The biggest one would probably be the woman writing "RUN" in his notebook. If he were actually an inmate there for the last 2 years, would she have written that? She seemed relatively lucid, perhaps she knew that they'd try and make him look (and believe he was) crazy if he stuck around.
When he met the Doctor in the cave, was that whole thing imagined or hallucinated? If not, that points to the conspiracy.
Did the last shot of the lighthouse imply (as I think it did) that they were taking him there to perform their diabolical experiments/lobotomy/etc. on him?
Was that his cell he was looking at, and not Rachel's? Did he find the loose floorboard because he knew it was there? The slip of paper conveniently and the name being anagrams are kind of damning evidence.
If he really was prisoner 67 and the most dangerous person there, perhaps the other inmates wouldn't know him since he's been locked in cell block C, which would make the idea of them staging this whole thing a little less far-fetched.
I'm still uncertain what the right answer is.
I liked the movie though.
"It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant."- Barack Obama
Watch the movie again, the lady who wrote run was asked what Sheehan looks like and she quickly glances at the partner (Sheehan) then comments he is easy on the eyes. When they arrive by boat, it is apparent the guards are nervous about him being out. There were a number of other obvious clues snuck in to the story, when asked about Sheehan, many of the nurses and orderlies in the back glance the partners way as well. I read the book, so I was looking for the clues from the start. I am trying to remember the end of the book, I think it was pretty obvious he was a patient in the book, it was the movie that left it open ended, but I could just be getting old and forgetting.
It was a great movie, but that opening scene on the boat was awful. I am not sure if it was the lighting, background or what, but it looked like a Saturday Night Live Stage scene. I was thinking they ran out of money and had that shot left because the rest was quite nice.
When I was younger, I used to think that the world was doing it to me and that the world owes me some thing…When you're a teeny bopper, that's what you think. I'm 40 now, I don't think that anymore, because I found out it doesn't f--king work. One has to go through that. For the people who even bother to go through that, most assholes just accept what it is anyway and get on with it." - John Lennon
Ok after typing that about the beginning of the movie I looked to see what others thought and this interesting idea came up...
1. What did you think of the green-screen boat ride at the start? Why did Martin Scorcesse choose to do this in your mind?
I think this opening scene is among the strongest in the film, and Scorsese uses it to distance the island itself from the real world in our minds. Note that we never get an unfiltered view of the "real world" outside the asylum - our only information about reality beyond the walls of Ashecliffe comes from the (untrustworthy) memories and flashbacks of Teddy. This sequence is as close as we will get to authentic reality in the film, and the use of greenscreen and extreme angles to emphasize even its ambiguity and absurdity basically indicates that nothing we are about to see can be entirely trusted. (Also, from a purely aesthetic viewpoint, by starting the film on a small ship in choppy waters, with the main character vomiting, and with peculiar visual effects to make the environment somehow unrealistic and heightened, Scorsese puts us on edge from Minute 1 of the film. It's the first of many visual techniques he will use to make his audience feel uncomfortable or ill-at-ease throughout the movie, in an effort to subconsciously heighten the tension.)
When I was younger, I used to think that the world was doing it to me and that the world owes me some thing…When you're a teeny bopper, that's what you think. I'm 40 now, I don't think that anymore, because I found out it doesn't f--king work. One has to go through that. For the people who even bother to go through that, most assholes just accept what it is anyway and get on with it." - John Lennon
There are 2 really big reasons that stuck out to me for why he is sane.
If you remember the girl in the cave and that whole conversation was told to him to be a giant hallucination. During this conversation he was told about all the stuff done in the light tower especially the lobotomy, and more specifically how it was done using the ice pick through the eye socket. So if all of that is a hallucination, then how do you explain the guard walking up to him at the end with an ice pick in his hand? I'm assuming that they didn't bring back the lobotomized patients to Ward C to tell their tales.
Another thing was the boat scene, but not for what was shown. They said he regressed, but never said anything about having memory troubles. So they presumably take him out on the boat go in a circle and bring him back, yet he remembers none of this?
Some of the visual clues that all is not as it seems starts on the boat ride. On the windy deck of the ship, they are both smoking. The smoke is going straight up, no trace of wind. Their ties also betray the implied action of the boat. At one point, of of their ties blows against the supposed forward motion of the boat. So they probably just took him out on the boat close to the island's shore, enough for him to get seasick, as the water was probably getting turbulent with the oncoming storm.
When he met up with the escaped woman in the cave, and found out that she was really a doctor there, was that whole meeting just fabricated in his head?
"It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant."- Barack Obama
You know, that was the main question I had in both the movie and book version. I think it is entirely possible. Remember, he saw his partner at the bottom of the cliff and he was not there. He was going through withdrawl as well, which could have led to his visions. You are right though, that was the one thing I could not explain as well.
When I was younger, I used to think that the world was doing it to me and that the world owes me some thing…When you're a teeny bopper, that's what you think. I'm 40 now, I don't think that anymore, because I found out it doesn't f--king work. One has to go through that. For the people who even bother to go through that, most assholes just accept what it is anyway and get on with it." - John Lennon
