CAPE FEAR
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1991 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: How can you go wrong with a crime thriller directed by Martin Scorsese, photographed by Freddie Francis, with credits by Saul Bass and a score (virtually) by Bernard Herrmann? You do it by trying too hard to make the ultimate thriller and taking things just too far. Had this film been tied up twenty minutes earlier, it would have been rated better than a low +2 (-4 to +4).
There seem to be a lot of different groups who were involved with making CAPE FEAR. There was Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment, there was Cappa Films, and there was Tribeca Productions. Martin Scorsese directed. But somehow at the heart of this film is Steven Spielberg. Though his name appears no place in the credits, what is good about this film and what is bad about it has Spielberg's name written all over it. Spielberg seems intent on going from one genre to another making the ultimate film of that genre and then overpowering it with excess. What 1941 was to wartime comedies, what RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK was to action adventures, what POLTERGEIST was to the ghost story, that is what CAPE FEAR is to the crime-suspense film. This was supposed to be a tense suspense film in the tradition of NIGHT OF THE HUNTER and the original CAPE FEAR. And it succeeds beautifully. Robert DeNiro's Max Cady is a brilliant and implacable stalker. For maybe eighty or ninety minutes, this is one of the great suspense films. Then some place--I'd say it is a trick Cady is able to pull off with a belt--CAPE FEAR crosses the line from tense but realistic film into monster movie. And if a monster movie has tension at all, it is a different kind of tension. From that point on, the identification value is gone and the viewer just watches two opposing forces chew away at each other. This is one film where less would have certainly been more.
Fourteen years ago public defender Sam Bowden (played by Nick Nolte) intentionally hid evidence that could have freed his illiterate client Max Cady. He had known his client was guilty of rape and did not want to see Cady go free. Sent to prison for fourteen years, Cady taught himself to read, then educated himself to understand the law. He also built his body into a tower of strength. And once he learned of his lawyer's betrayal, he dedicated himself to making Bowden pay for hiding evidence. In fourteen years, Cady has made himself a supreme strategist preparing for the war with Bowden that Cady knew was coming. Cady's attacks will tear apart Bowden's family life and will destroy Bowden's career. While Sam Bowden flounders to find the best way to defend himself, Cady will make one brilliantly considered move after another.
Robert DeNiro's Max Cady is an excellent screen villain. Behind the hair slicked back with black grease and the big obnoxious cigar is the agile mind of a chess master. He can be vicious like a force of nature or he can be seductive like a snake. In the longest scene of the film he turns his seductive power on fifteen-year-old Danielle Bowden. This is a particularly powerful and disturbing scene. It is the centerpiece of the film and it shows how Cady manages to turn every human frailty to his advantage.
Another example of the excesses of this film, incidentally, are Cady's religious tattoos. A nice touch from NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (and perhaps from the original CAPE FEAR--I do not remember) is that Robert Mitchum covers his psychotic behavior with a veneer of fundamentalist religious piety. We are never really sure whether or not he really believes his viciousness is fulfilling God's will. However, he takes the piety to the point that he has tattooed himself with religious messages. In this film, DeNiro's Cady has the same religious fervor and has become a veritable illustrated man, with more than a dozen religious tattoos.
This is a film that spared little expense to create its effects. On top of a good cast--Robert DeNiro, Nick Nolte, Jessica Lange, and Joe Don Baker--the film throws in cameos of three actors from the original film-- Robert Mitchum, Gregory Peck, and Martin Balsam.
Technical credits are equally well cast. Title sequences are done by Saul Bass. For those unaware, Bass really pioneered the idea of making the titles into films that stand on their own and comment on the rest of the film. Many of the classic films that had striking credit sequences show his work. These include AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY DAYS, VERTIGO, THE BIG COUNTRY, ANATOMY OF A MURDER, NORTH BY NORTHWEST, and NINE HOURS TO RAMA. The tension and the bizarre visual effects start in the opening credits, which are superbly crafted by Bass.
From there the visuals are carried by Freddie Francis--also one of the greats in his field, moody photography. Francis's work includes THE INNOCENTS, THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN, THE ELEPHANT MAN, and DUNE. This year he did THE MAN IN THE MOON. To have both Bass and Francis on the same film seems to indicate someone went out with a very large wallet and a determination to buy the best. The one visual out of place is the use of super-dramatic storm-cloud skies, uncharacteristic of Francis, but almost a trademark of Spielberg.
The original CAPE FEAR and many of the best of Alfred Hitchcock's thrillers had scores by the late Bernard Herrmann. Herrmann, of course, could not do this score, so Elmer Bernstein was hired to rework Herrmann's original themes from the first CAPE FEAR and in general to write in Herrmann's style. So one more expensive but tasteful decision was made. The new CAPE FEAR essentially has a Bernard Herrmann score, full of the master's dramatic dissonances, even if Herrmann was not around to write it.
Of all the choices of who would work on the film, the only one that was really questionable is Martin Scorsese to direct. And it may have been the biggest mistake. Scorsese's forte is realistic crime. His one foray into horror fantasy, AFTER HOURS, works mostly because it needed exactly what Scorsese could give it: a feel of realism. Here that same feeling of realism stands him in good stead as long as it can, but when Cady crosses the line into monster and super-villain, Scorsese has mothing more to contribute. The film goes into auto-pilot and Scorsese just films his scenes. The film shows Freddie Francis's art but loses any Scorsese feel. One more reason that the last part of the film was ill-considered.
CAPE FEAR is a very good thriller that saves almost all of its mistakes for the last part of the film. I would give it a low +2 on the -2 to +2 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
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