Summary
Setting plays a crucial role in many films and TV shows.Game of Throneswouldn’t be the same if they had just found some open land and forests out in Vermont or Colorado instead of the vast landscapes of Northern Europe. Nor wouldField of Dreamshave the same heart if it were just a ballpark in LA instead of the farming town of Dyersville, Iowa.
The same can be said for the filmShutter Island. Much of the plot relies on the characters being isolated on an island and unable to travel because of the weather. This could have very easily been shot by a harbor somewhere, with the camera manipulating viewers into thinking it was on an actual island. But thefilm’s director, Martin Scorsese, decided to make it as authentic as possible and film most of the movie on an actual island, and he didn’t have to travel very far to get there.
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What Is Shutter Island About?
Shutter Islandstars Leonardo DiCaprio andMark Ruffaloas the leading detectives, Teddy Daniels and Chuck Aule, in 1954 Boston. The detectives are called to Aschecliffe Hospital on Shutter Island, a mental institution for criminals located outside of Boston Harbor, to investigate a missing patient, Rachel Solando. But as soon as the detectives arrive at the island, things seem a bit odd.
Teddy (DiCaprio)begins experiencing vivid flashbacks of both his time as a war veteran and of his tragic past as a husband and father, but these flashbacks are coming to him in spurts and a sort of magical realism. He sees his late wife, Dolores, covered in blood and often surrounded by falling ash. As for his war memories, he constantly sees snow falling and frozen corpses.
It isn’t long before Teddy and Chuck become suspicious of more than just the disappearance of Rachel Solando. More specifically, Teddy especially, starts to question what sort of procedures the doctors are experimenting with their patients and if they could be considered inhumane. But as Teddy pushes more and more for the truth of not only the whereabouts of Rachel Solando, but of the insititution as a whole, he recognizes that the facilitators of Aschecliffe Hospital are keeping secrets from him. As he unravels the ambiguous truth, he is haunted by the question of his own sanity and whether it was a coincidence that he came to Shutter Island in the first place.
What Is Shutter Island Based On?
Shutter Islandis based on a novel, of the same title, written seven years prior to the film by the Boston author Dennis Lehane. Lehane is a highly successful novelist with additional books adapted to film includingMystic RiverandGone Baby Gone. His stories often take place in Boston or areas within New England.
Lehane had said that the setting for his novel was based on a trip he took as a child to Long Island in the Boston Harbor. He recalled a blizzard happening during his visit, which explains why he chose to make the weather a factor in the story. Oftentimes, writers will pull details from personal experiences in order to enhance the visuals and emotionality on a much deeper, more human level. It must be such an amazing feeling to have the experiences, make them part of a fictional story, and then see that story played out in live action, and then to compare all three to each other.
Where Was Shutter Island Filmed?
Obviously, Shutter Island is a fictional place, but it’s located in the Boston Harbor in the story. Fortunately, the film was shot on an island also located near the Boston Harbor, which is often not the case when filming a movie set in a specific location. The island the movie was filmed on is called Peddocks Island, an island just a ferry ride away from Boston in the Gulf of Maine, just south of Boston Harbor and the Boston Harbor Islands.
While the island setting was filmed on Peddocks Island, many other scenes were shot in surrounding areas in Massachusetts. For example, one of the more important landmarks of the story, the lighthouse, was located in Nahant, MA, a small landmass close to Salem that is connected to Massachusetts by a bridge. Just south of Boston, there’s a town called Dedham, and that’s where the many sequences of the hurricane was shot in the film. Lastly, Teddy’s war flashbacks were shot in Taunton, MA, which may be the furthest location away from Boston that was used as a filming location forShutter Island.
Finding these locations really made the film come alive, and alsoplayed an integral role in the plot of the story. The island is secluded, striking fear in the residents that there is no way back to civilization expect by water. The hurricane hindered both the traveling situation back to Boston, as well as eliminating external communication via a telephone. And the lighthouse is an essential landmark that helps in the revelation of the secrets being withheld from Teddy by the end of the film. The fact that main locations actually took place in Massachusetts makes for that much more of authenticity when watching the movie.
