Shutter Island and the Allegory of the Cave

Rating: 7/10 (14 March 2010)

Scorsese is presents us with a twisted mind bending plot with all the visual hallmarks and mise-en-scene of classic horror and psychological thrillers. Deliberate overt psychological and mythological signs and symbols are used to subvert the vision of reality we see. But whose is it Scorsese's or Teddy Daniel's.
From the first few frames when we see the boat emerge from the mist we are presented with a vision that doesn't seem quite real, an imagined reality that we are asked to question throughout the picture.
Shutter Island can for the most part be read in terms of Plato's Allegory of the Cave, which questions the way in which we perceive and believe what is reality.
The allegory itself establishes a cave in which prisoners are chained down and forced to look at the front wall of the cave. Behind and unknown to the prisoners puppeteers are casting shadows using fire and light (recurring themes through the film) onto the wall which the prisoners take to be reality. In the case of the film we can either take this as Scorsese creating the unreal reality of the film for us the viewer or Ben Kingsley's character Dr Cawley creating one of two possible realities for DiCaprio's Teddy Daniels character.
Once a prisoner is released from the cave he looks upon the fire and objects making the shadows that once dictated his version of reality. In Teddy Daniels case this can be seen as happening twice in the film, once in the visual signpost of his visit to the cave by the cliffs. Climbing from the rocks below Teddy makes his way past hundreds of rats. Rats represent unworthy thoughts and feelings of guilt, envy, avarice and so on that hide from the light. In mythology a dream of rats can mean an enemy is trying to harm you. Teddy eventually reaches the cave where he meets what he perceives to be the missing woman Rachel played by Patricia Clarkson who presents him with a version of true reality and later on in the lighthouse when Dr Cawley confronts him with another version of reality.
Plato describes the vision of the real truth to be aching to the eyes of the prisoners and how they would naturally be inclined to going back and viewing what they have always seen as a pleasant and painless acceptance of the truth. Teddy faces this same confrontation when in the cave Rachel asks him to question the reality of his partner and everything he has seen since arriving on the island. She suggests since his arrival he has been under control through hallucinogenic cigarettes and drugs. This leads Teddy to question this first perceived reality of Shutter Island.
The comfort of the unreal truth and the fear of the unrecognized outside world would result in the prisoner being forced to climb the ascent of the cave and step out into the sun. When Teddy leaves the cave in the film we notice the weather has changed as the sun now shines now that he has seemingly been illuminated to a new truth, although not the last he must confront in the picture.
Towards the end of the film Dr Cawley confronts Teddy with his version of Teddy's true reality. Plato and in this case Scorsese are questioning the prisoner and Teddy's newfound awareness of his own knowledge. Would they want to return to the formerly accepted reality? Socrates in discussions on the Cave Allegory and it appears Scorsese agree that the prisoner (Teddy) would rather suffer any fate than return to his previous life and understanding or lack thereof.
If we are to read the film in these terms, we could deduce that in the final scene of the film Teddy has accepted the true reality of his past but continues to present himself as having gone back into the cave of his previous reality (that is comfortable) to bring about consequences that will release him from living with the horror of the truth or so we think.
The final note of the film showing the shot of the lighthouse where originally Teddy believes Nazi style experiments and lobotomy's take place can be read as casting doubt on all we have seen so far.
The psychological meaning of lighthouses in dreams is said to symbolize guidance, helping you safely journey the stormy seas of the unconscious. Teddy heads to the lighthouse to find guidance and answers and it is here he is confronted by Dr Cawley with his final version of Teddy's reality. He presents himself as trying to guide Teddy out of his untrue reality. At the end of the film it appears that Scorsese is suggesting that Teddy is heading back to the lighthouse for the final solution to his "psychosis". Teddy's last words to his partner/psychiatrist are "is it better to live as a monster or die as a good man?" hinting at his awareness and acceptance of the truth and final escape from it. It could also suggest that what we thought was Teddy's untrue reality had a ring of truth about it. Is Teddy really about to be experimented on after all, was it all an elaborate trick, or is this just another red herring.
At times Shutter Island can come across as a little unsubtle but is this Scorsese or the DiCaprio character's unsubtly. I like to think it's the latter. Scorsese although a director not shy to throw in good measures of psychoanalytical, mythical and religious symbolism is far to adept a filmmaker not to be doing this deliberately. The broad strokes Scorsese uses can be read as Teddy Daniels imagination creating this vivid fantasy to mask his own "apparent" horrifying reality. Scorsese has delivered a thought provoking psychological drama that for all it's flaws at gets you thinking and wanting to revisit Shutter Island again in the search for answers.