Martin Scorsese showed classic films to the Shutter Island cast and crew to teach them what he wanted his movie to be like. The 67-year-old director screened the old movies so they could get a feel of what they had to create.

“We saw Laura, Out of the Past and, of course, Vertigo - all these movies about obsessed detectives coming to terms with themselves through their investigations,” Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays lead character US Marshal Teddy Daniels in the movie, said. “He wanted a genre feel to the film, and wanted to be specific to this particular era. It’s almost like he’s accessing his dreams or something, the dreams being all those movies. They’re the memories coming back to him.”

Scorsese confirmed: “I love memory, I mean, I’m a preservationist.”

Discussing his motivation for taking the reigns on the film, Scorsese admitted he felt a connection with the lead character. “When I read the script. I was just taken by the character, I felt very empathetic with him,” he told The Scotsman.

Shutter Island - which marks the fourth time Scorsese has worked with DiCaprio - opened to $41 million at the box office last weekend, knocking romantic comedy Valentine’s Day out of the top spot.