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Marty Does Auschwitz! Scorsese begins filming Holocaust flashbacks for ASHECLIFFE

March 8th, 2008 by Scott Marks

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Throughout his career, Martin Scorsese has granted mere mortals an audience with just about every shade of fazed degenerate known to man. We’ve seen dopers, buggerers, pool hall junkies, psychopaths, sociopaths, Christ-killers, mugs, thugs, pugs, Johnny Roast Beef, ear collectors, bad men hassling Michael Jackson on a train, and even an occasional swastika (most notably Charlie’s table-etching in Mean Streets). He is finally ready to make plain the cinema’s ultimate villain: Here is…the Nazi.

How felicitous of Marty to follow his long-delayed Oscar booby prize with a stopover at the Holocaust, one of the Academy’s favorite subjects. There had better be a lot of Max Cady in those goose-stepping goons! Based on Dennis Lehane’s novel Shutter Island, Ashecliffe takes place in a 1950s mental institution and contains flashbacks to a World War II death camp.

Massachusetts’ antiquated Whittenton Mills, the 175-year-old, 42-acre industrial complex that runs along Taunton’s Mill River, was transformed into a concentration camp on Friday as shooting began on the flashbacks. The filming will last through Tuesday.

According to Enterprise News, “There were Nazi soldiers sauntering around in full military attire. There were bald and bloodied concentration camp prisoners covering their tattered clothing with blankets to keep warm as they walked on and off the set.”

The Taunton Daily Gazette (I subscribe) gaged the delighted reactions of several Tauntonians. “I want to pull out the red carpet for them,” said Mayor Charles Crowley who met with Scorsese’s advanced team (Marty is too busy to personally attend to this nonsense) this past month to discuss the possibility of a Taunton shoot.

The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Michelle Williams, Ben Kingsley and Max Von Sydow. “These actors are at the top of their field,” Crowley said. “To have them in our midst, is something we can all admire.” The Mayor crowed over how the Scorsese valediction “will put the area on the map.”

David Murphy, managing partner of Hamilton Development Partners, LLC, the company who bought the mills property for $1.7 million in 2004, was pleased that most of the scenes at Whittenton Mills will be exterior shots, thus showing off his property’s appeal to tourists who bought the map that Mayor Crowley sold them.

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Martin Scorsese’s new film undergoes insane title change

January 25th, 2008 by Scott Marks

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All that work on TCM’s Val Lewton documentary seems to have inspired Marty. Is this current title change a small tribute to Lewton, the legendary RKO producer of such low budget, exceedingly intelligent thrillers as Cat People, The Leopard Man and I Walked With a Zombie?

Marty’s new film is based on Dennis Lehan’s Shutter Island. Much of the action takes place in a 1950’s insane asylum named Ashecliffe, which is now the film’s new title. In a four-year period (1942-1946) Lewton produced nine highly personal horror noir including one called Bedlam that takes place in London’s legendary mental institution.

Ashecliffe, whichs stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a U.S. Marshall investigating the disappearance of a murderess who escaped from a hospital for the criminally insane and is presumed to be hiding on the remote Shutter Island, begins principal photography in Massachusetts  this spring.

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