Veronica Lake in a nightmare

Have you seen Shutter Island?

We are all a measure of our senses, what we see in something another might not.  What transfixes us, another can dismiss in a blink of the eye.  Our lives are full of the small things. 

Scorcese hits Film Noir with a Hitchcockian stick, in this 1950s-set drama of an asylum for the most violently insane or is it?  The island ferry horn that repeats and scores our deep senses, removing any alternate world beyond the screen, and removes the path off Shutter Island.

There is one scene, for which this film should be watched; a scene which I found visually mesmerising - the creative direction, production design and costume.  In the scene, Michelle Williams appears, with hair like Veronica Lake, wearing a sunny yellow 50s day dress against the grayness and only a distant sunset under thunder, she stands out like a beacon.  As the scene decomposes, her yellow silken hair begins to grease and drip and blood begins to permeate her skin, throwing us on the scent that tragedy pervades and haunts the protagonist's own device for being on the island.

    Shutter Island, 2010 - stills

Mid century on Etsy - get the look:

 

 vtg-50s-cream-and-mint-green-floral-day

japanese-cherrymid+centuryvintage 
perfect drape fabric