Thriller Generic Conventions:

Shutter Island

Shutter Island is a psychological thriller based film; it uses typical generic conventions to emphasis the thriller sub genre. The narrative centres on crime when Leonardo DiCaprio played as Teddy Daniels is assigned to investigate the disappearance of a patient from Shutter Island. The film revolves around this crime however the audience see at the end, that the crime was hiding the fact that Teddy Daniels was mentally disordered.

 Near to the end of the film the protagonist (Teddy Daniels) is shown to be extremely fallible, this is when he discovers his illness which is explained by the doctor. Throughout the film Teddy is deceived, everyone knows he’s mentally ill yet they play along with the fake escape. Shutter Island shows scenes of the protagonist in danger, when solving the crime he shows signs of being in peril and vulnerable. Whats more, at the end of the film we discover that Dr. John Cawley, the antagonist,  was ensnaring against Teddy, the protagnist, from the start to the end. This is shown when Teddy feels isolated and helpless at the end.

Micro elements such as camerawork, sound, mise en scene etc these elements build up suspence and in this psychological thriller, to fool the audience. For instance the mise en scene element of costumes. Teddy and his side kick Chuck show appearances of professional detectives, therefore the audience believe the crime to be true, right? The lighting brings tension and change of situations. The sound creates the mood and atmosphere, relating to the genre thriller. Fast pumping music is used when action is on scene whereas slow moving music is used in calming mysterious scenes. Camerawork  such as the high angle pointing down to Teddy in the light house scene allows the audience to see that Teddy is the vulnerable one.

The main enigma of the narractive is that the character believes something to be true but its not, which is an example of doubling.  This is explained to the audience in the final conclusion. Themes of seeing optional illusions are common, which foreshadows the fact that Teddy is mental. Shutter Island has numerous generic conventions each making it the best thriller it can possibly be.