Dicaprio's character, a WWII veteran haunted by concentration camps, investigates a German-run asylum on Shutter Island. Flashbacks show images linking the asylum patients to concentration camps. The film uses ambiguous narrative and visual techniques to blur reality and convey the protagonist's unstable mental state, bringing into question what is real versus imagined.

1. Dicaprio’s character was in WWII and he is haunted by the concentration camps, the warden of
shutter island is German and Dicaprio dislikes him because of this. Flashbacks when Dicaprio
sees the image of the woman to concentration camps.1
SHUTTERISLAND NOTES
Take notes under the following headings during the film.
EDITING
Match on action, reaching for the syringe.
CAMERA SHOTS/ANGLES/MOVEMENT
When DiCaprio climbs up there is a crane shot and zoom out showing his isolation. High angle
on DiCaprio when he confront his partner who turns out to be his doctor. Low angle when he
sees his wife, he has the power to change. Birds eye view shot with crane when he holds his
dead kids, shows his insignifance and how he has no power over it and can’t do anything.
Canted angle on him waking up in bed.
SOUND
Silence when the wife and child are looking at him. Building score builds tension when he walks
up to the lighthouse, what could be hiding behind the lighthouse. When he opens the door the
music stops. Diagetic, ambient sound of the birds chirping in the flashback.
THEMES & MOTIFS
There are recurring themes of mental health and the treatment of the mentally ill. The film is
unclear of what things are real and not real showing how a person with the protagonist’s mental
illness would feel.
SYMBOLIC CODES (including enigma and binary opposites)
Binary opposites of the clothes. The workers wear quite plain boring clothes. Smoke hides
things, when Kingsley talks about dicaprio not having a partner he is behind smoke. DiCaprio
says he’s given up on smoking showing he isn’t hiding behind it anymore and sees whats really
happening. Twisted staircase in the lighthouse, twisted mind. Repetition climbing up the stairs.
Affectation of seeing the wife and child.
IDEOLOGY
Religion and spirituality, talks of moral order, humanity. When she sees his wife she is very
brightly coloured showing the good memories of her or possibly the good side of him.
Contrasted to his daughter who is darkly coloured.
LIGHTING
Chiaroscuro to show the contrast in good and bad.
NARRATIVE

2. The film contains non-linear narrative. Flashbacks of the protagonist’s family are used frequently
throughout the film. In the film, the audience doesn’t know what is real and what isn’t so the film
isn’t clear about the order of the narrative.
CHARACTERS
REPRESENTATION
Blur between reality and his mind. When the truth is revealed DiCaprio’s clothes is changed
from white to grey to present that he has converted to the ‘dark side’.
SETTING & MISE-EN-SCENE
Isolation, abandoned question what is hidden. Much walls in the hospital to hide what is really
there. After the reveal, order is restored and things are bright and clean.
MOOD & TONE
The feel has an unsettling, mysterious tone.
Foreshadowing:
Dicaprio’s character asks for a lighter on the boat foreshadowing that he is a mental patient
because he has to ask for a lighter. When DiCaprio is interviewing a patient he finishes her
sentence. When the patient takes a drink from water there is a short shot of her without the
glass showing that it is all in DiCaprio’s head.