Trick the audience, and you can give them a show.
Most of the time the unusual editing is dismissed as nothing more than evidence of Teddy's dysfunction, but why are the cuts placed where they are and what do they represent to the story itself? Why are some scenes like the Noyce scene, which is supposed to be
real (since they have a transcript), littered with continuity jumps, and others like the cave scene, which is supposed to be
unreal, shot and edited traditionally? That goes against the facile explanation for the editing that claims that it simply represents Teddy/Andrew's broken mind. These are some points to consider.
The invisible glass is a negative hallucination. Negative hallucinations are associated with hypnosis. Broadly, this tells the viewer that there may be things affecting the action that we don't see because Teddy has been hypnotized not to see them. They could be doing things that affect Teddy in unintended ways, so it is unlikely that the doctors have 100% control over Teddy sensory experience. For example, Cawley suggests that Rachel evaporated though the walls. This suggestion didn't stick. Later, Cawley implies that Teddy thought he would find "Satanic OR's" in the lighthouse. Was this another suggestion he made that didn't stick? Teddy never considers supernatural explanations. Chuck seemed disappointed that Teddy didn't accept his suggestion that the music was Brahms, but when he asked Teddy if he was married and Teddy remembers Dolores, Chuck looked delighted even though he was apologizing for bringing it up. I think we get a spinning record, some jump cuts and out of sync dialogue, too.
One possibility that explains the invisible water glass is that water is a trigger for Teddy. Kearns asking for water could possibly trigger Teddy in a way they didn't want at that time, so he didn't see it. Or maybe there is a post hypnotic suggestion to prevent him being triggered when he sees something common and ubiquitous like water in a glass. There is also a phenomenon with migraines where part of the visual field disappears. Some of his perceptual anomalies could be migraine related. If you look a little deeper you can see that the film implies explanations without being explicit.
The water rings on the table when the glass switches hands lets us know that Teddy is experiencing missing time - things are happening that affect the action, but we don't see these things, because Teddy is having certain things wiped from his memory. Track the glass, and we can see that Kearns has put the glass down 2 or three times, which we don't see, and even had the glass refilled, which we never see. The shot where she changes hands is from her point of view, not Teddy's, so we are left to wonder if she, too, is experiencing missing time.
It looks like Chuck/Lester is the one in charge of the hypnotism - note his soft rhythmic voice, his efforts to establish trust, which is necessary for covert hypnosis, his regular use of the word "Boss" in particular, and when he clicks his lighter. There may be other things that indicate a trigger - I wonder about Cawley clapping his hands and asking "What's your poison?" Did that trigger something? Did that happen right before the flashbacks to the commandant's office?
There is even a famous psychologist hypnosis expert named Peter W.
Sheehan.
The conclusion that Teddy is "insane" does not mean that he has to be "insane" for the reasons we are told by the doctors. Teddy says in the lighthouse, "You are not going to make me think I'm crazy." But they most certainly were trying to make him think he was crazy, this we know, and what they were doing is the real life way to confuse a person about reality, not help them get in touch with reality. The "role-play" follows the formula for brainwashing.
Nothing in the movie rules out that the doctors weren't causing his symptoms with psychological stress, hypnosis, and probably drugs since we have no idea what drugs Teddy is given overtly or covertly. If he has really been there two years, then they have had a whole lot of time to mess with his head and make him crazy. We can't know what is true in the real world off the island, because that is never shown in the movie in a reliable way - Teddy could be mentally ill or the doctors could be lying. All we have are Teddy's memories, which can't be verified, and the doctors claims about "Andrew" that also can't be verified. Teddy's suspicions were by no means "impossible" as Cawley claims. In fact, the historical context tells us that the year 1954 (which may be the most reliable information in the film since it is shown in a title card at the beginning) was chosen because the government really was doing unethical mind control experiments on unwitting subjects in 1954.
Additionally, the so-called "ghost" agents, spies and assassins that the cave woman mentions weren't being created with drugs and lobotomies. She mislead Teddy. They were being created by inducing multiple personalities according to a military intelligence psychologist, George Estabrook. Multiple personalities are not associated with adult trauma as the doctors claim as the reason for "Andrew's" alter. The exception to this etiology is the possibility that multiple personalities were induced as a way to create spies and assassins who could be triggered to switch personalities on demand having no memory of the covert activities that the other personality was aware of.
http://www.whale.to/b/estabrooks_h.htmlNote that I'm not saying that Teddy is Teddy or that he didn't do the crime although there is actually no evidence of him being being Andrew or that he committed the lake crime (where is the crime scene picture of Dolores, for example, showing that she didn't die in the fire as Teddy believes?) - so the past remains ambiguous.
Maybe he is Andrew, and they did an experiment to relieve him of his traumatic memories by creating Teddy, the hero, but then didn't anticipate that he would try to be a hero by exposing their unethical experiments and becoming a subversive element in the controlled environment, so they were trying to put him back to the way he was. No matter what, the role play experiment is unethical even if they are ostensibly doing it to help him because it violates the Nuremberg Code. If this is the case Cawley's research would still have intelligence value, which would explain why the government was allowing him to get away with major ethical violations and extreme overstaffing.
He could also be Teddy just as he remembers who was lured the the island like Chuck says in the mausoleum. The "role-play" gave them time to break down his resistance - a step in brainwashing - and when he was to the point where he doubted his own mind, they were able to convince him he was Andrew.
For intelligence value, it would have been important that Teddy/Andrew be unable to remember what happened during the time he was the alter. If he was Andrew at the end, and submitted to the lobotomy to have his memory wiped, he clearly remembered being Teddy (since he was acting the Teddy character with Sheehan), and that would have been a failed experiment. It would also have been a failure if Teddy is Teddy because he knew what they were going to do as indicated by him getting up to meet Naerhing and the orderlies. He obviously knew what he had to do to avoid the lobotomy - be Andrew - which he would have forgotten if the experiment was successful (if this followed the same pattern as his other r
elapses). Or if he was really Teddy he could have been lying about believing he was Andrew so they would leave him alone. Or the missing time might represent him switching back to Andrew. While there may be an obvious superficial understanding, close viewing reveals many ambiguities that can lead to alternative interpretations.
I think that most of the discontinuity happens during the first half of the movie when Sheehan is around. It also appears that the first half sets-up the last half - like Teddy showing interest in the tower and the caves as Chuck clicked his lighter in his pocket - we can hear it. What about the person in the dayroom shouting "WHY??" This is reflected in the second half cave woman shouts "WHY" in the same way.
When we see the caves and the tower again in the second half, it's different - the same but not the same indicating a liminal shift. The first half of the movie has the spinning record visual 5 or 6 times, which I believe represents hypnosis. We hear two recordings in the dorm -
Cry, the number one record in the spring of 1952 when Dolores is said to have died, plays first in the green dream and then in the laundry with Trey, and Trey is playing
Wheel of Fortune when Teddy is showering before he slips out and blows up the car. Wheel of Fortune was the next number one record that year. It makes sense that these recordings would be associated with his traumatic memories of his wife.
Another most interesting way of inducing the trance is by means of the victrola record. The operator simply dictates his technique to the record, plays this back to the subject and the record will put the subject into hypnotism just as well as will the voice of the hypnotist. A very neat example of how little "will power," passes, and hypnotic eyes have to do with the trance. About as nonmystic a procedure as anyone could wish.
George Estabrook, 1943
http://www.lermanet.com/exit/hubbard-the-hypnotist7.htmI do think the editing, sound and visual elements are important to the overall story in a specific way and provide information beyond the superficial narrative. Scorsese himself admitted to editing in a way that some scenes could be taken two different ways. He has also said that when editors try to "fix" his editing he has had to tell them to put it back the way it was because "something happened there" - something that the audience isn't being shown. Just saying that unusual phenomena just means Teddy is "insane", doesn't explain why Scorsese made the specific choices he did. Plus hallucinations aren't associated with DID anyway. To really understand we have to look closely at the details that give information beyond what the superficial narrative.
So long to all my frenemies on IMDB! It's been ..uh.....
unreal.👽
Are they slow? Yeah, they're dead. They're all messed up.
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