Distant Relatives: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Shutter Island

Robert here, with my series Distant Relatives, where we look at two films, (one classic, one modern) related through a common theme and ask what their similarities and differences can tell us about the evolution of cinema.  This week since both films deal with a twist ending, be warned there are definitely SPOILERS AHEAD

Madness

Audiences don’t much like engaging with a film, its characters, its plot and anticipating its outcome for two hours only to be told that the entire thing was untrue, a dream, the story of a crazy man, an elaborate roleplay. The two films we’re looking at today, though made ninety years apart do that exact thing. Clearly this is a cinematic convention that has stood the test of time.

In the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, a young man named Francis relates the story of a visiting carnival which brings the evil Dr. Caligari and his somnambulist slave to town. After a series of strange murders and the kidnapping of the young man’s betrothed Jane, Francis leads a posse and discovers that, surprise surprise, Dr. Caligari is the mad director of an asylum, and that his catatonic servant are behind it all. Shutter Island follows two U.S. Marshalls, Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his new partner Chuck, sent to a hospital for the criminally insane to investigate a disappearance. As their investigation goes deeper and deeper Teddy begins to suspect a deeper plot involving the hospital’s head psychiatrist, the disappeared Rachel Solondo and Andrew Laeddis, the man who killed his wife.

Unreliable narrators

Now for the twist. If you didn’t see it coming, both of our protagonists are in fact patients in their respective mental facilities. Francis has made up his entire story. Jane and the somnambulist are fellow patients. Dr. Calirgari is in fact the good director of the asylum. Teddy meanwhile isn’t Teddy at all. He is Andrew Laeddis. He killed his own wife. The entire investigation is a ruse attempting to jar him back into reality. It doesn’t quite work.

You’d be forgiven for seeing both twist endings coming for miles. Both films feature stories that become increasingly fantastic and highly expressionist production design that seems to be peace with the reality of the film at first, but eventually we wonder. Yet I’m not sure that the purpose of these films is a cheap trick twist. We logically recognize that films are fake, actors and props on a set. Yet we accept it as a reality that plays beyond the limits of the film. We consider pasts and futures for characters, motivations, inner thoughts. There’s something uncomfortable about movies that tell us explicitly that they’re fake.

The mind’s eye

The significant difference between these two movies may be the process by which they do this. Shutter Island makes little effort to cover up the fact that the “surprise” is coming. This in turn turned off a lot of viewers who anticipated the reveal, and took the falsehood of what they were witnessing as a sign that their emotional involvement was for naught. It’s an understandable reaction. Who wants to put their time and emotional effort into something untrue? The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari strings the audience along with more determination. The reveal that the entire plot is the invention of Francis is more likely to be a surprise and more likely to be received with delight (though this isn’t always the case).

Yet, as the film that spends more time winking at the audience with it’s own artificiality, Shutter Island contains more reality than Dr. Caligari. The events (or at least most of the events) in Shutter Island actually happen. It’s simply the perception of Marshall Teddy that is false, leaving us less clear as to what plot points his mind has manufactured and which are objective reality than Francis’s tale which is entirely concocted and untrue. Both of the protagonists in these stories create realities where they are heroes instead of madmen, and thus both lean toward a question asked frequently in such fantasy films (and DiCaprio’s other movie of 2010): Is a pleasant fantasy better than a troubling reality? Is it really wrong if we don’t know the difference?

So too can it be said of the movies. We allow ourselves to experience reality vicariously through characters we know are false but don’t want to believe are false. Teddy and Francis would rather be great than recognize that they are in fact powerless, ordinary, and flawed. When their films admit that they are in fact all those things, are we vicariously forced to admit that we are too?

Mix Tape: "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien" in Inception

Andreas from Pussy Goes Grrr here, with one more glance at memorable song choices as we anticipate tomorrow's festivities. Although it's only used sparingly, Édith Piaf's "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien" casts a long shadow over all of Inception. Its texture and meaning clash heavily with the unearned gravitas and reformatted action movie clichés of Christopher Nolan's film, as Piaf's voice introduces a cosmopolitan, plaintive humanity. Less than a minute of the song is used in all of Inception, but it sure sticks with you when you leave the theater.

Within the film, Cobb's team of expert dream-burglars uses "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien" in order to count down to the "kick"—in short, it's a glorified wake-up call wrapped in swaths of exposition. Whenever the dreamers are about to be woken up, it lets them know how much time is left to fulfill their objectives. So the song serves a neat plot purpose, like a flare gun being fired into the subconcious. (Even if those MP3 players do look a little too unwieldy to drag along on fast-paced mission.)

The song also creates a fun intertextual link to La Vie En Rose, since Marion Cotillard (Piaf herself) stars in both films, even though Nolan claims that he'd picked the song before she was cast. But more important than the song's actual function in the heist, or the Cotillard connection, is how Piaf's unapologetically emotional voice resounds across the epic vistas of Inception's shared dreams. It lends some pathos and strangeness to a film that's precise and diagrammatical, even when it's depicting warped gravity and collapsing buildings.

This is, after all, one of the most common (and valid) complaints about Inception: its dreams aren't even remotely dreamlike. If anything, they're the dreams of a British writer/director who fantasizes about clean gray suits, rainstorms, and shiny hotel plazas. The inclusion of "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien" is a step in the right direction, however, especially when it plays across multiple dream layers, with Piaf's throaty, melancholy voice echoing down staircases and snowy mountainsides. The juxtaposition of this song with these surroundings is unexpected and, if only briefly, makes these dreams seem mildly surreal.

The song's influence even reaches beyond its short appearances: as Hans Zimmer has admitted, it inspired the ominous, droning brass leitmotif ("BWAAA!") that's most closely identified with Inception's score. So although the film's visual sensibilities may lack any of the sloppiness or irregularity we associate with real-life dreams, at least its soundtrack is informed by Piaf's soulful, decidedly irrational belting. One final irony: that a song whose title translates loosely as "No, I regret nothing" should complement Leonardo DiCaprio's endless mourning for the wife he inadvertently killed. It's a dose of bittersweet humor, buried several layers down in a film that so sorely needs it.

Link in Sixty Seconds

Carpetbagger Oscar envelopes get a makeover. Er... it looks like McDonalds is handing out the prizes.
AV Club Michel Gondry is adapting Philip K Dick's Ubik. I predict that before the end of civilization every sentence Philip K Dick ever wrote will be put on the big screen.
The Wrap Adrianne Palicki will be TV's next Wonder Woman. I wish nothing but happiness and success for everyone who has ever been on Friday Night Lights. I do.
Just Jared another collaboration for Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio. They just won't stop!
i09 Zach Snyder's Superman may be in trouble.
fourfour "wagon wheel watusi" Oh, Burlesque.
My New Plaid Pants the moment I fell for.... Andrew Garfield
Scott Feinberg is still pushing Melissa Leo for the gold. Here are some statistics to consider.

Finally Empire Online is hosting a "Done in 60 Seconds" contest in which readers have submitted one minute films spoofing some of hte greatest movies of all time. There are 20 finalists, one is even made by a regular Film Experience reader (who alerted me to the contest -Congrats!). Quite a few of them show real ingenuity but my favorites are the ones that don't merely recreate but remold the film in some other image. There's a spoof of The Terminator that cleverly uses Toy Story characters. It obviously cost nothing but, then, neither did the original Terminator. Ghost is similarly lowfi with teddy bears but totally works and I loved the voicework even if it did seem to be taking its cue from those 30 second bunny films.  The Wizard of Oz short is really more of a redo of a trailer of a hugely popular 90s movie (I'll leave you to guess which one). And there's two Social Network films. One of them (contestant #9) is an amusing send up of Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher rather than the movie itself.

Did you like Benjamin Button? Do you wanna go back to that?

It totally had me giggling. The last musical cue is hilarious. So, that's the one I voted for. Are you going to vote?

On the Set: Leo & Jude

For no particular reason other than that I saw the photos back to back, two of the world's most familiar stars filming their new movies... all star movies at that.

Leo & Jude. Not in the same movie.

Which movie are you most looking forward to? Clint Eastwood's biopic taking on the fascinating  J.Edgar Hoover with stars Leonardo Dicaprio, Armie Hammer, Judi Dench, Naomi Watts and Josh Lucas OR Steven Soderbergh's CDC thriller Contagion starring an accidental Talented Mr Ripley reunion Jude Law + Gwyneth Paltrow + Matt Damon and a bunch of other stars, too: Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard, Jennifer Ehle, Laurence Fishburne and John Hawkes?

I realize that J. Edgar is claiming that it's a 2012 movie but we all know how fast Clint Eastwood works and he's already filming. I expect it in theaters this December.

20:10 Strangely Timed Vacation

Three years ago at the original blog, I created a series called 20:07 which became one of the most popular TFE features ever and spawned a slew of imitators 'round the web. Just for fun, let's resurrect that ol' champ for the remainder of Oscar season as we finish celebrating the films of 2010 so that a new film year can spring forth.

Screen capture: 20th minute and 10th second of Shutter Island

Chuck Aule: You're in a state of lockdown, a dangerous patient has escaped and you let her primary doctor leave? On vacation?

I love that Leonardo's expression is so play-acting at detective work. Like 'I might write down a clue at this very moment. I just might. I'm a detective!'  Isn't that perfect?

But about that doctor. Do you have the phone number for where he's gone? Do you have this film's number? (I'm guessing 2 as in Cinematography and Art Direction. Not that I need every conversation to be about Oscar.)