautiful. I loved working with him because he gives 2,000 on every take, she says.
For Emily Mortimer, her role too was irresistible. ``Rachel is a fantastic, daunting role because you never see her sane in the movie, she comments. ``It was also exciting to enter this daring, Gothic, 1950s world Marty conjured up, to journey back into the style of the movies made back then. What I love most about the movie is that it poses a question we all ask ourselves sometimes: Am I mad or is the world around me mad? It jars your sense of what's real and what isn't, and Marty worked that perfectly.
Scorsese was equally enamored of Mortimer's performance. ``The way she plays Rachel is very moving. I found myself believing her and her reversal in the role makes it really chilling.
Perhaps the greatest challenge for Mortimer was simply acknowledging that she was part of such an illustrious ensemble. ``I was so proud to be a part of this cast, but it was also difficult because here I was having to go mad in front of people like Leonardo DiCaprio, Sir Ben Kingsley and Mark Ruffalo, but they were all extremely encouraging and supportive. Leo is an especially generous actor. He made me feel so at ease, she says. ``Our characters have an interesting dynamic because there is this constant contrast between what you see on the screen and what's really going on in the crevices of their minds.
DiCaprio also enjoyed that dynamic. ``Emily delivered unbelievably and her character really pushes Teddy's buttons, he says.
Another high-impact supporting role is that of Shutter Island inmate George Noyce. A mysterious face from Teddy's past, Noyce is played by Jackie Earle Haley (Little Children), another actor Scorsese had wanted to seek out. ``I thought he was remarkable in Little Children and he was quite interesting to work with, comments the director. ``He handled the dialogue with Teddy in fascinating ways. He shakes Teddy up and it's one of the highlights of the picture.
Says Haley, who endured intensive makeup to portray the battered Noyce: ``It's such a cool, pivotal scene that George has with Teddy and I can't tell you what a thrill it was to work so close to Leo while Marty was giving directions. It was a dream come true. In between takes, Marty would come up and tweak and shift and change us and continually make it better.
Rounding out the highly accomplished group of actors in the film's ensemble is the legendary Max von Sydow (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), who plays Dr. Naehring, one of Ashecliffe's more ominous and threatening figures. Notes Scorsese: ``Max von Sydow is a giant of cinema. I think I first saw him in Bergman's The Seventh Seal and his range and experience over the last 50 years has been a part of film history itself. The depth of his control is fascinating to watch. He had the intelligence and confidence to handle the nature of this man who is an ex-Nazi. He also represents the other side of the psychiatric profession. Dr. Naehring is not a villain, but someone who really believes in what he's doing.
Behind Shutter Island: The Strange, True History of Mental Institutions
Shutter Island takes place in a shocking, macabre world that has been largely unseen on the movie screen: that of the 1950s psychiatric institution, in an era when treatment for those at the farthest and most violent reaches of madness was about to undergo a major revolution. As the dark days of ``warehouse-style asylums gave way to a new era of powerful brain surgeries and neurological drugs, it was a time when some patients were lost in a Kafkaesque system while others were part of cutting-edge experiments that forged many of our contemporary theories about criminal insanity. In the midst of Shutter Island's tangled mystery, Martin Scorsese provides a transporting glimpse into this darkly compelling world that was long hidden from view.
Asylums for the insane date all the way back to the Middle Ages but, even before then, societies agonized over what to do with those too mad to function safely in the outside world. Some have even posited that the term ``ship of fools referred to roaming vessels that carried the insane offshore as an early form of institution.
European asylums of the 16th and 17th Centuries were the progenitors of asylums in the U.S. They were
