Word: films
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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Starring Scorsese regular Leonardo DiCaprio as the righteous but troubled federal marshal Teddy Daniels, the film is set in a hospital for the criminally insane off the coast of Massachusetts. A patient has recently escaped—“evaporated straight through the walls,” according to Dr. John Cawley, played by Ben Kingsley—and Daniels and a partner are sent to investigate. Of course, the story proves to be far more complicated and includes a number of subplots such as a revenge mission on behalf of DiCaprio’s murdered wife...
...that remains, then, is to mould these disparate elements around a central narrative. And this is where the film runs into trouble. The movie is based on Dennis Lehane’s novel which should have served as fertile ground for Scorsese to build a genre classic on, but instead “Shutter Island” stumbles into a forest of clichés. The first warning sign comes when the captain of DiCaprio’s ferry to the island requests that the marshals make their way ashore quickly. Asked why, he glances at the roiling grey...
...that remains, then, is that final twist, the one guaranteed component of any film of this genre. “Shutter Island” pulls it off convincingly, in a heart-wrenching though overlong series of revelations which will leave even the most prepared audience members reeling...
...reveals, and mind-bending twists aplenty. And from any other director, that might be enough to satisfy. But from Martin Scorsese, we have come to expect something more. We expect a coherent and thought-provoking message. We expect great ideas, new innovations, broken boundaries. We expect, in short, a film that is different, one that will stay with us well past the final fade-to-black. And it is this essential point where “Shutter Island” is found lacking. It is competent, but also vaguely utilitarian—fun while it lasts, but slight in lasting...
...summer of 2009, film student Alexandra E. Zimbler ’10 visited her grandmother in Saint-Malo, Brittany, to interview her for her documentary thesis film in Visual and Environmental Studies (VES). She had planned to make a film about her grandmother’s life in a nursing home, but found her main character in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. “She didn’t have her memory any more,” Zimbler said. “I went to her old apartment, looking for photographs, anything that would give...