Shutter Island (SPOILERS ONLY - If You Haven't Watched, Do Not Open)

Deleted 20801

Guest
Okay so this thread is pretty much going to be all spoilers, so if you haven't seen the film, do as the title says and close it down. If you still read below, the film will be ruined for you.




Now, was he sane, or insane? Amazing film, and I feel it's left very open. Reading around it seems more people believe he is insane, and a majority seem to scoff at the 'sane' argument, but I think there's just as much evidence to support either scenario.

I go with him being sane, because actions of others suit this theory more so then if he was insane. But every time I come to a definitive conclusion, I remember something else about the film that supports the other side.

Headfeck.
 
Well I thought the last line is what gave it away, 'live a monster or something something', meaning he had been cured of his insanity, but he didn't want to live, knowing what he'd done and what he's still capable of if he ever went insane again.

Not sure though, it's an absolutely stunning film.
 
"I'd rather die a good man than live a monster" - I think he was sane!

I have changed my opinion countless times though!

Excellent film, the scorcese dicaprio partnership is almost as good as scorcese and de niro
 
I haven't seen it, but he's sane at the end. He still acts insane so he'll be lobotomized and not have to live with what he's done.
 
mehro said:
Clearly insane. Crap movie.
Click to expand...

Okay, here's some sane arguments though,

-He lost his smokes on the ferry, he was being drugged from then.
-His encounter with the cave woman was completely different to his hallucinations and dreams, that was not a role play, and it was not an imagination, the detail and the conversation were exactly like every other scene that was not a dream/hallucination.
-The woman in the cafe writes run on his notepad, only when the doctor (fake marshall) she sees everyday goes to get her water.
-The hospital staff never want him to see records, if he was insane, where would the danger be in that, seen as he's on some massive role play anyway?
-When he speaks to the doctor who says he's worked too hard for Shutter Island to let it go so easily, he suddenly tries to discredit Teddy and make him look insane. Why would he bother doing that if he was carrying out a role play, it would freak his patient out at that point.
-No-one, hospital patients or doctors smoke ciggs or eat food when he does, this is probably because it's all drugged.
-The lighthouse at the end, not to mention the orderly carrying an ice pick. Why show those two things, clearly leading to a lobotomy in a lighthouse, when moments before they argue nothing could take place in an abandoned lighthouse.
-The tape player in the lighthouse, recording the conversation to prove Teddy's insanity, and the other doctor who tries to inject him with a syringe, what would be the point of that on a role play?
-Employing an ex-nazi military guy as a prison warden.
-Allowing him to speak to Noyce so they could record and discredit him at any point.

Other peoples views - Leo asks what happened to his partner and Dr Cawley says he never had one... Leo says something to the effect that "I know your going to try to make me look insane" and Dr Cawley says something to the effect of "I've put a lot of hard work into making shutter island what it is today. I'm not going to give it up without a fight." and Leo was like "yeah, I didn't have a partner..."

I mean, what is the purpose of that threat if Leo actually WAS insane?

cina said:
Well I thought the last line is what gave it away, 'live a monster or something something', meaning he had been cured of his insanity, but he didn't want to live, knowing what he'd done and what he's still capable of if he ever went insane again.

Not sure though, it's an absolutely stunning film.
Click to expand...

I took that two ways.

If he is Teddy, he is saying he would rather die as a good man, then live as lobotomy. He looks like he is going for the doctors ice pick, but we assume he does something afterward that will risk his life. This causes the fake Marshall to have a moment of distress and call him by his real name.

If he is Andrew, then he says it for the reason you said above.


After the film I immediately thought he was insane, but them more I thought about it, the more it makes sense he was tricked.
 
It's certainly not 'clearly' one way or another, it's left open enough to interpretation.

I thought it was excellent, completely different to what I was expecting, but very enjoyable all the same. Solid cast, great directing and it leaves you picking apart scenes to work it out.
 
Are we discussing whether he was insane/sane all through the film and tricked into believing a false reality? I never thought of it that way to be honest. Now that you mention it, it messes with my head a bit. I believed the official story in the end to be true.

Are we discussing if he was insane/sane in the final scene? In that case - sane.
 
Through the whole movie TC not the end scene, if you think back there's a lot of scenes that support him being sane throughout the movie, but being tricked at the very end like Noyce and Cave doctor suggest he would be.

If you believe the sane theory, then he was tricked from the very first minute, where we see him meet his partner for the first time on the boat, and he's lost his cigarettes. From that moment he is being drugged and set up and discredited. Either they thought they could make him believe he was crazy with enough drugs in him plus he was slightly unstable anyway, or they thought they could discredit him later as a broken Marshal who can't let go of the past and attempts to uncover a conspiracy that doesn't exist, i.e the conversation with the bald doctor when he says to him 'What partner'?

It's either he was always sane, and tricked into being insane through them either making him believe a false reality, or discrediting his sanity enough to keep him there (making up his partner etc)

Or he was insane the entire time and it was indeed a role play like the doctor suggests. Several key scenes stop this from being the definitive theory though, the doctors talk with Teddy about his partner and saying he has worked too long for Shutter Island, and the cave woman who was not a hallucination, the talk with Noyce which only really makes sense if he is Teddy, the lady writing 'Run' and the actual end scene showing the lighthouse which directly conflicts with the doctors story earlier about the lighthouse clearly not being a lobotomy facility.

They give him cigarettes, food, pills and false information - all things which Noyce and the Cave Doctor warn him of, a doctor attempts to sedate him with a needle which wouldn't make sense if it was a role play, they leave him alone in Ward C, let him attack guards and climb down cliffs which would be a strange thing to do considering he's a mental patient and at the end orderlies hold an ice pick which is what they used for the surgery, and finally he ends up at the lighthouse, which isn't exactly a normal facility for these procedures, which backs up the thought that he was lied to.

The end scene is very confusing. He's either coming to terms with his insanity and in a moment of sanity, he pretends to relapse so he can get the lobotomy.

Or he is sane, realizes he let himself get into this position (Noyce, Cave Doctor) and knowing he is checkmated, lets them proceed with it - the dying/monster bit is a parting shot at his partner and also a hint at him dying before letting them turn himself into a monster (getting the lobotomy).
 
Hectic said:
Okay so this thread is pretty much going to be all spoilers, so if you haven't seen the film, do as the title says and close it down. If you still read below, the film will be ruined for you.




Now, was he sane, or insane? Amazing film, and I feel it's left very open. Reading around it seems more people believe he is insane, and a majority seem to scoff at the 'sane' argument, but I think there's just as much evidence to support either scenario.

I go with him being sane, because actions of others suit this theory more so then if he was insane. But every time I come to a definitive conclusion, I remember something else about the film that supports the other side.

Headfeck.
Click to expand...


i reckon he was sane by the end and chose to die....

smashing movie
 
I see. I never thought much in that direction to be honest. I think they convinced me at the same time they convinced him. Need to give this another watch, I think. Really enjoyed the film although it had a very unpleasant feel to it.
 
Heardy said:
"I'd rather die a good man than live a monster" - I think he was sane!

I have changed my opinion countless times though!

Excellent film, the scorcese dicaprio partnership is almost as good as scorcese and de niro
Click to expand...

you shouldnt say that sort of stuff outloud. go watch mean streets or goodfellas again.

shutter island is a very tedious and obvious movie
 
Insane. Read the book and from what I gathered though it was not made clear, he was insane.
 
Haha this is the thing I thought he was sane, and no one else that I went to see the film with did. It could go either way, but I think he was sane.
 
Legend16 said:
you shouldnt say that sort of stuff outloud. go watch mean streets or goodfellas again.

shutter island is a very tedious and obvious movie
Click to expand...

I don't think it's that far off mate!!

De niro is a class above for now when you consider taxi driver, goodfellas raging bull, but working with scorcese has taken dicaprio from teen heart-throb to a very serious actor who is up with some of the best in the current crop!!

The departed for instance is fantastic, and shutter island is far from tedious!!
 
Great film, thing is you have some really convincing arguments to support him being Sane or Insane..

Might have to watch it again but initially I thought he was insane, after reading various comments including yours Hectic there is a lot of evidence to support him being sane. Now I am just confused :confused:
 
Heardy said:
I don't think it's that far off mate!!

De niro is a class above for now when you consider taxi driver, goodfellas raging bull, but working with scorcese has taken dicaprio from teen heart-throb to a very serious actor who is up with some of the best in the current crop!!

The departed for instance is fantastic, and shutter island is far from tedious!!
Click to expand...

well youre entitled to your opinion but it really is tedious and obvious from the first 5 minutes whats going on. its not a very well made film and scorcese for all his genius is struggling these days to make great movies. the departed is the stand out example though it has some really self indulgent stuff from nicholson in there. but scorceses place is secure for the titles you mention earlier. Di Caprio is proving a very decent actor. He has had some excellent performances. But nothing he has done has been in the same league as some of those de niro performances.

youre right di caprio is up there with the best of the current crop. very good in the departed and blood diamond amongst a few others but Jake La Motta, Travis Bickle, Jimmy Conway, Rupert Pupkin are all the work of one of the greatest ever
 
I thought he was sane at first, and then in the end I believed that he had been insane all the time.


But the part about him killing is wife, is that something he did as a cop? I mean if we say that he is sane, does he still have that luggage in him or do they convince him of a murder he never committed?
 
Legend16 said:
Jake La Motta, Travis Bickle, Jimmy Conway, Rupert Pupkin are all the work of one of the greatest ever
Click to expand...

You have me beat there!!

I've had the de niro v pacino debate with various mates, and whilst tony montana and michael corleone feature heavily in the debate, de niro is the runaway favourite for me!
 
Heardy said:
You have me beat there!!

I've had the de niro v pacino debate with various mates, and whilst tony montana and michael corleone feature heavily in the debate, de niro is the runaway favourite for me!
Click to expand...

De Niro in Raging Bull is the greatest performance I've ever seen I reckon
 
By the end of the film, I believed he was insane and he realised this, but chose his fantasy life in order to die as a good man and not live as a monster (sort of a sane choice to be insane).

However, Hectic has made good points for the contrary. feck the book, I'm judging by the film, and there's enough to at least discuss sanity. Especially the boat scene.

Actually feck it, I think he was insane all the way through (until realisation). Remember as soon as he got off the boat, he commented on how nervous the guards were, and how people he asked about Laeddis (sp?) looked nervous.
 
I thought the part when they revealed he was the 67th patient was extremely cliched and obvious but the ending got me thinking and guessing so I think it was a good movie.

I, for one, am sold with the insane argument and he believe he ultimately came to terms with his sanity and became sane yet he chose to act as if he regressed back to insanity in order "die" a good man knowing what he has done.

I am very intrigued with the points Hectic has constructed though. I don't buy it but it's very interesting and well thought out.
 
The book is a lot different to the film. If you read the book, it clearly paints the picture that he's insane (I think anyway). But there are a few things missed out in the film from the book, which intentionally or not create the opportunity for people to question whether he was sane or not.
 
Yeah, I'm going to go buy the book in the next couple of weeks. Sounds like a good read.
 
Clearly insane, and perhaps on a subconcious level happy to live in a state of paranoid delusion. I'd like to believe he does have that one fleeting moment of clarity at the end, where he has the chance to break free of the shackles, but instead chooses to slip back into the comforting arms of madness and denial, where the trauma of real life won't haunt him.

Excellent movie. (haven't read the book yet)
 
The movie was quite good. I'd give it a 7/10. And people giving bad reviews to this movie, are surely reality show lovers.

I accept that the last scene was a bit out of it though.
 
Why did Di Caprio keep getting his partner/psychologist's location wrong (Portland?) and why did his partner/psychologist keep correcting him (Seattle?). Surely if this was all in Di Caprio's mind he wouldn't need to be corrected?
 
The argument for Di Caprio's sanity does sound interesting at first, but where it falls off is when it comes to explaining the flashbacks imo. Without considering his obvious messed up past and the flashbacks he gets every now and then, I'd say the possible scenario of him being sane would hold up pretty well.

However, his flashbacks are clearly strong hints that he was acutally insane all along and thus I'm reluctant to believe otherwise however convincing the sane argument is.
 
The argument isn't that he was sane all along surely?..It's that the role play treatment cured him, but he chose to feign insanity at the end rather than live with the knowledge of what he'd done.
 
If you watch the special features on the dvd/blu ray the writer of the book makes it fairly clear that he was insane and the explanation given by Kingsley is how it happened.
 
Mockney said:
The argument isn't that he was sane all along surely?..It's that the role play treatment cured him, but he chose to feign insanity at the end rather than live with the knowledge of what he'd done.
Click to expand...

I saw the film last week and this was my take on the events.
 
Loved this film although I had an inkling about what was going on about 25 minutes in. I'll have to watch it again sometime. I think knowing what happens for definite will make me look at certain scenes differently and the observations made by the Hectic and others on here will give a few things to look out for.

Must admit, I was quite confused as to what to think at the end but that's what makes it great. You leave the film still trying to work it out and it stays with you for a few hours or even days afterwards. Too many films just leave you thinking, "WTF!?" but you can't actually be arsed thinking about it because the damn thing isn't even worth the effort.
 
sorry to bump this thread, but i like it and i want to say what i think about Hectic's question

I think, that in dicaprio's character case, being insane was an act of self defense, the history that his insanity created made his life bearable because knowing that your wife killed your kids and because of that you had to kill her was too much to bear

so when the doctors cured him, instead of helping him, they did the opposite, in his insanity he could live, in his sanity, he couldnt

that's why he pretends to have a regression, but to let us know it was a fake, the director (scorsese) had to give us a hint, wich consisted in that phrase

"better die a good man, than live as a monster"

the lobotomy was going to make him a good man
 
I haven't watched it for a while but I remember thinking their were two possibilities.

1) That he is sane throughout the film and they make him believe that he's insane.

2) That the doctors story is true and it was all a role play, but at the end he chooses to be lobotomized as he can't live with what he's done.

I know more people go for option 2 and my brother laughed at me when I suggested the first, but they're quite a few people who see it that way.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.