When Martin Scorsese predicted that his neo-noir psychological thriller Shutter Island, which was adapted from Dennis Lehane’s 2003 book of the same name, would make twice as much money because audiences would need to see it twice just to understand the finale, he wasn’t joking. But he might have underestimated. It’s still unclear what precisely is happening on the titular island and whether Leonardo DiCaprio’s character is genuinely the mental case the supporting cast of the movie leads us to assume. This is true even after more than two viewings.
The true interpretation of Shutter Island is still up for question, and the controversy over the movie’s conclusion continues to this day.
But don’t worry!
We’re here to correctly identify what’s wrong amid all the madness, and we have a tonne of supporting data to do so. But don’t just believe what we say. Try it out for yourself
Although it probably goes without saying, we’ll still say it: the information that follows contains enormous spoilers on top of even greater spoilers.
Table Of Content
- 1 But Teddy’s right: Shutter Island is a government conspiracy
- 2 Don’t worry, even DiCaprio was confused
- 3 He has PTSD
- 4 He’s a pyromaniac
- 5 Teddy is being brainwashed
- 6 Teddy is not a U.S. Marshal
- 7 Teddy never had any children
- 8 The lake house memory isn’t real
- 9 There is no Andrew Laeddis
- 10 To live as a monster or to die as a good man?
- 11 What’s the author say?
- 12 Why are you all wet, baby?
But Teddy’s right: Shutter Island is a government conspiracy
Shutter Island’s dramatic twist and resolution are simple to accept at face value, but it would be a mistake to ignore how murky the setting as a whole is.
Teddy doesn’t necessarily have a fake narrative for the obscure, remote mental facility just because he has one for himself. Teddy informs “Chuck,” his fictitious colleague, who is actually a Dr. Sheehan and is aware of the realities of the situation, “They’re experimenting on people here.” Sheehan makes an attempt to refute Teddy’s notion, but Teddy has it figured out. “Isn’t that what makes it so beautiful? People who are insane make the best subjects, “He claims. “They chatter, but no one pays attention. At Dachau, I stood. Right, we’ve seen what humans are capable of doing to one another. For Christ’s sake, we waged a damned war to prevent them, and just now have I learned that it might be taking place here? our territory?”
Teddy may be insane, but he is not mistaken. Shutter Island “reeks of government ops” in every way. The guards ride in military-style trucks and are armed with military-grade guns. In a historic Civil War fort, the most dangerous “patients” are kept. The lighthouse is included in the electric fence that encloses all of the facilities. An underground, remote facility for the “criminally insane” would be the ideal location for any government-approved mind control research. Who would ever learn?
Of course Teddy realises that, but what can he do about it? He is, after all, the object of his own mind-control experiment.
Don’t worry, even DiCaprio was confused
Still perplexed? Don’t trust us? Think we’re mistaken? Shutter Island is a movie that nearly never makes sense. In fact, not even its star actor understood what was happening!
“The actor Leonardo DiCaprio admitted that there were a few weeks near the end of filming when some of the final sequences were being shot that “there was almost a lapse in the understanding of where I was because we kept pushing this guy further and further and it was day after day of re-enacting a traumatic event that was either a dream or reality for this guy.” I recollect telling Marty, “I don’t know where I am or what I’m doing at the moment. What’s up with this guy? ” Don’t worry, simply reenact the scene and keep pushing him, he assured them.”
Even DiCaprio is aware that there are various interpretations of his character’s alleged lunacy. “This movie’s ending and the entire movie contain a certain level of ambiguity that could cause the audience to have a different experience of it on subsequent viewings,” he stated. “As a result, playing Teddy presented me with additional challenges as an actor because we frequently pushed him to his limits, leaving it up to Scorsese and [editor] Thelma Schoonmaker to decide where to direct him in certain situations. It was one of the most difficult, but I also enjoy those experiences.”
He has PTSD
Teddy most likely developed into the pyromaniac who murdered his wife as a result of the tragic events that occurred while he was serving in World War II.
We know that while serving overseas, Teddy saw the death toll of a WWII concentration camp, was a member of the team that “murdered” dozens of disarmed Nazis, and had to deal with the fallout of a botched suicide attempt. Teddy’s dreams of these incidents virtually every night show how much of a toll these events have had on him. Such persistent nightmares are a definite indicator of severe PTSD, which may have led Teddy to set his apartment on fire in a fit of insanity.
According to Drs. Cawley and Sheehan, Teddy created a fake reality in which he is a U.S. Marshal searching for his wife’s killer because of his intense guilt and reluctance to face the atrocities he has committed. Teddy is in fact mentally unwell and legally committable in this way. He obviously needs mental health care.
However, he is not “Andrew Laeddis,” and the medical professionals are not in fact “treating” him.
They are using him in an experiment.
He’s a pyromaniac
Teddy is undoubtedly the pyromaniac who killed his wife and three other individuals, as he is quite obviously a patient at Shutter Island. Teddy’s visions about “Andrew Laeddis,” the firebug allegedly responsible for destroying his apartment complex, are the most compelling piece of evidence. In this scene, we see a close-up of the hands of an Laeddis who is obviously fictitious lighting a match. It’s interesting to note that Teddy subsequently strikes a match, and the movie’s promotional cover image features a close-up of Leonardo DiCaprio’s face hidden by a lit match.
Teddy is skilled at building rapid, on-the-spot vehicle bombs, which gives you more than enough grounds to believe that Teddy is indeed the pyromaniac who set fire to his apartment building.
Teddy is being brainwashed
That does not imply, however, that Teddy is not insane. or that he was consistently correct. Or the fact that he was actually a U.S. Marshal. (We’ll address all of that later.) Instead, what we watch unfold throughout the movie is an elaborate role-play in which the Shutter Island medical staff makes a determined effort to implant a particular memory into Teddy’s mind: that he is actually Andrew Laeddis, who mercilessly killed his psychotic wife after she drowned their three children. Of course, Teddy’s recurrent relapses show that he consistently rejects the memory as not being his, thus the physicians are ineffective. Teddy is, however, actively being brainwashed despite his rationality.
The main question is whether or not Teddy genuinely has that particular memory, in which he kills his crazy wife after she drowns their three children. The movie undoubtedly encourages viewers to take the conclusion at face value, leading many people to infer wrongly that Teddy actually did shoot his wife at their lake house and is just refusing to admit the traumatic recollection despite the best efforts of the medical team. However, upon deeper examination, there is solid evidence to believe that the alleged recollection isn’t actually Teddy’s.
Teddy is not a U.S. Marshal
Teddy is absolutely not a U.S. Marshal, so let’s get that out of the way before we delve further into Shutter Island’s sleazy attempt to brainwash Teddy.
This claim is supported by overwhelming and clear evidence. When Teddy, frustrated by Dr. Cawley’s resistance to assist with the inquiry, says he and his partner are “going to file our reports and give it over to…” but forgets the federal chain of command, we initially suspect something is off. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is clearly what Teddy is talking to, and Dr. Sheehan—who most definitely is not a U.S. Marshal—completes Teddy’s thought by calling the FBI “Hoover’s boys.” It seems odd that a seasoned U.S. Marshal would have trouble remembering to whom exactly he sends his reports. However, migraines can be extremely debilitating.
It may be acceptable to forget the FBI, but it is not acceptable to confuse a real, metal weapon with a cheap, extremely breakable plastic toy. Teddy actually goes so far as to claim that he knows the gun is loaded due to its weight and that “his initials are on the side and there’s a dent in the barrel from when Philip Stacks shot at me.” Any U.S. Marshal worth his badge would undoubtedly recognise the correct weight of a revolver as soon as they picked it up. However, he breaks it like a twig.
Teddy never had any children
Teddy’s alleged parentage is the first piece of evidence that suggests he was the product of a complex brainwashing experiment.
Teddy doesn’t mention his kids at all throughout the movie. He doesn’t even bring up his kids once when talking about how his wife perished in a fire that claimed the lives of four people. Isn’t it strange that he wouldn’t say that the arson killed his wife, his kids, his whole family? Stranger still, Teddy never once remembers seeing his sons’ faces in any of his recollections, dreams, or visions. His daughter is the only one of his alleged children whose face we ever do see; she first appears in a dream as a frozen body in Dachau, which is probably where he truly saw her.
Dr. Cawley is the only person who has ever claimed that Teddy ever had children, so why should we believe him? Cawley insists on showing Teddy images of three drowned children despite Teddy’s protests that he “never had any children,” gives Teddy their fictitious names, and reminds him that he dreams about the young girl every night. He frequently dreams about Dachau (in actuality). Teddy declines it while genuinely perplexed, claiming, “I never had a little girl,” and he probably didn’t. Teddy’s confused brain is actually being implanted with an entirely different false reality by Dr. Cawley in the name of science.
The lake house memory isn’t real
There is no reason to believe the doctors are telling Teddy the truth, despite the fact that Teddy has created a false reality for himself in which he is a “good guy” trying to find his wife’s killer and reveal the truth about the American government’s mind control experiments being conducted at Shutter Island. Instead, it’s likely that they are doing a complex mind-control experiment on Teddy in an effort to rewire his already disturbed brain with a fake memory. for science
Of course, the crucial lake house scene from the movie is the false memory in question. In this made-up scene, Teddy, a U.S. Marshal, returns home from work to discover that his mentally unstable wife has killed their three children in an effort to make them into “living dolls.” Then, in response to his wife’s cries for him to “let her free,” Teddy shoots her in an emotional act of compassion. It’s a serious scene. It is dark. And it’s totally a fraud.
It’s simple for the audience to succumb to the doctor’s mind control because the lake home scene initially serves to explain why Teddy is at Shutter Island. Right, everything “makes sense”? The issue is that nothing adds up. It is not true. The wonderful physicians Cawley and Sheehan are vigorously striving to implant this memory into Teddy’s brain even if the entire memory is either made up or based on someone else’s account.
You don’t buy it? No issue! Let’s examine the supporting documentation.
There is no Andrew Laeddis
Teddy is challenged by Dr. Cawley and Dr. Sheehan during the movie’s “big reveal” scene, which takes place in the lighthouse. They inform Teddy that Edward Daniels is actually one “Andrew Laeddis,” who killed his wife. Don’t be deceived—stunning it’s and a record-breaking cinematic twist! Andrew Laeddis is not Edward Daniels. My name is Edward Daniels, as Teddy so vehemently states. And it’s possible that’s the case.
First and first, think about this: of Edward Daniels and Andrew Laeddis, which name do you find more credible? Despite having exactly the same letters, Edward Daniels is undoubtedly the more popular and, hence, more probable name of the two. Second, the entire “Rule of 4” concept is merely a Dr. Cawley concoction designed to implant a false memory in Teddy’s head. Similar to how “Rachel Solando” was constructed from “Dolores Chanal,” “Andrew Laeddis” was also wholly made up from “Edward Daniels.” Teddy’s sense of reality is being further undermined by this name game, which serves no other purpose. Teddy’s fake memory can only be effectively implanted into his brain by Drs. Cawley and Sheehan after Teddy’s identity has been completely destroyed.
But despite their best efforts, they always fall short.
To live as a monster or to die as a good man?
The complex brainwashing scheme appears to have failed in the contentious movie’s closing scene, where Teddy once more assumes the persona of a U.S. Marshal. Teddy must be lobotomized because Teddy’s physicians were unable to “bring him back to reality.”
But what actually happens is that Teddy decides to have a lobotomy. The intensive role-playing by the doctors did succeed, just not in the way they had anticipated. Teddy does, in fact, recall setting his apartment building on fire and killing his wife. If that scenario is incorrect, he also knows that he would have killed his wife at the lake house after she accidentally drowned their three children. In either case, he finds it impossible to bear the suffering and decides to carry on as U.S. Marshal Edward Daniels despite the fact that he would eventually undergo lobotomy. He queries Dr. Sheehan, “Which would be worse, to live as a monster or to die as a nice man?” Teddy choose option two. Don’t rely on our word alone, though.
Martin Scorsese’s psychiatrist, Professor James Gilligan of New York University, asserts that “[Teddy] does definitely select his fate.”
Teddy is effectively telling Dr. Sheehan, according to Gilligan, “I’m too ashamed to continue living. By giving myself to these people who will lobotomize me, I will vicariously commit death even though I won’t truly kill myself.”
Of course, it wouldn’t hurt to acquire the author’s perspective if we wanted to understand Teddy’s infamous last remarks. According to Dennis Lehane, the author of the novel from which the movie was adapted, “As I read the script, I liked that line.
That statement, which reads like a question, is, in my opinion, rhetorically asked. Personally, I believe he has a flash. That’s all it is to me. There is only one little period of rationality among all the other delusions.” Lehane went on to discuss why it’s crucial that it was posed as a question. “He asks the question in such a way that, if he were to make a comment instead, there would be no other option than to stop the lobotomy. Since they wouldn’t want to lobotomize him if he shown any type of self-awareness, the situation would be finished.”
Lehane isn’t entirely persuaded Teddy was completely sane when he says the well-known line, though. “He’s not that aware, in my opinion, to declare, “Oh, I’m going to decide to pretend to be Laeddis so they’ll eventually give me a lobotomy.” Simply put, that would be much more suicidal than I believe this character to be “said he. “I believe that he briefly realised who he was while on that island, for maybe a half-second, before asking that question and then abruptly letting it go. On that line, I felt that way.”
Why are you all wet, baby?
We repeatedly hear the phrase “Why are you all wet, baby?” throughout the movie. This remark is spoken by Dolores in Teddy’s hallucinations as well as by Dr. Cawley when she confronts Teddy with “the reality.” The issue is that when Teddy purportedly thinks back to this lake home scene, he inquires (with a dubious expression): “Baby, why are you all wet?”
Even though it can seem like a small distinction, this modification to the sentence form is quite important. It’s safe to presume Teddy has heard “Why are you all wet, baby?” repeatedly since we are aware that Dr. Cawley and the team had already tried to “bring Teddy back to reality” (i.e., implant a false memory in his mind). He still remembers the lake home incident incorrectly, though. Consider the enormous depth and intricacy of Shutter Island before assuming it was only an unfortunate scripting or dialogue mistake (As well as other Martin Scorsese films.) You can bet your bottom dollar that the distinguished director changed Leo’s line on purpose.
The fact that Teddy’s supposed children are not visible floating in the lake despite repeated shots of the lake being in plain view is another peculiarity of the lake house scene. You have one fishy recollection overall that has more holes than a dish of Swiss cheese.
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