NEW YORK — For all involved in the new psychological thriller Shutter Island, the film was, first and foremost, a discovery.
“I didn’t quite know where we would be at any given time,” director Martin Scorsese said. “That doesn’t mean I knew it was going to be a process of discovery. I had an intimation of that.”
For a man who has become known for having an exact vision of how he frames his films—down to the detailed shot-lists he compiles the night before each production day—lending ambiguity to his process of storytelling denotes an artistic leap of faith, albeit an unexpected one.
“I sort of gave myself to the material along with the actors,” Scorsese said. “It was a process of discovery throughout.”
This unfolding parallels the narrative of the story, which follows Leonardo DiCaprio’s Detective Teddy Daniels as he arrives on Shutter Island to investigate the disappearance of one of the asylum’s criminally insane patients. Teddy’s uncertainty toward what to expect from the assignment mirrored a sentiment Scorsese and DiCaprio expressed as they embarked on their filmmaking journey.
“This process took us to places that there’s no way we could ever have foreseen,” DiCaprio said. “That was the real surprise for both of us making this movie.”
The noirish mystery, set in the McCarthy era, harkens back to older genres, most notably the great detective films of the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s.
“[The film] draws a lot on a very long memory of films I’ve seen, books I’ve read and music I’ve listened to over the years,” Scorsese said.
Scorsese honored those inspirations by screening Otto Preminger’s Laura, Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo and Jacques Tourneur’s Out of the Past for the cast and crew. The director also cited cinematographer Mario Bava and writer-producer Val Lewton as key influences.
The same anxiety and fear present in those films plagues Scorsese’s characters. For DiCaprio, unraveling Teddy led him to psychologically challenging depths.
“It got darker and darker and more emotionally intense than I think we ever expected,” DiCaprio said. “It was like reliving trauma.”
To prepare, DiCaprio researched the history of mental illness by watching many documentaries. Shooting in an abandoned Massachusetts institution and hiring a doctor who specialized in psychological illness therapy added to the set’s general atmosphere of insanity.
Although the island, accessible only by boat and home to a maximum-security prison for the more dangerous patients, is fictional, it’s grounded in inspiration. Dennis Lehane based his 2003 novel on a mental institution in the Boston harbor where his uncle worked. During a blizzard in 1978, Lehane visited the abandoned island—closed in the 1960s—where his uncle spooked the author and his brother.
“We were walking around the woods, truly thinking we saw people in straitjackets running past us,” he said. “That kind of stuck with me.”
Lehane, who also penned the novels-turned-films Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone, was influenced by “high-art gothic novels” and B-movies like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Although this disparate pairing of styles marked an intentional departure from his previous work, he retained his narrative approach.
“I’m a very internal novelist,” Lehane said. “My books are always about the character’s minds and being locked in there.”
Screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis, who harbors a similar love for the gothic, especially the novels of the Bronte sisters, found the externalizing of the novel demanding.
“[It was a challenge] to preserve that sense of discovery and horror and that sense of being trapped in these smaller and smaller and smaller boxes as the story goes on,” she said.
Kalogridis was not the first to attempt an adaptation of the novel. She expressed her gratitude toward Lehane for his ability to detach himself from the adaptation process.
“You do not find the sense of artistic generosity that you get with Dennis,” Kalogridis said. “And you certainly don’t get anything remotely resembling [his] level of trust.”
Once he finds talented artists to adapt his work, Lehane believes this confidence in his collaborators is key.
“I don’t get caught up in any of the specifics as long as the vision’s there,” Lehane said. “I’ve been really lucky at this point.”
Producer Mike Medavoy related a similar fortune in committing Scorsese and DiCaprio to the film, as the duo was the writers’ first choice.
Lehane and Medavoy also expressed wonderment at the incredible cast that came together, which includes Sir Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson, Jackie Earle Haley and renowned Swedish actor Max von Sydow. Scorsese put his cast’s immense fame and talent to the test.
“This was a brutalizing experience for them, for everybody,” Scorsese said. “But this is the way films are made.”
The demanding performances were worth their weight in pain.
“As an acting exercise, it’s absolutely thrilling,” Kingsley said. “The focus that we had to bring to each other echoed in life, echoed in art.”
Producer Brad Fischer added, “watching Marty work with actors generally is an amazing thing to behold.”
Despite the dark and complex material, Scorsese bound the group together with his trademark passion and care.
“Marty directs like a lover,” Kingsley said. “Everything is held together by affection for his craft, his actors, his crew, the material and affection for the great journey of cinema in our lives.”
Quite a journey indeed.
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