The unwinding of the Empire magazine 20th Anniversary pearl necklace goes on and on with yet another exclusive revealed this afternoon. This time, they have a behind-the-scenes image of Martin Scorsese talking to Leonardo Di Caprio and Michelle Williams on the set - or more likely location - of Shutter Island. I’ve cropped off Leo in the picture above.

Empire atrribute descriptions of the film in their piece to both Mark Ruffalo and Scorsese himself. If that hype is to be believed, this will be one of Scorsese’s “great films.” Those quotes coming right up…

Mark Ruffalo, who plays one of Di Caprio’s fellow US Marshals:

This could be one of [Scorsese's] great films. He gets to do everything he loves about film: noir, dream sequences, suspense, tough urban stuff. It’s absolute madness, twist upon twist.

“Absolute madness.” And then Empire tell us:

Scorsese himself has likened the film to Orson Welles’ take on Kafka’s The Trial, or Hitchcock at his weirdest.

Or maybe Shock Corridor? That’s the vibe I’m getting.

Probably the most revealing information on the film so far came from a Cahiers du Cinema article last month (yep, it’s still going, no matter what Mike Nichols says) excerpting the on-set diary of Scorsese-shadow, Argentinean filmmaker Celine Murga.

Rope of Silicon scanned the magazine and posted the salient pages. Here’s one quote I found particularly fascinating:

We [Scorsese and Murga] talk about filming dreams, nightmares, hallucinations. The real of reverie. His idea is to film them as directly as possible, like they were real…

He tells me he thinks that for those who have dreams, or nightmares, or hallucinations, those things ARE real; which makes them even more terrifying. His intention is to convey ambiguity: it must not be asy to clearly distinguish between the real of the real and the realm of reverie. That, I think, places you more within the point of view of the main character, Teddy.

Many of his [Scorsese's] films tend to do that, to create deformed realities, which generate the sensation of nightmarish worlds. For many of his characters reality is a nightmare being lived out (Taxi Driver, After Hours).

This sounds incredibly interesting. I, for one, simply cannot wait to see what rattlebag of tricks Scorsese pulls to create these effects. Might be rather amusing. There’s a reasonable chance it will be truly shocking.

This Teddy to which Ms. Munga refers is Di Caprio’s character and it seems that he’s failing to keep purchase on saneworld in this film. Anybody who knows Lehane’s novel may care to chime in with an explanation below, but please do mark up spoilers clearly.