The Remake of Memory: Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island and Pedro Almodovar's the Skin I Live

Vera Dika THE REMAKE OF MEMORY: MARTIN SCORSESe’S SHUTTER ISLAND AND PEDRO Almodovar’S THE The history of cinema has given us objectification of consciousness (2012), SKIN I notable representations of states of or with more contemporary theorist memory, delusion, hallucination, and Laura Mulvey (1975) who interpreted dream. Cinematic states of conscious- the whole of narrative cinema as the ness arise in early German Expression- objectification of male sexual desire, LIVE IN* ist and Surrealist films, such as in The especially in relationship to the repre- Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Das Cabinet sentation of women. But in our current des Dr. Caligari, Robert Wiene, 1920) cinematic era, one that arguably be- and Un Chien Andalou (Luis Buñuel, gins in the mid-1960s, or early 1970s, 1929). In Hollywood films there are and termed “postmodern” by the critic famous dream sequences, such as in Fredric Jameson (1983), a new form Spellbound (Alfred Hitchock, 1945), of “memory” begins to interject itself or re-creations of dream-like worlds, into the picture, or shall we say, into such as in the classic film noir, Laura the movie. That is, the viewer’s own (Otto Preminger, 1944), or renditions movie memories, not personal ones, of mad obsession, as in Frankenstein mind you, but cultural memories, ones (James Whale, 1931) or Dr. Jekyll and cued by cinematic elements strategi- Mr. Hyde (Rouben Mamoulian, 1931). cally re-created and recombined by the And in the US avant-garde film, works filmmakers. According to Jameson, this such as Maya Deren’s Meshes of the practice conflates past, present, and fu- Afternoon (1943), and Stan Brakhage’s ture, and puts our very understanding Anticipation of the Night (1958), cre- of history into jeopardy. ate metaphors on dream and percep- Jameson wrote his seminal essay on tive states. Film theory too addresses the cultural condition of postmodern- these concerns with early writings of ism in 1983, and foregrounded one of Hugo Munsterberg, for example, who its constituent features as “pastiche”, or saw the medium of film itself as an blank parody, a technique that affects JULY-DECEMBER 2014 L’ ATALANTE 43 NOTEBOOK · CINEPHILE DIRECTORS IN MODERN TIMES Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese, 2010) / Courtesy of Vértice 360º not only the story and the style of the they may allude, but most importantly, Andalou to Shutter Island, and, for the newer film, but also the “look and feel” to the cinematic strategies and concepts most part, the film Frankenstein to of the image. Since then, the features about the representation of conscious- The Skin I Live In. I have done so not that Jameson chose to address have ness that the directors now re-engage, to claim that Scorsese and Almodo- only become more pronounced in cul- augment, or challenge. var necessarily intend to engage their tural practice. The amount of copying, First to note is that Shutter Island and audiences in a “play” of reference for of “quoting”, “recycling”, “adapting”, The Skin I Live In give rise to cinematic its own sake. Rather, I am interested and “remaking” (Dika, 2003; Constan- memories that may vary among indi- in how the cinematic concerns of the tine Verevis, 2006), for example, as well vidual viewers. Shutter Island could re- older works, ones that had importantly as modes of physical recombination, call, for example, aspects of The Cabinet addressed questions of consciousness such as “sampling” and “remixing,” of Dr. Caligari or The Shining (Stanley and identity at the earlier part of the have intensified to almost all aspects of Kubrick, 1980) for some viewers, while 20th century, are now reformulated and cultural production, from films, to art, The Skin I Live In may reference Frank- re-imagined in the newer films2. to music, to social media (Fowler, 2012; enstein or Eyes Without a Face (Georges Shutter Island is adapted from a 2003 Laederman and Westrup, 2014). These Franju, 1960)1. This quality of variance novel by Dennis Lehane. The result- often varied works, however, must be has been a feature of postmodern pas- ing film bears an interesting relation- looked at within their historical and tiche from the beginning. For Jameson, ship to (at least) two films from cinema aesthetic contexts. As I have argued the quoted elements were both “al- history, primarily because of the way elsewhere (Dika, 2003), an approach to lusive” and “elusive,” often aiding the Shutter Island puts the subjectivity of such a broad-based topic is to look at films’ sense of “nostalgia” in their abil- the viewer into question. In the Ger- individual practices that provide signif- ity to span past works and eras. It is man Expressionist film The Cabinet of icant creative possibilities within the this referencing of past historical time Dr. Caligari by Robert Wiene, for exam- current tendency. In this essay, I will that is now especially interesting since ple, and in Shutter Island, the viewer is look at the work of Martin Scorsese and Shutter Island and The Skin I Live In are immersed in a world where the verac- Pedro Almodovar, two veteran film- also narratively structured as temporal ity of depicted events is held in suspen- makers whose works have previously and visual labyrinths, using the film sion3. And because of Shutter Island’s submitted to the thematic, stylistic, medium’s enhanced ability to traverse visual and aural associative structure, generic, or iconographic reference to time and space through digital editing, one that so privileges the dream mecha- past cinema history. I will be discuss- and to construct a potent visual surface nisms of “condensation” and “displace- ing Scorsese’s Shutter Island (2010) and through the reality-altering abilities of ment” (Freud, 2011) —of sensory meta- Almodovars’s the Skin I Live In (2011), computer-generated technology. In this phor and metonymy— it begs at least not only in relationship to earlier films essay I have selected to compare The some comparison to the Surrealist film about states of consciousness to which Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Un Chein Un Chien Andalou by Luis Buñuel and 44 L’ ATALANTE JULY-DECEMBER 2014 THE REMAKE OF MEMORY: MARTIN SCORSESe’S SHUTTER ISLAND AND PEDRO Almodovar’S THE SKIN I LIVE IN Salvador Dali. In both the newer and ducted there as part of a government ing sequence of Shutter Island, the older films we are entering cinematic conspiracy. Teddy traverses the space more standard cues to a subjective vi- worlds where the tension between real of the asylum, in search of Rachel, and sion are removed. From the beginning, and imagination, memory or halluci- in search of “truth”, until he reaches we assume we are watching a series of nation, past and present are of central the lighthouse, only to confront his events from an objective perspective. importance. own truth. Here elements congeal in And even over the course of the film, The dissimilarities between the his- Shutter Island to refer to a Cabinet of when dreams or flashbacks are openly torical films and Shutter Island also Dr. Caligari type plot. The psychiatrist, cued from Teddy’s perspective, we do abound. One of the most obvious that Dr. Cawley (recalling Dr. Caligari), tells not initially realize that they are imbed- must quickly be addressed is the dif- Teddy that it is he, Teddy, who is the ded in an elaborate overall structure of ferent political and formal status of the mental patient. The doctor says that it Teddy’s delusions and hallucinations. works. For example, we We, along with Teddy, must not confuse the his- are locked inside his con- torical placement of The The tactic of combing computer- sciousness, seeing from Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and his “point of view”, one Un Chien Andalou, espe- enhanced images with natural that slides across states of cially their inter-war Eu- elements, however, is not always actual perceptions, across ropean setting, their radi- to dreams, memory, delu- cal aspirations, and their clearly distinguishable in Shutter sions and hallucinations. highly disruptive form, Island. Instead it further serves to If we look more closely with that of Shutter Island. at the opening sequence Scorsese’s film is defini- expressionistically create a feeling of Shutter Island, for ex- tively a work of US popu- ample, we come to realize lar culture, and not part of of unease through the tortured that all was not as “nor- the avant-garde. But this environments it creates mal” or “objective” as we is precisely the point. Our had originally expected. interest will be to note We can find hints, visual, which significant cinematic strategies is Teddy who killed his wife because aural, and dialogue cues that on a sec- have been selected from the past works, she drowned their three children, and ond viewing become more evident. which concepts have been sustained, Teddy who imagined the “scenario” we Teddy is clearly agitated in this open- and which still function in important have been watching. All has been a de- ing sequence, making reference to his and challenging ways. We can begin lusion, or more properly, because film physical and mental upheaval, and al- by discussing Shutter Island in the vari- is a visual medium, a hallucination. It is luding to the disturbance that “water” ance of its references and connotations. Teddy who must now be lobotomized. causes him, and later, the disconcerting Shutter Island can in some ways be It is Teddy who is insane. Or is he? presence of “fire”. Both of these are sym- seen as a detective film. This is certainly While there is a narrative similar- bolic allusions to the trauma of Teddy’s the way it begins, and because of the ity between Shutter Island and The children’s death by “water”, by down- costumes and early 1950s era, it might Cabinet of Dr, Caligari, it is perhaps the ing, and the gun Teddy “fired” in kill- even give rise to a film noir4 mood.

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