Double Post

[Edited on February 22, 2010 at 1:44 AM. Reason : .]

2/22/2010 1:44:20 AM

She was playing along with the role play.

Or she thought the role play was inappropriate and genuinely wanted him to run.

Or she thought the role play was inappropriate (because she believed he was sane) and wanted him to run.

2/22/2010 2:05:48 AM

****SPOILER ALERT*****

Best line of the movie was the last that he says to his supposed therapist.


"Is it better to live as a monster or to die as a good man?"

I believe he had come to grips with his reality but did not want to live anymore so he pretended he was still crazy so he would get lobatmized.

pick it apart fellow watchers

****END SPOILER ALERT****

2/22/2010 4:29:28 PM

SPOILER:

Quote :

"Best line of the movie was the last that he says to his supposed therapist. "Is it better to live as a monster or to die as a good man?""

...that was definitely the best line from the entire movie. I definitely feel like which path the viewer's inclined to believe is completely dependent upon their personality. If I were to be realistic about it, I'd say that yes... he is insane. However, if I wanted to go along with it, I don't think he is insane (which I believe). There's definitely a good argument for both sides...

[Edited on February 22, 2010 at 6:08 PM. Reason : asdf]

2/22/2010 6:07:14 PM

Are we still bothering with spoiler alerts?

SPOILER



Did y'all notice how fake/campy the set was at the start of the film and how the dialogue had an element of cheese to it, too? I loved it! But I'm starting to see the significance of all that...if you were delusional and you lived in an alternate reality, how real/rich would that reality appear? For example, suppose you were in a mental institution but did not acknowledge the fact that you were a patient. Instead, you believed that you were a nurse in the institution (but, in actual reality, you had a limited background in nursing)...with that limited background, you would have to walk around saying and doing some cheesy ass shit: Somebody call the doctor and get 4 CCs of Phenobarbitol stat! (You might say that same line several times throughout the day.)

Your version of reality (which lies solely in your limited mind) would be extremely shallow compared to an actual reality. It would be filled with campy settings, stereotyped characters, predictable dialogue...y'all know what I'm saying?

[Edited on February 23, 2010 at 12:11 PM. Reason : Man, I gotta get back to writing this stupid paper now.]

2/23/2010 12:10:24 PM

what scene are you referring to?

2/23/2010 12:35:00 PM

I'm talking about the whole movie, but especially the beginning. But there was one really fake background--the part where they were on the ship. It was particularly jarring to me:



The movie started out as one giant cliche, a nod to campy detective films. And I really enjoyed it.

But I'm starting to see that all that wasn't just a nod for the sake of a nod. If what we were witnessing was a giant roleplaying game that revolved around the delusions of one man, the outcome is going to be some cheesy shit. Crazy people are capable of having delusions that are very real to them, but since they are limited by the scope of their minds, their delusions are going to rely heavily on cliches, stereotypes, repetition, etc..you can't invent a whole new reality for yourself and have it actually be as rich, real, deep, etc...as an actual reality. That's why the movie was campy.

2/23/2010 12:50:39 PM

Hrrm... nice observation.
I'd noticed the same thing, but didn't make that connection. I thought the music as they're driving up to the asylum at the beginning was very over the top and I'm glad there seems to be a reason for it.

2/23/2010 3:40:54 PM

***SPOILER****

To me the ending is obvious

Leo decides that even though he has awoken from his delusion, the truth is too much to deal with so he has himself destroyed

He dies a good man (via lobotomy - "dies" being figurative and the "good man" is the detective persona)

Instead of living as a monster (he sees himself as a monster for killing his wife and allowing her to kill the children)



[Edited on February 23, 2010 at 4:19 PM. Reason : fdsg]

2/23/2010 4:14:53 PM

Quote :

"But I'm starting to see that all that wasn't just a nod for the sake of a nod. If what we were witnessing was a giant roleplaying game that revolved around the delusions of one man, the outcome is going to be some cheesy shit. Crazy people are capable of having delusions that are very real to them, but since they are limited by the scope of their minds, their delusions are going to rely heavily on cliches, stereotypes, repetition, etc..you can't invent a whole new reality for yourself and have it actually be as rich, real, deep, etc...as an actual reality. That's why the movie was campy"

i didn't really get that at all from watching it. i mean the guy really was a federal marshal, so he wasn't basing his persona on anything he'd seen in the movies. he actually had lived that life. sure the characters are made up, but they're based on his real life experiences

2/23/2010 4:42:35 PM

toemoss, totally! I was crazy into the over the top music. The whole score, by the way, was taken from other sources. None of it was original to the film, which is wild to me...

Quote :

"StingrayRush: i didn't really get that at all from watching it. i mean the guy really was a federal marshal, so he wasn't basing his persona on anything he'd seen in the movies. he actually had lived that life. sure the characters are made up, but they're based on his real life experiences"

Did you think it was campy, cheesy, or cliche at any point? Like, the background, music, tone, camera work, dialogue, plot?

I mean, the guy was a federal marshall, but it was a pretty contrived situation (on an island, in a institution, storm coming, etc...) for him to reconcile in his mind...I still think he'd fall victim to the typical pitfalls of a shallow unreal reality. PLUS, those pitfalls could also be attributed to the people around him who were taking part in the role play...if they were all going along with him and playing their different parts, again they would likely end up as stereotypes with cheesy dialogue...

2/23/2010 11:51:45 PM

Oh man. I've got this mental disorder where I keep reading even though someone clearly writes SPOILER ALERT in their post.

I shouldn't have opened this thread.

2/24/2010 3:06:07 AM

**SPOILER ALERT**

To me

it look like a leprechaun to me

2/24/2010 8:22:48 AM

Great movie!

9/10

2/24/2010 10:52:09 AM

watched it yesterday, the more i think about it the more i like it, and little events start making more sense when i think back knowing the truth

2/24/2010 3:17:23 PM

***SPOILER***

Quote :

"Did you think it was campy, cheesy, or cliche at any point? Like, the background, music, tone, camera work, dialogue, plot?"

yeah looking back i guess you could say that, but it seems like you're saying that he's creating this world entirely in his mind, when it's actually really happening, ie the storm, boat, prison, etc. i mean i get what you're saying, but i'm not sure it goes as deep as you're suggesting since this stuff isn't a figment of his imagination

maybe i'm just not understanding completely, but no matter, still a great movie

[Edited on February 24, 2010 at 4:27 PM. Reason : .]

2/24/2010 4:07:52 PM

SPOILER ALERT:




I really enjoyed it. What was kinda funny is they could have ended the film so many ways, and it still would have been good (he actually wasnt a patient/etc).

I am looking forward to seeing it again, knowing he is insane.

[Edited on February 24, 2010 at 4:18 PM. Reason : .]

2/24/2010 4:17:53 PM

SPOILER!!!


CarZin, totally! The scenes I'm thinking about the most are the ones where he insists he be able to interview the nurses/orderlies, and they're like, "Uuuuuuhhhh...." And then the actual interviews where the people are trying to go along with his delusions, but it's really hard, especially the whole bit about, "Did you notice anything unusual?" AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

2/24/2010 7:14:00 PM

^yeah, also when the lady writes in his book for him to run, she waits for his partner to leave the table to get her water, because she knows hes the doctor, at the time we are led to believe hes just his parter, i thought that was pretty strange, and there was a scene out on the rocks where the guards were supposed to be searching, but a lot of them were just sitting around doing nothing, tossing rocks and stuff, because there really was no one to be searching for, those stood out to me when i was watching, then at the end, i thought back and it all made sense, there were lots of little moments like that

2/24/2010 7:36:28 PM

after reading all these comments it makes me realize how amazing this movie was...granted I thought it was pretty sweet when I saw it but man, what a great movie

2/24/2010 8:04:38 PM

Oh man, great movie.

2/25/2010 11:28:42 PM

********* SEMI-SPOILER ALERT ***********

I feel like the backdrop for the ship scene at the beginning tipped me off. It's like "oh we never actually came from anywhere b/c we never left this island" kinda thing. The fact that the kids' were all bloody in that once scene but apparently the crazy mother had drowned them was another clue that all/most of this was imagined. 9/10 movie, 7/10 ending. The whole drowning your kids scene was kinda

2/27/2010 2:00:42 AM

Quote :

""

haha i forgot about that

2/27/2010 1:37:57 PM

this movie was drawn out shit, i was very disappointed.

but yes, the last scene was excellent

2/27/2010 1:56:51 PM

That was my biggest complaint as well. It felt like it should have been an hour long Twilight Zone episode.

2/27/2010 3:33:24 PM

****spolier******



in the beginning, Leo was in the patients quarters on the boat, you can see the restraints on the walls, so its possible he was a patient coming in to shutter island
and the guards were very tense around him, and the explantion that a woman escaped doesnt justify it
the first patient leo saw recognized him and waved

the whole "who is 67" is only significant if it points to leo being the 67
so it must be that he was crazy
but he may have come to his senses at the end and knowingly got a lobotomy


wait, if rachel zolando was fake, why did the 2 metal patients they interviewed knew her and her crime?
nevermind, they were coached


****spoiler******





[Edited on February 28, 2010 at 7:49 PM. Reason : .]

2/28/2010 7:27:22 PM

Long, drawn out movie that I totally predicted the ending to about a third of the way into the movie. I was really disappointed....

5/10

3/2/2010 9:48:09 AM

seeing this tonight so i can finally read this thread!!

3/2/2010 10:27:22 AM

wait a minute, can anyone explain the lady in the cave?
everything else was explained away by the doctor except this, & she was never seen again.
plus does the fact that they do labotomies in the lighthouse make the whole story true

3/2/2010 4:55:39 PM

she wasn't real, Leo was imagining her

3/2/2010 5:00:44 PM

nothing in the movie besides his dead wife was imagined, all else was real and an elaborate play set up by the staff
so there's nothing to lead us to think he imagined her

3/2/2010 5:08:01 PM

didn't he see a body when he looked over the cliff (right before finding that lady)? it was gone when he got down there, so did he imagine that or did the guy just lay there for a little bit then get up and walk away

3/2/2010 5:10:09 PM

no it was white marks on teh rock that looked like a body

3/2/2010 5:11:28 PM

Quote :

"plus does the fact that they do labotomies in the lighthouse make the whole story true"

I thought that there was nothing going on in the lighthouse, that was just the centerpiece of his conspiracy theory. He didn't find anything there except Gandhi waiting there to meet him.

3/2/2010 5:13:33 PM

Quote :

" nothing in the movie besides his dead wife was imagined, all else was real and an elaborate play set up by the staff so there's nothing to lead us to think he imagined her "

with the exception of the doc saying that she doesn't exist during the convo in the light house

3/2/2010 5:14:05 PM

^^ the last scene implied very heavily that they do in fact perform lobotomies, since they were leading leo away then cut to the lighthouse


DUN DUN DUN

3/2/2010 5:21:08 PM

Well yeah, they said that he would get a lobotomy, but I'm sure that would be in a legitimate medical facility.

The lighthouse was just where he thought they did their shady medical experiments, though in reality it was just a lighthouse.

3/2/2010 5:25:02 PM

i don't know, ben kingsley questioned him about being all over the island and if he'd found any signs of experimentation (no), and there was another scene where he talked about intraorbital lobotomies being brutal. the orderly had that long ice pick thing, so i'd imagine that's exactly what they were planning to do. just seemed like an implication that the staff wasn't exactly on the up and up

3/2/2010 5:39:09 PM

ghandi saying the rachel zolondo didnt exist is meaningless if he's covering something up
the fact is leo never imagined anything besides his wife and it was clear that she was imagined
rachel was real and was never refered to after he met her
and i dont think ghandi knew he met her

3/2/2010 5:48:01 PM

Quote :

"i don't know, ben kingsley questioned him about being all over the island and if he'd found any signs of experimentation (no), and there was another scene where he talked about intraorbital lobotomies being brutal."

They wouldn't need a center for experimentation there, maybe just an OR. Besides they might have been sending him off of the island for the lobotomy and then planned on housing him elsewhere since (presumably) he wouldn't be a violent patient then.

Quote :

"the orderly had that long ice pick thing, so i'd imagine that's exactly what they were planning to do."

I assumed that was a heavy needle that could could be jammed into someone during a struggle without being broken. I doubt they were just going to drag into the lighthouse and stab him in the eye with it.

3/2/2010 5:53:57 PM

Saw it. Thought it was good.

3/2/2010 9:53:19 PM

Quote :

"ghandi saying the rachel zolondo didnt exist is meaningless if he's covering something up the fact is leo never imagined anything besides his wife and it was clear that she was imagined rachel was real and was never refered to after he met her and i dont think ghandi knew he met her"

Part of me imagines this whole thing is similar to Memento, the big role play has never been done before but the doctors have heard this outlandish tale so many times from Laeddis that they know every intricate detail in order to successfully pull it off. They know about every detail of his "conspiracy" and how the entire thing will play out. They knew he'd try to break into Ward C, they knew he'd find the "real Rachel" because that itself is the big twist in the "movie going on in his mind". The way i see it, he made every move they thought he would like clock work. It's very evident on the rocks. He thinks he's on to Chuck, goes off alone, chuck leaves cigarette burning like in the "script", Leo returns and thinks Chuck has fallen off the cliffs, climbs down and finds Rachel. Cut /Scene. and maybe i'm wrong but that's just how i felt.

I was disappointed leaving, but it's been growing on me by the minute ever since i climbed in bed and woke up this morning. Also, i knew something wasn't quite right 10 minutes in when they were told to relinquish their firearms. Mark Ruffalo's character fumbled his holster like he'd never used one before and you could see the puzzlement in Leo's face. No real cop would have that kind of trouble with their weapon.

and lastly, I am agreement with almost all of BridgetSPK's comments.

3/3/2010 8:30:43 AM

I just want to know how they faked the hurricane. Looked real as hell.

3/3/2010 4:23:20 PM

Its funny because I agree with almost everyone's comments on this movie....however I didn't really like it.

Spoilers....I guess....

In regards to the "cheesy" cinematography and such...I caught that about mid-way through the movie. On the first ship scene I lean over to my girlfriend and talk about how fake everything looks and how it's going to be "that kind of movie." Then in the next 30-45 minutes you have very "real" looking scenes...and very fake ones. Then you have scenes where it cuts immediately back and forth between characters and characters move across a whole room in a fraction of a second (when Leo and his partner were leaving Kingsley's house for the first time and they're rushing out and hopping in a car and they look back and Ben Kingsley is just standing there smoking a cigar like he's been standing there for an hour). Once I knew he was crazy (which you could have figured out in the trailers), all of the fake and choppy scenes were obviously his imagination. Like him becoming a professional rock climber and getting down the rocks, and the hurricane, and the rats on the cliff.

It wasn't paying a "nod to the old detective movies"...its just the shit you come up with when you are "dreaming/imagining."

There was something someone posted earlier about "this movie was easy to figure out, but you did get all the minor details in the end." I guess I kind of enjoyed that. Like his wife burning into ashes on the back and bleeding in the front. And whoever that prisoner was that he ended up beating the shit out of but in his "imagination" he was an old prisoner who had helped him out. Then you go back and think of how all the nurses and orderlies were looking at him...now you realized that they were all part of Ben Kingsley's plan. As far as the nurse who wrote "run"...I think it might or might not have been part of the plan. She could have been crazy and not liked how the plan was going and was trying to warn him...or she could have been sent in there to write that just to keep the "plan" going.

The last line was money though. But I still think it was kind of a shitty movie. I understand what he was trying to do...I just didn't enjoy it. I wanted to stab Michelle Williams every time she was in a dream sequence....that shit was fucking annoying.

3/16/2010 10:49:10 AM

Just saw it. Loved it. 9/10. I wish more movies like this were made. I didn't have to go into dumb mode to watch it. Slightly predictable, but not too predictable. Just right.

I think Rachael (cave woman) was real. Chuck (his partner) baited him with the cigarette. When he climbed down, Chuck had left. Then rats started coming out of the holes. Why? Because of the fire that Rachael started. Rats are scared of fire, right? So the fire was real. The rats were real. And Rachael was real. Rachael played a key role in reinforcing his conspiracy theory. Without her, I don't know if he'd be so convinced.

Quote :

"The whole drowning your kids scene was kinda "

Several people in front of us walked out of the theater during that scene.

[Edited on March 27, 2010 at 12:31 AM. Reason : edit]

3/27/2010 12:03:19 AM

I had no idea what to expect going into this movie, but it was pretty damn good and pretty damn intense. I called him being crazy obvi like 30min in, but i didn't put together a lot of the details until i read this thread. I can def see how all the campy scenes were his altered/imaginary viewpoint.

The end drowning scene was super intense. The lady next to me was bawling, it was nuts. I need to go watch it again.

[Edited on April 12, 2010 at 11:59 PM. Reason : fff]

4/12/2010 11:59:15 PM

this is one weird movie

i like it

6/27/2010 10:16:00 PM

***SORTA SPOILER***

What was the significance of the woman who chopped up her husband asking for a glass of water, and then putting her hand to her mouth with no cup, then slamming the cup down?

6/28/2010 12:12:15 AM

It was supposed to be a hint that he was insane.

6/28/2010 12:19:48 AM

yeah, he was just having dreams that normal/sane people don't usually have. It should have been a fairly big tip early on that he, cop or not, was not quite right/crazy/going crazy. Not that it should have given everything away, just that this guy isn't as right as you would otherwise suspect. Possibly due to PTSD from the war or or things he'd seen through his job.

6/28/2010 6:07:04 AM