MK Themes in Shutter Island?

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

Just a Plum Island decoy from CIA-Hollywood.

The relocation of Plum Island's labs to Kansas has been the subject of contention for the last year or more. And anthrax was used there, too. And it was started with the help of a Project Paperclip Nazi war criminal.
Do those words mean anything to you? Hmm?

Hence the timing of the theatrical release and then DVD release of 'Shutter Island.'
..unless you believe compared2what's stock rant that words are random and thus have no psyops value...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/0 ... 01266.html

EPA Seeks Review Of Plum Island Animal Site

FRANK ELTMAN | 06/ 4/10 05:25 PM

GARDEN CITY, N.Y. — A federal review of the proposed sale of a remote island housing an animal disease laboratory must include a study of any impact lab testing had on the environment, as well as consideration of endangered bird species found there, two EPA officials said this week.

"Any potential contamination threats to public health and the environment associated with the existing disease research facility should also be evaluated along with appropriate remediation or removal actions," Environmental Protection Agency regional administrators Judith Enck and H. Curtis Spalding wrote in a June 2 letter provided by the EPA to The Associated Press.

Access to Plum Island, off New York's Long Island, is restricted to the approximately 300 scientists and support staff working at the lab, although officials have allowed the media and public officials to visit on various occasions. Audubon New York volunteers have also been provided access to do research on the bird population there.

The federal General Services Administration is conducting an environmental impact study of the island. The government is considering selling the island because it is planning to move its animal research operations to a new lab to be built in Manhattan, Kan. The EPA's two-page letter was submitted as part of the public comment process being conducted in advance of the proposed sale.

Plum Island scientists research pathogens like foot-and-mouth disease, which is highly contagious to livestock and could cause catastrophic economic losses and imperil the nation's food supply. In the early 1950s, there was research into the potential use of pathogens for biological warfare. Besides the laboratory, which has its own wastewater treatment plant, the island is home to a defunct U.S. Army base.

A former Plum Island administrator, retired Col. David Huxsoll, a veterinarian who served as the lab's director from 2000 to 2003, has said that anthrax was among the diseases studied at Plum Island.
.snip<

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

No, Plum Island themes in 'Shutter Island.'

http://www.amazon.com/Lab-257-Disturbin ... 0060011416

Lab 257: The Disturbing Story of the Government's Secret Plum Island Germ Laboratory

Amazon.com Review
That the United States government engaged in dangerous biological research during World War II will come as no surprise to Americans jaded by revelations of secret medical experiments and radiation exposures. But that the accident-plagued facility where it happened--and continues to happen--is just off the coast of Long Island may alarm many readers of Michael Christopher Carroll's Lab 257. Carroll, an attorney by trade, gamely takes on complex microbiology and shady government record-keeping in telling the story of Plum Island, home of the Animal Disease Center--no place for a casual picnic. The lab, initially set up by the Army to research ways of destroying Soviet farm animals (and to keep them from destroying ours), has often dealt with bacteria and viruses that can be passed from animals to humans. Carroll draws compelling causal links between Plum Island and the introduction of Lyme disease, West Nile virus, and duck enteritis, all non-native germs that wreaked sudden havoc in North America, and all germs that Plum Island scientists were allegedly working with. With hurricanes and terrorists on his mind, Carroll asks readers to imagine a scenario in which the Plum Island lab might release pathogens into the most densely populated area in the country. He ends the book with two chilling questions. First, does the United States need a research facility that investigates animal pathogens with potential for human transmission? Second, considering that Plum Island never had a particularly good safety record, is it the right place for such a facility? Lab 257, while occasionally veering into unsupported speculation, introduces key questions to the debate on biological security in the 21st century. --Therese Littleton
From Publishers Weekly
This strong first effort by New York lawyer Carroll centers on a U.S. government biological research center devoted to studying such exotic and virulent diseases as African swine fever, Rift Valley fever, foot-and-mouth disease and West Nile virus. Plum Island is quietly nestled a mere two miles off of Long Island, 85 miles from New York City, and Carroll argues convincingly that the island is dangerously insecure. Based on sedulous research into declassified government files and interviews with Plum Island scientists and employees, he offers clear and convincing evidence that Plum Island is rife with the potential for a catastrophic disaster eith?r from an accident or, equally frightening, terrorist action. Carroll raises two chilling questions: Is there a connection between Lyme disease and Plum Island research? (Old Lyme, Conn., the location of the disease's initial 1975 outbreak, is close to Plum Island.) And what about West Nile virus, which also suddenly appeared in close proximity to Plum Island? Carroll offers clear descriptions of the dangers inherent in studying deadly viruses that could infect untold numbers of humans, disrupt the food supply or cripple an entire industry—dangers heightened by a lack of even minimally adequate security. The author acknowledges that the times demand that the U.S. have a research facility like the one at Plum Island and ends this provocative book with a list of reasonable, well-conceived suggestions on how to make the research lab safe, or at least safer. Readers will hope that someone takes notice. 16 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW.

[Luther Blissett]

A theory was just shared with me last night that the character's true identity was Teddy, and that he actually was thoroughly brainwashed into believing that he had murdered his wife.

If this is the case, it'd actually make Shutter Island an attempted expose of MKULTRA/Paperclip type projects undertaken during the cold war.

This is evidenced by the Ruffalo character asking the DiCaprio character, "Are you sure, Teddy?" as Teddy is essentially volunteering for lobotomy, rather than his "real" (alter's) name. It's all done in an attempt to cover up the massacre carried out by US soldiers of captive German soldiers as Daschau.

Another clue is that, after it is revealed to Teddy by Rachel Solando that the cigarettes contain mind-altering drugs, he is offered one by the Kingsley character. When Teddy refuses one, Kingsley puts his cigarettes away and lights a pipe instead.

I really think Scorcese may have been trying to expose cold war mind control programs, but added the twist to keep the heat off (and added the double-twist for the thinking people).

[JackRiddler]

My girlfriend got it on DVD so I'll be seeing it again. I missed those two clues, Luther, just as you missed my suggesting the same theory a couple of pages ago. (Whine!)

[Luther Blissett]

My girlfriend got it on DVD so I'll be seeing it again. I missed those two clues, Luther, just as you missed my suggesting the same theory a couple of pages ago. (Whine!)

Oh man, sorry. Okay well I just found two new clues to support your theory.
I definitely want to watch this one again.

[Belligerent Savant]

.

Sounded great in the theatre [marvelous cinematography as well]

"I really think Scorcese may have been trying to expose cold war mind control programs, but added the twist to keep the heat off (and added the double-twist for the thinking people)."
-- I think you're on to something, after watching it a 2nd time..

[RocketMan]

I really think Scorcese may have been trying to expose cold war mind control programs, but added the twist to keep the heat off (and added the double-twist for the thinking people).

Or Lehane? Anyone here read the book? Is the plot identical?

I'm getting hopeful here, better give it another spin.

[Luther Blissett]

I really think Scorcese may have been trying to expose cold war mind control programs, but added the twist to keep the heat off (and added the double-twist for the thinking people).

Or Lehane? Anyone here read the book? Is the plot identical?

I'm getting hopeful here, better give it another spin.

Ah, right, Scorcese didn't write the story. I'd trust Lehane even moreso. But if anyone has actually read the book (I haven't), I'd be curious as to their insight.

[JackRiddler]

I hereby forbid anyone from posting a wikipedia summary of Lehane.

I demand someone who read it, or else nothing.

- on behalf of Your High School English teacher, the one who mattered to you.

[JackRiddler]

Okay, just watched it again. Notes:

This is a pretty effective piece of film art, any way you slice it. Again, great cinematography, possibly Scorcese's best for visuals, and this from the director of the "Copacabana" shot in Goodfellas. And at the same time very willing to be exploitative, no doubt about it. I mean, the corpses of people in the frozen mud at Dachau start making sad speeches, you know what I'm saying? It's nothing you'd expect anyone to pull off without enraging you, even Scorcese, but he just manages it. First thing that occurred to me when the Dachau scenes came (and this was mildly embarrassing for someone who's actually written a World War II book to realize I missed it the first time) is that Dachau is in a suburb of Munich and therefore liberated in the last days of the war, just before the unconditional surrender. So there weren't no snow there in late April. And 1945 was a historically beautiful summer. Nevertheless, according to either reading of the film Teddy/Andrew was present at the liberation and later became a real marshall, or so the doctors told him. Whether or not the massacre of the SS soldiers happened (it didn't in reality -- unless something's been very well covered up -- any more than the snow). So that's a lot of artistic license there. Of course these were dream-hallucination sequences.

A second viewing makes the straight reading of the movie seem the more supportable, but it's also obvious that the film intentionally facilitates either reading. Chuck/Dr. Shaheen keeps giving these knowing glances that could be directed at either, Teddy or Dr. Macawley. Any time Dr. Shaheen is mentioned, there is a cut to Chuck, but he doesn't betray anything for sure. The editing constantly leaves up in the air whether something really happened (like the Real/Hallucinated Dr. Salando). Either way Teddy/Andrew was an alcoholic since the war and his wife died in a traumatizing way, and even in the alt reading maybe he's really been on the island for two years and they've been working him over the whole time.

I decided that the straight reading is not a trivialization or a denial of MK and Paperclip, but that these things are acknowledged as real in the film's universe in either reading, whether or not they're happening on this island. In the straight reading the Von Sydow character still comes across as a resettled Nazi doctor who considers his patients as no better than cattle and fair game for experimentation, and the Warden's still his American might-makes-right counterpart. In the straight reading, it's still a world gone nightmarish, because the enlightened Kingsley character who wanted to try humane treatment is defeated and Buffalo Bill (the evil Warden, this time I recognized him as the serial killer from Silence of the Lambs!) and Dr. Nazi can hardly wait to break out the scalpels and tongs. Their way is the mainstream, which is dreadful even if they're not doing MK. The straight reading stil suffers from the implausibility of the role play as shown, i.e. the patients, guards and orderlies are all too good at their roles, the happenstances that drive the plot, like the storm, too well placed? (And what's with "Chuck" at several times encouraging his patient to be violent?) But that's a logical, retrospective objection -- the movie still works. And its real theme is not what's literally happening, either way, but How America Went Past the Hope of Sanity. Auschwitz, the Bomb, the hubris of omnipotence, the postwar social restoration and anti-communism, the presumptions of a scientific psychiatry that ignores its own rigid caste structure and reduces people to objects, the inability to absorb the technological transformations, all combine to herd the people into stifling, alienating nuclear-family boxes and drown them there.

[JackRiddler]

And since anagrams of the protagonist's name play a role...

http://wordsmith.org/anagram/anagram.cg ... t=1000&a=n

I like "Dawns Derailed"

[Luther Blissett]

Its real theme is not what's literally happening, either way, but How America Went Past the Hope of Sanity. Auschwitz, the Bomb, the hubris of omnipotence, the postwar social restoration and anti-communism, the presumptions of a scientific psychiatry that ignores its own rigid caste structure and reduces people to objects, the inability to absorb the technological transformations, all combine to herd the people into stifling, alienating nuclear-family boxes and drown them there.

Masterful conclusion.

[Peregrine]

I watched this with my cousin & my man last night & we had a really good discussion about government experiments on folks & systematic abuse. I think I'm going to have to watch it again, as I didn't get everything, we were so busy gabbing.

[jfshade]

A second viewing makes the straight reading of the movie seem the more supportable, but it's also obvious that the film intentionally facilitates either reading.

I think most people would choose Door #1 ("Andrew is Shutter Island inmate #67.") But both readings break down fatally for me. The straight reading fails, among other reasons, because it suggests that the staff - not to mention a bunch of criminally insane inmates - choreographed the charade that perfectly, and that the good doctors managed to script in a hurricane - arriving at the proper time and inflicting just the right amount of damage.

As for the alt reading, consider this bit of dialog when Teddy bursts in on Dr. Cawley in the lighthouse (paraphrased):
Dr. Cawley: "Why are you all wet, baby?"
Teddy: "What did you say?"
D.C.: "You heard what I said."
Teddy asked Dolores the exact same question when he got home and found her soaking wet, after she drowned the children. How would Dr. Cawley have known about that unless Andrew had told him?

Our protagonist can neither be Teddy nor Andrew; I rather like it that way. And I agree wholeheartedly with the comments about the cinematography and Robbie Robertson's brilliant soundtrack, which is worth getting to hear the full pieces, not just the snippets used in the film.

[The Consul]

It kind of reminded me of "A Beautiful Mind" another film that freaked me out because of the way it pulled the rug out from under the evil conspiracy tripod. Curses! Foiled again!
Shutter to me felt like an MK kind of work in and of itself, it toyed and teased us becoming a kind of prince of neucleotides of the mind but almost seemed, at the end, to say....okay okay we're just a movie, you knew we couldn't go there, all the way, right?...and pushes you back out into the sunshine and rain with a circus barker's poignant remindance, however obviously hollow, "back to the real world, back to life, back to sanity!"
Scorsese knows the backlots of Maya quite well. Many of his thematic openings are portrayals of unfolding chaos or impending violence. Foreboding is one of the chief aspects of his metier. Here we have a trip across the water that flips many a tarot card in the frame.
Charon. History is the dead and water is death and the journey is to consecrate through memory an act of meaning to it all in spite of the forces that shove us into the maw of which end of the slaughter we end up on. The film is ambiguous enough to have a conclusion that is informed by either your mood or whom you see it with or the type, quantity and quality of drugs you took. Can this illusion somehow be transcendental, or is it a coincidence between fear and reassurance? Is it really about how someone ELSE went insane, not Teddy...not you....not mee? Not, alas, our own military phamaceutical industrial entertainment complex? And of course for me the heebeejeebeez set in when I wondered if Dr. Crawley was a progressive aliteration to Aleister Crowley (born Theodore, derive to diminutive of Teddy).
At that point I had to scream at myself just shut up and watch the damned movie! I was okay until Leo/Teddy got in the jeep with Ted Levine. From then on it seemed a two note maddening knell hamered between psyche and viscera with the undercurrent truth being it does not matter what you think you know or what you believe you think.