American Exception
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Insanity is Catching: Shutter Island as Deep Political Meditation (AE206)
🕑 Added 2025-05-13 15:25:45 +0000 UTCAaron and Max Arvo discuss the 2010 Martin Scorsese film, Shutter Island. The film stars Leonardo DeCaprio and is based on a 2003 novel by Dennis Lehane. We recommend that people watch the film before listening since we don’t attempt to give any organized synopsis, nor do we avoid spoilers. Listen at your own risk!
Music: “Payroll” by Mock Orange
Special thanks to Dana Chavarria for producing the episode!!
Comments
Harold Nicol
I loved the psychological ambiguity of the contrasting ideas of whether Teddy is psychotic or the product of MK Ultra mind manipulation. The mood of the film, with the Gothic horror ambience of Shutter Island reflecting a mood of reality slipping into a conglomeration of disjointed images of impending madness. I love the final dialogue between Teddy and Chuck where Teddy comments on the options: To live as a monster or to die as a good man.
DC
This line from Aaron -- "The leaders of the west should be institutionalized and put in an insane asylum so that they don’t hurt people/the world/the human species, which they might wipe out in a day based on their own stupid miscalculations" -- made me think of Roger Waters' Fletcher Memorial Home for incurable tyrants and kings, and colonial wasters of life and limb. Last line of that song is a real banger in context. Any ideas on the lines about Seattle and Portland? Teddy insinuates from the beginning that Chuck is lying about being from Seattle and not Portland, and it comes up again later.
