As I mentioned in my comments on Cape Fear, Scorsese must be a big fan of Alfred Hitchcock, because once again he pays homage to Hitchcock and his films in Shutter Island. He uses signatures of Hitchcock's filmmaking such as subjective POV shots, geography shots, and use of misdirection. Scorsese uses Shutter Island as an opportunity to recreate famous shots out of Hitchcock's entire filmography. During the shower scene in Psycho, there is a close-up shot looking directly up at the shower head that has its water spraying out at the camera lens. This shot is recreated as the first shot of Daniels taking a shower, right after Dr. Cawley tells him that he never had a partner. Daniels scaling down the cliff to get to the shoreline can be compared to the character Roger O. Thornhill scaling down Mount Rushmore in North by Northwest.The presence of the crowed of mouse on the cliff could be treated as a parody of Hitchcock's Bird. Vertigo is the by far the most influential of Hitchcock's films to Scorsese and Shutter Island. Both films are an exercise and exploration of the mind, displaying the difficulty for disturbed minds to distinguish fact from fiction and reality from illusion. Daniels running up the spiral staircase of both Ward C and the lighthouse are just like the scenes in Vertigo where the character Scottie Fergusson runs up the spiral staircase of a church tower. The waves crashing on the shoreline of Shutter Island are also reminiscent of a scene in Vertigo. Scorsese even had his cast and crew watch Vertigo to get a feel of how he wanted Shutter Island to look stylistically. The list of Hitchcock references go on,I have just mentioned the films I have personally seen.
On the other hand, Scorsese goes beyond simple emulation and uses his full filmmaking repertoire to have Shutter Island deviate from standard Hollywood fare. He employs his usual freeze frames and slow motion, but also subtly uses reverse motion. When Daniels has a vision of a blood covered Rachel with 3 dead children at her feet, there are cuts to close-ups of Daniels smoking. These shots are played in reverse so the smoke is actually going into the cigarette instead of coming from it. Reverse motion is used again in a flashback/vision when Dolores walks backward away from the lake. Scorsese also uses intentional continuity errors to show Daniels fractured mind. This is displayed in a scene where Daniels is interrogating a woman. She is handed a glass of water, but when she drinks it she is not actually holding a glass.She then puts down an empty glass on the table, but when she leaves the glass is now half full. These are just a work on the variants. The creative uses of sound, cinematography, and lighting employed by Scorsese in Shutter Island haven't been touched for now. A further research on this film will be developed later this week.
View more about Shutter Island reviews
