Scorsese first came across Shutter Island when he read Laeta Kalogridis's screenplay, an adaptation of Dennis Lehane's best selling novel of the same name, which is set in 1954 in an America still suffering from post World War II trauma and paranoid about the perceived growing threat of communism.
DiCaprio plays Teddy Daniels, a US Marshal who travels to Shutter Island to probe the baffling disappearance of Rachel Solando (Mortimer), who has seemingly escaped from prison and is hiding out on the island. He also has a hidden agenda and believes that the methods used by doctors at the Ashecliffe Hospital, led by Dr John Cawley (Sir Ben Kingsley), may be part of a more sinister experiment. The disappearance of Solando gives him the perfect opportunity to dig deeper. But once there his own sanity is called into question.
Q: What came to you first, the script or the book?
A: I read the script first and then I read the book. And I liked the story, obviously, and I liked how it resolved itself. The main character goes on this incredible journey and it's about his acceptance of responsibility, how he handles his guilt and how he overcomes his violence ultimately. I was interested in what it's like to have such a life and the choices you make, the choices that you feel are better for yourself, but not necessarily for other people. I was also interested in the story of a man who can only take so much pain. I thought that was interesting.
Q: What were your influences that fed into the making of Shutter Island?
A: There were films that we looked at. The mood and tone of the Val Lewton (producer) films from the early 1940s are great. I showed I Walked With A Zombie and Cat People - terrible titles but great works of poetry. Both of these were produced by Lewton and directed by Jacques Tourneur and there's another Lewton picture, The Isle of the Dead, which is directed by Mark Robson, and is also very interesting. And certainly we looked at (Roman) Polanski's films - Cul-de-sac, Repulsion and the ultimate one of this kind, Rosemary's Baby. Even when you know the ending of Rosemary's Baby you can watch that film many, many times because it's fascinating to see how everybody is behaving. The actors are extraordinary and the way he shot it is brilliant - it's a film that keeps revealing itself through the behaviour of the characters. So that was a big one.
I showed Leo and Mark two films right away - Laura and Out of the Past. Actually, I showed them to Sir Ben Kingsley, too, and he hadn't seen them. At the end of Out of the Past, Leo started applauding and he said ‘I think that's the coolest movie I've ever seen..'
Q: Does the nature of your collaboration with Leonardo DiCaprio change over the years?
A: I don't think our collaboration necessarily changes over time. But it is getting more intense. This film was very difficult for Leo because there was so much to uncover and the more we did uncover the further there was to go. And we would try things we hadn't even thought of before, but it was really very complex. And Leo was so dedicated and for him it was like living in that world for so long.
Q: So it wasn't a good place to be?
A: No, it wasn't, no. That last night I remember we just looked at each other and I said ‘thank you' and we gave each other a big hug and that was it. We just left and went our separate way. I thanked the crew and that was it, I went home. And I didn't see anybody after that for like two months. Leo went away and then when he came back we were looping some scenes and he would look up at the screen and say ‘oh that scene - what a horrible day!' Or ‘I remember we went through hell on that day, f**k it!' And then another scene would come up and he would go ‘oh that was worse!" (laughs) And each scene that came up he would go ‘oh this was terrible..' Meaning that it was a hard day and all the agony, the vomiting (in one scene), the running through the forest, the this, the that, the everything. It was just very hard work. We hadn't anticipated it; we were like two novices going into this claustrophobic world. But he wasn't afraid to go there and he took it.
Q: Is there an element of all of your films? That making them is always tough?
A: Yeah, but other directors get it tough and they don't say anything. But me, I like to complain and that's part of the fun of it. It becomes like that Monty Python sketch, ‘we used to live in a corridor...' ‘We dreamed of living in a corridor!' But actually sometimes when it gets that tough it's really good because everybody pulls together. It was tough in another way on The Departed - we kept being knocked out of different locations, we had actors who were leaving all the time for different pictures and it was crazy. But the end result was great. There was one time on Shutter Island when I was actually rock climbing at 7.15 in the morning trying to find the right place for a shot. And I'm going ‘what the hell am I doing?' At a couple of points you get angry but at a certain point you think ‘well, how upset can I get?' You have to go on and you have to just do it. But this one was pretty interesting and pretty intense and for me, physically, it was hard work. Actually, for everyone it was hard work! (laughs). And you know, I think the complaining thing is part of it, it's part of the humour (laughs). It becomes part of the war stories from the movie. And you know there was a lot of wind and rain and people were really getting hit with it, and there was all this debris around, but I didn't get it too bad because I was in a little van, so I didn't get hit. They would ask for another take but the rain was so heavy it got to the point where they couldn't see each other. But you know, you accept the nature of it and you realise that's just what it is. But it was remarkable that in those last four, five weeks, all the decisions we made, the weather just went against us, so we always had to keep thinking of other scenes to shoot, jumping around. The actors had to be ready for anything and they were, it was great.
Q: You've had so much success. Do you see yourself at home in your slippers and retiring?
A: I'm always in my slippers, I'm never dressed, (laughs) I always have pyjamas and these slippers I have - that's it. No, you know I want to work. But the thing is - and I was thinking about this the other day - I've had like three times that my career was down and came back up again. This is the fourth, I guess. Not that I think of it that way, with The Departed we really just tried to make a great gangster film but I didn't think it was going to be a big financial success and be received the way it was. It was a damned good story and I loved the characters. It's the same with Shutter Island - it was a real challenge but I loved the story and the characters and I hope it does well. I certainly want to make more pictures. That's why I did the HBO pilot, shooting in 30 days. I haven't shot in 30 days in 30 years...
Q: Is the Frank Sinatra bio-pic still a possibility?
A: Yes it is. We've got a first draft script and I hope it will go soon. I'm also doing "Boardwalk Empire" for HBO, and documentaries on George Harrison and Fran Lebowitz.
SHUTTER ISLAND is now showing at Irish cinemas nationwide