Shutter Island

Martin Scorsese uses a variety of film techniques in his ever changing film Shutter Island, to reveal the truth about the protagonist Teddy Daniels. Dialog, symbolism, characterisation, music and setting help express the truth about Teddy’s investigation on the Island which is an intricate role playing experiment designed by Dr. Cawley and Dr. Sheehan. This helps reveal the truth and trauma regarding Teddy’s murder of his wife and children. The scenes that best help reveal the truth are the first scene on the boat, the first dream sequence and the Ward C scene where Teddy Talks with George Noyce.
Scorsese uses symbolism a lot throughout the film there are three main symbols and two of them are used in the first scene on the boat. The fog shows that there is a rather large secret to be revealed, fog/smoke and water are used in this very important scene. The fog symbolises that they are hiding behind the truth. Water is used a lot in the film because it is used to show reality and the truth. The water also triggers Teddy’s memories about his traumatic past. “It was the smoke that got her not the fire. That’s what important.” Scorsese uses smoke to show that there are secrets hiding beneath each character. The quote relates to this because we know that Dolores did not die by the fire. Teddy is hiding the truth about his wife and is playing this role play he has designed to help him forget the past. Point of view in this scene is very important because when teddy is coming out of the bathroom is shows teddy behind bars aboard the prisoner’s ship, this shows that teddy is in fact the prisoner and he is the 67th patient at Ashcliff.
In the first dream sequence is the most important scene because of the Dialog, music, costume and symbolism. These film techniques help reveal the truth and lies throughout Shutter Island. “I found a whole stack of these teddy. Jesus, are you ever sober anymore”, Dolores speech echo’s which shows this isn’t real. In this scene it