Two Movie Islands, One Worth Visiting
The two new movies by Martin Scorsese and Roman Polanski make for a study in contrasts — an incredibly depressing one. That's because Scorsese's film is dead on the screen, while Polanski's simmers with a passion for storytelling. And guess which director is unlikely to make another movie?
Scorsese's Shutter Island is closely based on Dennis Lehane's novel about a Boston detective, played onscreen by Leonardo DiCaprio, who travels to an island hospital for the criminally insane to investigate the disappearance of a female patient. The novel is a slight but engrossing doodle about illusion — or delusion — versus reality, a bit like Paul Auster but more Freudian. For Lehane it was a breather between Mystic River and his panoramic Any Given Day, but Scorsese draws it out to two hours and 19 minutes of tracking shots and bombastic music and shrieking storms and detectives in long coats and fedoras trudging past leering mental patients.
Without giving anything away, it's fair to say what seem like over-the-top tropes from forties' and fifties' noir are meant to evoke old movies — to seem artificial. But even when the Hollywood-detective-story foundation begins to crumble and the gumshoe protagonist is wracked with visions of concentration camps and bloody children and Nazi experiments, Shutter Island is still suffocatingly movie-ish. Many filmmakers when they hit their 60's pare down their styles and strive to be simpler and more direct. But Scorsese has become more impersonal, more like the big-budget studio director he so palpably wasn't when he helped transform American cinema. Here, he visually invokes a score of movies from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari to Laura to Frederick Wiseman's graphic asylum documentary Titicut Follies, and there isn't an image that feels organic. Despite a lot of heavy emotional lifting by DiCaprio and fun turns by Mark Ruffalo as DiCaprio's partner and Ben Kingsley as an oddly paternal head psychiatrist, it's all like window displays in a movie museum — or a movie morgue.
Polanski, whatever his off screen travails both as victim and victimizer, is all there in The Ghost Writer, an audaciously timely paranoid political conspiracy mystery. Ewan McGregor plays a writer-for-hire who's drafted at the last minute — his predecessor mysteriously drowned — to rework the much-anticipated memoirs of an ex-prime-minister named Lang: obviously Tony Blair and played by Pierce Brosnan. Lang is reviled by his countrymen for hitching his country to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and he's now under investigation by an international human rights tribunal for turning over suspects to the C.I.A. for torture. The media descends on his U.S. refuge on an estate in an empty, wintry Martha's Vineyard, where the P.M., his severe wife played by Olivia Williams and perky aide played by Kim Cattrall consider the most prudent course of action.
The title character is funny, and Ewan McGregor has never been better. He's cheeky yet also watchful, increasingly edgy; and his eyes are as alive as Polanski's camera. The movie, based on a novel by Robert Harris, is perfect Polanski material. The loner hero is spiritually isolated, trapped in vast spaces — on dunes and rain-swept beaches under low, threatening skies — and unable move without being watched. There is an undercurrent of lust, too — a ghoulish attraction between McGregor and the seething, joyless Olivia Williams.
The Ghost Writer is not especially realistic in its depiction of anti-war protesters descending on the British prime minister everywhere in the U.S. — such protests didn't come near to major politicians, even in the war's heyday. But Polanski's touch is so sure that the film is entrancing to the last tumultuous frame. There's more than a touch of Hitchcock, but Polanski makes the fluid, paranoid style his own — an organic expressionism that dwarfs Scorsese's third-rate horrors in Shutter Island.
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DAVID BIANCULLI, host:
Two mystery thrillers with increasingly paranoid heroes open this week and each is directed by a filmmaking legend: Martin Scorsese and Roman Polanski. Scorsese's "Shutter Island," set in 1954, stars Leonardo DiCaprio and a cast that includes: Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams and Max Von Sydow.
Polanski's "The Ghost Writer," a much more contemporary story, stars Ewan McGregor and Pierce Brosnan.
Film critic David Edelstein has this review.
DAVID EDELSTEIN: The two new movies by Martin Scorsese and Roman Polanski make for a study in contrasts an incredibly depressing one. That's because Scorsese's film is dead on the screen, while Polanski's simmers with a passion for storytelling. And guess which director is unlikely to make another movie?
Scorsese's "Shutter Island" is closely based on Dennis Lehane's novel about a Boston detective, played onscreen by Leonardo DiCaprio, who travels to an island hospital for the criminally insane to investigate the disappearance of a female patient. The novel is a slight but engrossing doodle about illusion or delusion versus reality, a bit like Paul Auster but more Freudian. For Lehane it was a breather between "Mystic River" and his panoramic "Any Given Day," but Scorsese draws it out to two hours and 19 minutes of tracking shots and bombastic music and shrieking storms and detectives in long coats and fedoras trudging past leering mental patients.
Without giving anything away, it's fair to say what seem like over-the-top tropes from forties' and fifties' noir are meant to evoke old movies to seem artificial. But even when the Hollywood-detective-story foundation begins to crumble and the gumshoe protagonist is wracked with visions of concentration camps and bloody children and Nazi experiments, "Shutter Island" is still suffocatingly movie-ish.
Many filmmakers when they hit their 60's pare down their styles and strive to be simpler and more direct. But Scorsese has become more impersonal, more like the big-budget studio director he so palpably wasn't when he helped transform American cinema. Here, he visually invokes a score of movies from "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" to "Laura" to Frederick Wiseman's graphic asylum documentary "Titicut Follies," and there isn't an image that feels organic. Despite a lot of heavy emotional lifting by DiCaprio, and fun turns by Mark Ruffalo and Ben Kingsley as an oddly paternal head psychiatrist, it's all like window displays in a movie museum or a movie morgue.
Polanski, whatever his off screen travails, both as victim and victimizer, is all there in "The Ghost Writer," an audaciously timely paranoid political conspiracy mystery. Ewan McGregor plays a writer-for-hire who's drafted at the last minute his predecessor mysteriously drowned to rework the much-anticipated memoirs of an ex-prime minister named Lang: obviously Tony Blair and played by Pierce Brosnan.
Lang is reviled by his countrymen for hitching his country to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and he's now under investigation by an international human rights tribunal for turning over suspects to the CIA for torture. The media descends on his U.S. refuge on an estate in an empty, wintry Martha's Vineyard, where the P.M. - his severe wife played by Olivia Williams and perky aide played by Kim Cattrall - consider the most prudent course of action.
(Soundbite of film, "The Ghostwriter")
Ms. WILLIAMS: (as Ruth Lang) If it suits them they will hang you out to dry. You need a lawyer. Call Sid.
Mr. PIERCE BROSNAN (Actor): (as Adam Lang) Get Sid on the line.
Ms. KIM CATTRALL (Actress): (as Amelia Bly) And what about the media?
Ms. WILLIAMS: (as Ruth Lang) Issue a holding statement - something short.
Mr. BROSNAN: (as Adam Lang) Oh, I was (unintelligible) Mike.
Ms. CATTRALL: (as Amelia Bly) I'll write something.
Ms. WILLIAMS: (as Ruth Lang) Let him do it. He's supposed to be the writer.
Mr. MCGREGOR: (as The Ghost) Hang on minute.
Mr. BROSNAN: (as Adam Lang) I should sound confident; not defensive, that would be fatal. I shouldnt be cocky. No business, no anger, and dont say I'm pleased with this opportunity to clear my name or any balls like that.
Mr. MCGREGOR: (as The Ghost) So youre not defensive but youre not cocky. Youre not angry but youre not pleased.
Mr. BROSNAN: (as Adam Lang) That's it.
Mr. MCGREGOR: (as The Ghost) Then what exactly are you?
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. WILLIAMS: (as Ruth Lang) Told you he was funny.
EDELSTEIN: The title character is funny, and Ewan McGregor has never been better. He's cheeky yet also watchful, increasingly edgy; and his eyes are as alive as Polanski's camera. The movie, based on a novel by Robert Harris, is perfect Polanski material. The loner hero is spiritually isolated, trapped in vast spaces on dunes and rain-swept beaches, under low, threatening skies and unable to move without being watched. There's an undercurrent of lust, too a ghoulish attraction between McGregor and the seething, joyless Olivia Williams.
"The Ghost Writer" is not especially realistic in its depiction of anti-war protesters descending on the British P.M., everywhere in the U.S. such protests didn't come near to major politicians, even in the war's heyday. But Polanski's touch is so sure that the film is entrancing to the last tumultuous frame. There's more than a touch of Hitchcock, but Polanski makes the fluid, paranoid style his own an organic expressionism that dwarfs Scorsese's third-rate horrors in "Shutter Island."
BIANCULLI: David Edelstein is film critic for New York magazine.
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DAVID BIANCULLI: You can download Podcast of our show at freshair.npr.org. And you can follow us on Facebook and find us on Twitter at nprfreshair.
For Terry Gross, I'm David Bianculli.
(Soundbite of music) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.
