Analysis of first 10 minutes of Shutter Island

Shutter Island

Analysis of the first 10 minutes

The opening of Shutter Island starts with the screen a bright white and you start to see a ship coming through the whiteness making it look like fog. It uses a wide shot of the ship in the sea surrounded by mist which makes the film from the start seem mysterious.

It cuts to a wide shot of a man crouched in a room allowing you to just see his body. You can see that the boat is swaying which makes you feel uneasy and starts to prepares you for what is to come in this type of thriller film. The main focus of the sound is of the man being sick, however there is music in the background which sounds mysterious. It cuts to a mid-close-up shot of the man standing up staring into the mirror with a cut above his eye. The shot is quite close to allow you to see his facial features specifically the cut. It automatically allows the audience to begin wondering what has happened to him.

Throughout this scene there is boat noises and him on the ship in a room. By the way he is acting it is clear he is suffering from motion sickness as from this medium shot you can see that he is suffering and his dialect, ‘It’s just water,’ suggests that he doesn’t really like water. His costume suggests that he is a detective or fbi as he is dressed in a smart suit with a gun on show. The boat seems empty as all you can hear is him and the boats horn.

It cuts to a long shot where you see the man in a small room at the end of the ship which is joined onto a large open spaced room with some shackles and hooks hanging from the ceiling. The focus is on the shackle nearest to the screen as the man in the background is blurry which means the film clearly wants you to notice the shackles on the roof. It makes the audience wonder what these are used for.



The chains are the ones in focus, making your
eyes see them first.



The focus changes to show everyting the same as
the man walks out of the room





 The camera then moves forward to reveal more chains and puts the focus on manual to allow the man and the chains to be seen clear.