And...... here's another blagged post from the tennis/other stuff blog, this time its Cape Fear (yes another Scorsese movie, one after the other, how about that??) the Martin Scorsese 1991 remake of the 1962 original. So let's gie it a looksee......
The film starts with Max Cady (Robert De Niro), a
convict who has just been released from prison afer serving 14 years
for rape, seeks out his lawyer Sam Bowden (Nick Nolte) and looks for
revenge for Sam having put Cady away behind bars. Sam was his defence
lawyer at the time back in Atlana in 1977, but during the case, on
seeing what Cady did to his victim, a 16 year old girl, he decided to
bury a report that came back saying the girl was promiscuous. And had
Sam let this report be used, it might have seen Cady get off with a
lighter sentence or be released. Of course Cady has since caught on to
this, and that's his main reason he wants revenge, for the suffering and
pain he endured in prison. So Cady starts a series of incidents to
intimidate and get at Sam and his family, this starts with the Bowden's
dog being mysteriously poisoned. Cady also meets with a girl, Lori
(Illeana Douglas) who is a county court clerk, who works with Sam, whom
he has been seeing behind his wife's back. Cady although appears to hit
it off with Lori when they meet in a bar, he soon takes her back to his
apartment where he brutally beats and rapes her. On hearing of the
attack, Sam goes to hospital and talks to Lori, asking her to testify,
but she refuses as she knows how the system works, and she doesn't want
to explain herself to a jury in court about how she came to be in a bar
with Cady and so on.
After having no success with the
police, Sam decides to hire a private eye, Claude Kersek (Joe Don
Baker) to follow Cady and maybe catch him in the act, although
ultimately Cady makes Kersek at a local diner, and Kersek confronts him
and tells him to leave town, but Cady refuses. Meanwhile Cady
approaches Sam's daughter Danielle (Juliette Lewis) at school and tries
to charm her around in his favour, in doing so he puts his hand around
her, gets her to suck his thumb erotically, and he kisses her before
leaving, Dani then panics and runs off. Soon after Sam gets Kersek to
hire some guys to do a "hospital" job on Cady, involving two pieces of
pipe and a bicycle chain, however during the attack, Cady turns the
tables and viciously beats them. Cady then goes one better on Sam by
hiring a top lawyer Lee Heller (Gregory Peck), who Sam shortly after the
botched attack approaches to make an injunction on Cady, only to find
that he was pipped to the post by his enemy. In court it is revealed
that Cady recorded a conversation between himself and Sam, as Sam
threatened Cady to leave town or he will be hurting like he never
dreamed. As a result of the hearing, Cady gets a restraining order
filed against Sam, and Lee petitions the ABA (American Bar Association)
ethics comission to have Sam disbarred.
Sam now
desparate turns to Kersek for help in trying to capture and kill Cady,
Kersek suggests that Sam fake his flight out to his hearing, and instead
steakout in the Bowden household for Cady to come in. However Cady is
one step ahead again, and mysteriously makes his way into the house
where he kills Kersek and the house maid Graciella (Zully Montero) by
garroting them with piano wire (which he had taken from the Bowden's
piano, also mysteriously! What is this guy??? A ninja???! ;-). Sam and
his family then decide to flee to their houseboat and travel up to Cape
Fear in hope of escaping Cady. However tenacious as ever, Cady follows
them to their location by strapping himself to the chassis of the
Bowdens' car. And soon enough on the houseboat, Cady confronts them for
the last time, intent on exacting his full revenge on Sam and his
family.
Most remakes of course fall flat on their
face, but thankfully Cape Fear isn't one of them, with Martin Scorsese
at the directorial helm, it certainly wouldn't do that. I also actually
prefer it to the original version, as I think the Bowden family in the
original version of Cape Fear where a bit too goody goody and clean
cut. In the remake, they are a dysfunctional family, who have tried to
make some amends, but Sam has had a past history of womanising, Leigh of
course is the frustrated housewife and Dani is the shellshocked, lonely
teenager. It doesn't make for a particularly happy image of the
American family, but it certainly makes it more interesting to watch
than a clean cut cardboard cut out family. What doesn't change so much
of course is the depiction of Max Cady, as Robert De Niro plays in an
not entirely similar but not disimilar way to Robert Mitchum, although
Scorsese did say he use Mitchum's character from the Night of the Hunter
as more of an influence. As Cady in the remake is more like a demented
preacher at times than just an ex-con, and he regularly quotes passages
from the bible to Sam in their various meetings. And by the end of the
film Cady in his last moments (PLOT SPOILERSS ABOUND!!!) as he is about
drown, with his leg handcuffed (or legcuffed??) to a part of the
Bowden's crushed boat, he still babbles on, speaking in tongues, saying
he will be "bound for the promised land". Its the ultimate irony, that
in Cady's eyes that he thinks he is some sort of angel sent to do God's
work, and at the end of it all, he thinks he will go to heaven, despite
his brutal violent nature. Although if you think about it, in a strange
way Cady was trying to save Sam from himself, with Lori for example, he
exposed the fact he was seeing Lori behind his wife's back. If Cady
hadn't intervened, Sam's deception no doubt would have carried on, but
its almost like Cady is the moral adjudacator who prevents it from
carrying on. It leads onto that bizzare but true line from Cady to Sam
at one point when he says "You could say I'm here to save you".
Performance
wise of course there is plenty to like about Cape Fear, Robert De Niro plays Max Cady as being charismatic, charming, devious and incredibly evil, and he is both funny and chilling at the same time. De Niro also get's some great dialogue as Cady, one of the my favourite lines is where he receives a threat from Sam to leave town and Cady replies "well I was thinking of relocating to somewhere where I would be more welcome. California perhaps, I could teach earthquake preparedness!". Nick Nolte is
very good as Sam Bowden, who is tormented by Cady right from the start,
and at the start you are somewhat wary of his potential womanising ways,
although he doesn't actually do anything with Lori other than play
squash. Jessica Lange is also fine as Leigh Bowden, Sam's long
suffering wife, who at first appears to be on good terms with her
husband, until Cady comes into their lives and turns them upside down.
Joe Don Baker also gives probably my favourite performance of the film
as Kersek, the private investigator, who is quite cocky and self assured
in his ability to catch Cady, he also delivers most of the film's best
dialogue such as "I'm sorry about that, Sam, that son of a bitch could
survive a pre-emptive nuclear strike!!". And finally there is Juliette
Lewis as Dani, which was her debut performance, and she is very
impressive in the film, as she plays Danielle with a certain quirkiness
and innocence. But she is of course very much alone in her life, and
she in unable to deal with her parents when they continually row with
one another. She also shares with De Niro one of the film's best scenes
where Dani and Cady meet in the school theatre, where they discuss
books such as Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, the pitfalls of adulthood
and Cady almost tries to turn Dani against her father and nearly
succeeds.
One thing however that does bug me it has to be said about the film though, and its not exactly a strict flaw, but it is something that should be pointed out is this..... get ready.... ok its no that exciting really. No, but to get to the point, its where Cady files a restraining order against Sam, and in the order Sam is not allowed to come within 500 yards of Cady. But regardless of this Cady still relentlessly persues Sam in his house and to their house boat on the river, so isn't he violating the conditions of his own restraining order by doing this???? As near the end of the film where Sam and Cady have their final fight on the shore of the river, and Sam hits Cady with a rock, Cady laughs dementedly and says "you forget about that restraining order, counsellor??? You're well within 500 yards!!". But Sam has spent all that time trying to get away from Cady, so obviously he isn't violating the restraining, its the other way round! But at this point all logic goes out the window, and it is a Hollywood film after all! Anyway its a small point, but an amusing one which I thought I'd like to make.
Anyway moving in terms of direction, Scorsese himself provides a great relentless
pace and he employs the use of many quick cuts and close ups, to convey
the frantic nature of the film, and the anxiety the Bowdens are going
through. Although he probably does overuse the negatives when we see for
example Leigh lie in bed post coitius with Sam, and we see her nasal
hair in the negative image! But overall its another great technical
film from Scorsese and you would expect nothing less. And
finally a little bit about the score, which of course was orignally
composed by the late great Bernard Herrmann, which was re-orchestrated
by Elmer Bernstein who does a terrific job with Hermann's already great
score, and there are plenty of great passages in there to choose from.
Sooooo that's it for Cape Fear, which is a very worthy remake and if you haven't seen it, its definitely worth a watch.
And that'll do it for now, more stuff to follow soon.
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