Shutter Island: the most anticipated film of 2009?

Martin Scorsese returns to the central themes of his long and celebrated directorial career with the fall release of Shutter Island, starring Leonardo DiCaprio in his fourth collaboration with the master filmmaker. Madness, murder, revenge and redemption permeate this new project, adapted from Dennis Lehane’s best-selling 2004 novel.

Briefly, Shutter Island follows the investigations of U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels and his new partner Chuck Aule as they search for a missing patient at Ashecliffe, a hospital for the criminally insane built on the eponymous island from the remnants of a Civil War hospital. The setting is pure gothic horror, while the psychiatrists who care for the deeply disturbed patients depend on the relatively primitive methods available to them in 1954 – a decade before psychotropic drugs were widely used to treat mental illness. Half a century ago, surgery (think: frontal lobotomy) was the primary method of managing the maniacally deranged.

Daniels is dispatched to investigate the disappearance of Rachel Solando, a savagely violent patient who had murdered her three children and presumably is hiding somewhere on the island, which is too far from the mainland for anyone to attempt an escape by swimming. The mystery deepens as a hurricane bears down on the desolate island, blocking the ferry from returning to evacuate patients, staff and the federal marshals. Meanwhile, Daniels begins to suspect that the hospital physicians are involved with sinister experiments -- and it seems the U.S. marshal may have his own agenda.

Principal photography wrapped in June 2008, but the notoriously meticulous Scorsese typically takes a year to fine-tune his films with editor Thelma Schoonmaker. The film is set for U.S. release on Oct. 2.

What a cast: DiCaprio stars as Teddy Daniels, with Mark Ruffalo as Teddy’s partner, Ben Kingsley and Max von Sydow as the hospital's chief physicians, and the tremendous character actor Ted Levine (who played Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs), in a supporting role as warden of the mental hospital.

It’s easy to see why Scorsese would be attracted to this noir tale of madness, vengeance and the quest for redemption. These are the recurring themes in his greatest films, from The Departed, Gangs of New York, Casino, and Cape Fear, through Goodfellas, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver and Mean Streets – all revolve around the unholy trinity that has preoccupied Scorsese since his earliest days as a filmmaker.

I devoured Lehane’s gripping novel in a matter of hours, instantly playing the cinematic possibilities in my mind’s eye. On the downside, the plot twist may not be much of a surprise; I saw it coming about 100 pages before Lehane probably intended for readers to discover his narrative destination. And so, the delicate structure of Shutter Island, the novel, will only be compounded in Shutter Island, the film. What plays well on the printed page, that subtle interplay of words to evoke a mood, to suggest and imply without actually revealing anything, must be shown in a celluloid adaptation. Consider Hitchcock's classic horror film, Psycho. Here is a picture infinitely superior to the source novel by Robert Bloch in its evocation of madness and homicidal rage, with a climactic twist that positively floored audiences in 1960.

Can the same be done with Shutter Island?

Scorsese has given himself a massive challenge in tackling this material. If he succeeds, audiences can look forward to the most startling surprise ending since Haley Joel Osment saw dead people a decade ago in The Sixth Sense. If not, the entire film will collapse on a tricky plot device as old as film itself.

If you want to savor the surprise, I implore you not to read the novel before the film is released or continue any further with this blog post.

Still with me? Onward, then:

Those who have already torn through Lehane’s compulsively readable book will no doubt wonder how Scorsese will be able to reflect the inner turmoil of the mind in cinematic terms. To that, I can only suggest another viewing of Taxi Driver (1976), which more than any film I have seen succeeds in conveying a man’s state of mind with minimal dialog or the hoary old trick of introducing a psychiatrist (as with Psycho) to explain everything and wrap the picture in a tidy little package.

The more I mull the Shutter Island plot in my mind (I keep thinking of a blend between The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), the more difficult it becomes to contain my anticipation. What's not to like? Gothic horror, psychological terror, a creaky old mental hospital stocked with homicidal maniacs and enough foul weather to plunge the bravest souls into mortal despair.

October 2nd can’t get here soon enough.

If Scorsese preserves the plot twist right up to the climactic reveal, then everything else that makes Shutter Island so satisfying will fall seamlessly into place. The result will be a blockbuster stamped with the artistic imprimatur of a true auteur. And another Academy Award could be forthcoming for this greatest of living directors.

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