Shuttering, Quivering, Psychological Horror: Shutter Island Soars

Film Reviewed: Shutter Island

Director: Martin Scorsese

Date Watched: 20 June 2021

jamesintexas rating: ***1/2

Netflix

Genuinely terrifying, full of scenes that linger with incredible performances, I'm a big fan of this Scorsese tone poem of a film. DiCaprio is eminently watchable as a US Marshal in search of a missing patient on a Civil War fort off the coast of Massachusetts. Highlights include Patricia Clarkson, Ben Kingsley, Ted Levine, and Max Von Sydow in delicious supporting performances. The ending is devastating, and the nightmare sequences are truly horrifying. I'm a huge fan.

Silence is Golden

Movie Reviewed: Silence

Director: Martin Scorsese

Date: 20 July 2017

jamesintexas rating: ****



Silence is a four star film, a masterpiece of storytelling and thought, marrying some breathtakingly beautiful imagery with complex themes and characters. In 17th Century Japan, a horrific opening scene depicts brutal torturing of Catholic Portuguese missionaries as witnessed by Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson). Ferreira disappears and is thought to have turned against the faith, but in this era, communication is scant. Rumors of rumors, whisps of letters exist of Ferreira's possible apostasy. In a nod to Joseph Conrad, two young fathers Garupe (Adam Driver) and Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) embark on a mission to enter the country and locate their mentor, to find of what happened to him, and to try to save his soul in the heart of darkness, as it were.

Catholicism was banned in Japan at this time. Garupe and Rodrigues's infiltration of the country involves a drunken, troubled Japanese fisherman Kichijiro (Yosuke Kubozuka) with a dark past, sects of hidden underground Christians in desperate need of ministering, and hiding during the daylight to avoid detection. The subterfuge takes a mental toll on them as they find themselves prisoners within their hiding spots, unable to enjoy the simplest pleasures. As they travel further and further inland, they put more and more Christians at risk who shelter them, feed them, and bring their babies to be baptized by them in the hopes of reaching Paradise. The two men face a crossroads and decide to separate, and the crux of the film is how each man faces his crucible in the face of astonishing adversity.

I was really stunned by this film. What happens to both characters is astonishing and heart-breaking, as well as the performances by Driver and especially Garfield are intensely memorable. Long-haired, gaunt, and hollowed-out, both are miles away from their pop culture roles as Kylo Ren and Spider-Man. They represent different aspects of faith and are punished by their chosen ways to adhere to that faith. Garfield, in particular, does some incredible wordless communicating of his character's pain and guilt in many scenes. A Japanese interlocutor Inquisitor Inoue (Issey Ogata, truly remarkable) offers a departure from Scorsese's usual hyper-kinetic bad guys like Tommy (Joe Pesci) in Goodfellas or Bill the Butcher (Daniel Day-Lewis) in Gangs of New York, also penned by Kenyon College alum Jay Cocks. Deceptively introduced and slow-moving, Inquisitor Inoue carefully and deliberately stamps out the flames of Christianity as they pop up across Japan, swiftly setting moral dilemmas with vast consequences. Physically, he is no opponent, but he wields power through others. Inquisitor Inoue is more like the Warden in Shutter Island (Ted Levine) who offers this nihilistic wisdom to Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio): "There's no moral order as pure as this storm. There's no moral order at all. There's just this: can my violence conquer yours?"

Here, the statement that lingers far after the movie finishes has to do with the role of the missionary work itself: Inquisitor Inoue announces, upon heinous torturing of innocents, "The price of your glory is their suffering!" recasting missionary work as hubristic selfishness and forcing powerful questions upon the work itself and the individual. To relieve suffering is Christ-like; to sacrifice yourself, the same. How can a person stand resolute in the face of such suffering? When is refusing to break itself an act of pride? A character asks another "Do you have the right to make them suffer?"

The film takes on strange, unexpected turns, bringing in a very novelistic narrator of a Dutch sailor Dieter Albrecht observing the later events, reminding me a bit of Cloud Atlas. I found its ending to be profoundly spiritual and complex, offering readings of what faith, self-denial, and atonement can truly be. The notion of praying to silence, of hearing silence, of hearing the voice of Christ within or despite that silence is something that Scorsese has wrestled with in many of his films. His attention to the cloudiness and mistiness, the blurry divisions between land and water, the cavernous tunnels and rocky shores, and the persistent fog all seem Malickian at times in its stillness and thematically linked to deception and the unseen. There are images in Silence that I will never forget because of their horror and elemental brutality involving the sea and fire, shocking because of their rawness. With Silence (on the heels of The Wolf of Wall Street) Martin Scorsese continues to prove that he is as vital a filmmaker at age 75 as he was at any age. Silence should stand as a great cinematic spiritual exploration alongside Last Temptation of Christ and The Tree of Life. A film about 17th Century Japan has quite a bit to tell us about 21st Century America as well in its own oblique way with our nation's involvement in the complex, and some would say necessary, suffering of so many throughout the world. Scorsese leaves haunting questions behind. Is the price of our glory their suffering? And, do we have the right to make others suffer?

Wolfishly Devilish: Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street.

Movie Review: The Wolf of Wall Street

Director: Martin Scorsese

Reviewed: 26 April 2014

jamesintexas rating-- ***1/2

An aerial shot from a camera that must be mounted on a helicopter swoops over the ocean about ninety minutes into the film flying towards a glorious yacht with about one hundred people dancing and swaying in unison like a choreographed musical number. The camera zooms in closer, and we see Leonardo DiCaprio as our protagonist, leading this improbable circus parade of mayhem over the strains of "Insane in the Membrane."  It is one of several breathtaking moments that occurs when Martin Scorsese returns to form, tying back the world of Goodfellas, Casino, and even The Departed as he chronicles the rise and fall of stock broker Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street, an ambitious and dazzling film that features top acting, incredible editing, and a relevance to modern day headlines.  Jordan at one point helpfully tells us that what occurs at his firm is nothing comparatively. I reference Goodfellas and Casino because Scorsese focuses on the underbelly of the American Dream by examining outsiders who want in, people willing to gain money and power through the most outrageous of ways: the Lufthansa heist; building a golden city out of the desert; and manipulating stock prices to gain huge dividends. Those films along with Wolf feature the rise and fall of an American empire, a family of criminals devoted to each other until . . . well . . . things fall apart.

However, The Departed, a more recent Scorsese film, came to mind even more strongly as I watched this film. Jack Nicholson's famous monologue from the opening of the film comes to mind: "They told us we could be cops or we could be criminals.  But when you're facing a loaded gun, what's the difference?" And besides being a post-9-11 treatise on betrayal, The Departed examines a pairing of men (one a criminal, one a cop; both posing as the other) and how remarkably similar they are. What truly does separate good from evil? Scorsese poses this question again in The Wolf of Wall Street after stock broker-messianic leader Jordan Belfort, a man who when spit out by Wall Street returns with a vengeance by building his own firm of miscreants and ne'er-do-wells pushing penny stocks on the unsuspecting, and gullible, realizes that his wedding video has been subpoenaed by the F.B.I. Realizing that he is under investigation, Belfort invites his adversary Agent Patrick Denham (Kyle Chandler) to his yacht docked in Manhattan. What happens next is perhaps the quietest and finest scene in a movie filled with look-at-me moments. Decked out in regal clothing, sipping champagne on the deck, Belfort lets Denham know that he could be of use to him both professionally and personally. He lets Denham know that he knows of his past desires to be stock broker. He tempts Denham. And the work between Chandler and DiCaprio is topnotch in the scene, as each actor plays the reversal and revelation quite well, and it does not hurt that there is a physical resemblance between them. Denham could be Belfort. The description of his sweaty Subway ride home could not be farther removed from Belfort's yacht or helicopter or private limo. The scene ends wonderfully, a harbinger of things to come, with fun coupons and thrown lobster. Things fall apart.

Rounding out this weird and depraved jungle of wild-eyed capitalists are great performances from Matthew McConaughey as an early mentor, a schlubby Spike Jonze as the Long Island broker who plants a seed in Jordan's mind, and Jonah Hill as an intensely loyal underboss with a love for excess and a connection to Steve Madden shoes. Jonah Hill is impossible to take your eyes off here as Donnie Azoff with his shiny teeth, thick glasses, and hilarious line readings. I think it might be Hill's best performance, an equal achievement to his work in Moneyball. And DiCaprio is at his finest here: physically committing to the ridiculousness of the role, pounding his chest and hitting his forehead with a microphone, bullying customers over the phone, and showing the depths of Belfort's corruption by the end. Is there any actor who could play Calvin Candie, Jay Gatsby, and Jordan Belfort all in about 18 months? Leo remains one of the most exciting actors of our time, making choices that are always interesting, even if it is trying to open a car door with his foot.

I loved the supporting cast with many familiar faces all delivering strong work. At times, the film seems to look at us and marvel at itself: See how shocking I am trying to be? But much of it works quite well, and the film may be the funniest of the year as well. At nearly three hours, the film flies by, and though simultaneously sickening and exhilarating, Scorsese's film points the camera at the audience by the end, making us implicit in our enjoyment of Jordan's excess while also very aware that getting rich quick is always on our minds. In The Departed, Leonardo DiCaprio's character quotes Nathaniel Hawthorne with "Families are always rising or falling in America," and Belfort proves adroit at both actions as well as the art of survival. And a closing shot of bedraggled Agent Denham on the subway set to a Lemonheads cover version of "Mrs. Robinson" has us looking victory in the face, in all of its shabbiness with a version of a great song that isn't nearly as good as the original: "Every way you look at it you lose."