Saw Shutter Island and The Ghost Writer over last few weeks and I thought they were both great. The films have a lot in common and not just that they are both thrillers set on islands off the coast of Massachusetts that seem to get quite a bit of rain. Both directors, Scorsese and Polanski, seem to be haunted by the ghost of Alfred Hitchcock in these efforts. In fact I think I'd have a hard time being able to think of two films as suffused with Hitchcockian style. Scorsese has his actors deliver their lines in classic 1940s film noir staccato at times but tops that off with a touch of Kubrickian weirdness that seemed to me a bit of a tribute to The Shining, a film Mr. Scorsese recently named as one of his 10 best horror films of all time. I think it's fairly obvious too that there is a bit of Val Lewton thrown in as well as Scorsese gets all of his pent up homage stuff off his chest. Polanski plays it a bit straighter and closer to standard Hitchcock to the extent that you can pretty much play spot the reference, like "That reminds me of North by Northwest!" or "That could be right out of The Man Who Knew Too Much!"

Both films seem to have been adapted from novels specifically chosen for their pulp qualities and the filmmakers play that aspect of them for all it is worth. As is often the case with this kind of film the story itself is not as important as how it is told. The MacGuffins fly and red herrings flop about as you wander down dark alleys with the characters. The other aspect you will notice is the performances are carefully calibrated to enhance the telling of the tale and the feel of the film. All I can say is it is a heck of a lot of fun and a real throwback to...well...the 1950s and Alfred Hitchcock. As filmmakers go Scorsese and Polanski are like a couple of beer obsessed monks crafting the perfect brew off in the nether regions of their monastery...an incredible sense of detail to how things will look, feel, and taste. Interesting that they both turned out Hitchcockian thrillers at about the same time.