Textual Analysis – ‘Shutter Island’

The trailer begins with a notice message that appears at the start of every trailer. This reminds the audience that this trailer has been approved for appropriate audiences which means that the film has a 15 rating therefore this preview has been made for the appropriate audience of people 15 or over. It also includes the website names for the film rating organisation that decide on a film’s certificate rating and MPAA which stands for Motion Picture Association of America the head organisation of the American film industry. This is the kind of notice message we will include in our film trailer as notice messages like this come before the start of every trailer to alert the audience that only appropriate audiences should view this.

Also before the content from the film begins the trailer has the company name who produced this production. This is due to the fact that they produced and own this film and therefore they in this case paramount leave their trademark on anything to do with the product as they own it and have the rights to it. This is something we will include on our trailer as well as it is commonplace for institutions to leave their trademark on a trailer for a film and we plan to do the same.

One of the opening shots of the trailer shows the location in which the theme is set. The barbed wire and police guards connote the idea of confinement in a psychological thriller. It’s the typical narrative of a psychological thriller to introduce a dangerous and unsettling location as this puts the audience on edge. Also the camera shot also connotes the genre as the camera is angled to put the authority figure characters deliberately behind the bard wire to connote the fact that they are in danger and are heading into a treacherous location.

This shot coveys the psychological horror genre because it immediately disturbs and unsettles the audience with the idea of going into the unknown. Again this keeps sticks to the typical narrative structure of a psychological thriller as it introduces an unsafe location that the film is going to be set in. This immediately puts the characters in this film in a position of danger and beings to tease the disruption of the equilibrium according to Todorov’s theory that something may happen in this location to disrupt the equilibrium.

This shot conveys the psychological thriller genre because it will disturb the audience and put them on edge as to the backstory of this location and the characters in it. This shows that typical character types of a psychological thriller are in this movie as this is obviously a dangerous character who could provide a threat to the protagonist and according to Propp’s character theory you would assume that this is the villain or one the villains who could provide the disruption to the equilibrium according to Todorov’s narrative theory.

This shot coveys the psychological thriller genre because it conveys the idea of isolation and confinement plus the writing on the wall written in blood connotes danger and insanity. This shot helps to follow the typical narrative structure of a psychological thriller as it connotes the kind of disruption to the equilibrium that might have been caused according to Todorov’s theory that the protagonist or hero according to Propp’s character theory must overcome so that the equilibrium is reinstated.

This shot conveys the psychological thriller genre because it portrays the protagonist as the brave hero that’s trying to combat the danger and insanity around him. This is the kind of struggle scene according to Propp’s narrative theory that the hero must overcome for the state of disorder to be settled. This is also linked to Todorov’s narrative theory as this appears to be the protagonist attempting to repair the disruption to so that the equilibrium before the disruption can be restored.