Cape Fear (1991 film)

Cape Fear
Theatrical release poster by John Alvin.
Directed by	Martin Scorsese
Produced by	Barbara De Fina
Screenplay by	Wesley Strick
Based on	The Executioners by John D. MacDonald Cape Fear by James R. Webb
Starring	Robert De Niro Nick Nolte Juliette Lewis Jessica Lange Joe Don Baker Robert Mitchum Gregory Peck
Music by	Elmer Bernstein
Cinematography	Freddie Francis
Edited by	Thelma Schoonmaker
Production company	Amblin Entertainment Tribeca Productions Cappa Films
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release dates	November 13, 1991 (1991-11-13)
Running time	127 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$35 million
Box office	$182.3 millon

Cape Fear is a 1991 American psychological thriller film directed by Martin Scorsese and a remake of the 1962 film of the same name. It stars Robert De Niro, Nick Nolte, Jessica Lange, and Juliette Lewis, and features cameos from Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, and Martin Balsam, who all appeared in the 1962 original film.

The film tells the story of a convicted rapist who, using mostly his newfound knowledge of the law and its numerous loopholes, seeks vengeance against a former public defender whom he blames for his 14-year imprisonment due to purposefully faulty defense tactics used during his trial.

The film marks the seventh of eight collaborations between Scorsese and De Niro, following Mean Streets (1973), Taxi Driver (1976), New York, New York (1977), Raging Bull (1980), The King of Comedy (1983), Goodfellas (1990), and ending with Casino (1995).

The film received Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for Best Actor (De Niro) and Best Supporting Actress (Lewis).

Plot

Sam Bowden (Nick Nolte) is a lawyer in the quiet town of New Essex, North Carolina. Max Cady (Robert De Niro) is a former client whom Bowden defended 14 years earlier when he was working as a public defender in Atlanta. Cady was being tried for the violent rape and battery of a young woman. Bowden, appalled by Cady's crime, buried crucial evidence about the victim—that she was promiscuous—which might have lightened Cady's sentence or even secured his acquittal, violating his ethical and professional duty as a defense attorney. Cady was illiterate at the time and unaware of Bowden's actions. After his release from prison, Cady tracks down Bowden. The former convict learned to read and studied law in prison, and even assumed his own defense, unsuccessfully appealing his conviction several times. Cady hints strongly that he has learned about Bowden burying the report, stating that the judge and prosecutor in his case did their jobs while Bowden betrayed his own client.

Several incidents involving Cady begin to impact the Bowden family, which consists of Bowden's wife Leigh (Jessica Lange) and their teenage daughter Danielle (Juliette Lewis). Cady is seen at night perched on the wall just outside the Bowden property limits. The family dog, Ben, is mysteriously poisoned. Bowden attempts to have Cady arrested, but local police lieutenant Elgart (Robert Mitchum) reminds Bowden that there is no evidence Cady has committed any crime. At a bar, Cady meets Lori Davis (Illeana Douglas), a female colleague of Bowden with whom the latter may or may not be having a love affair. Later at her house, Cady cuffs her hands behind her back, breaks her arm, bites a chunk of flesh from her cheek, and brutally rapes her. While recuperating in the hospital, Lori refuses to press charges against Cady, fearful that her philandering and possible infidelity would be revealed. Bowden, finally having had enough, hires private investigator Claude Kersek (Joe Don Baker) to follow Cady. Cady next approaches Danielle at her school by impersonating her new drama teacher and goes as far as kissing her.

Bowden approaches Cady in a restaurant and gives him a firm warning to leave his family and him alone or suffer the consequences. Cady refuses to give in, and he secretly tapes the conversation with a recorder hidden under the table. Kersek eventually persuades Bowden to hire three men to beat Cady in an effort to intimidate him, but as Bowden watches from a hiding place, Cady quickly turns the tide on his attackers and viciously beats them. Cady hears Bowden from behind his hiding spot and steadily approaches him, intimidating him with psychotic ramblings and a literary quote, but decides to leave. Cady uses the recording of Bowden's threat and an exaggerated display of his own injuries to file for a restraining order against Bowden. Cady's new lawyer, Lee Heller (Gregory Peck), also files a complaint with the North Carolina State Bar, vowing to have Bowden disbarred.

Kersek reasons that Cady may try to enter the Bowden house during Bowden's appearance at a bar hearing out of town. They fake Bowden's departure and hide in the house, hoping that Cady will break in so that he can be shot in self-defense. As they wait, Cady, disguised as the maid Graciella (Zully Montero), attacks and kills Kersek in the kitchen before escaping. Bowden, Leigh, and Danielle discover his body, as well as that of Graciella. Horrified, they flee in their car to their house-boat, which is docked upstate along Cape Fear. Cady follows them by tying himself to the chassis of the Bowdens' car. That night, he attacks the family on the boat, beating and tying up Bowden, and prepares to rape both Leigh and Danielle while Bowden watches. Danielle reveals that she suspected that Cady is following her. When Leigh offers herself in Danielle's place, Danielle sprays Cady with lighter fluid while he lights a cigar, engulfing him in flames and causing him to jump off the boat to extinguish the fire. However, Cady clings to a rope tied to the boat and pulls himself back on board.

As the boat is rocked by a violent thunderstorm, a badly burned Cady ferociously confronts Bowden with a mock trial. Bowden finally admits to having buried the potentially exculpatory report, but counters that the woman's promiscuity was no justification to defend Cady's brutal rapes. An enraged Cady prepares to kill Bowden, but the storm, combined with the river's harsh current, knocks Cady off his feet, allowing Bowden to gain the upper hand once the women make it to shore. The two men fight furiously, until Bowden finally manages to use Cady's handcuffs to shackle Cady to the boat. When the boat hits a stationary rock and is destroyed, the fight continues on shore. There, Bowden almost manages to crush Cady's head with a large stone; however, a raging tide carries Cady away, as he is madly screaming in tongues. For a moment, Bowden and Cady stare at each other before the wreckage of the boat sinks and pulls Cady with it, drowning him in the process. Bowden then performs a cathartic washing of his blood from his hands before rejoining Leigh and Danielle further up the riverbank.

Cast

• Robert De Niro as Max Cady
• Nick Nolte as Sam Bowden
• Jessica Lange as Leigh Bowden
• Juliette Lewis as Danielle Bowden
• Joe Don Baker as Claude Kersek
• Robert Mitchum as Lt. Elgart
• Gregory Peck as Lee Heller
• Illeana Douglas as Lori Davis
• Fred Dalton Thompson as Tom Broadbent
• Zully Montero as Graciella
• Martin Balsam as Judge
• Charles Scorsese as Fruitstand Customer
• John Travolta is third soldier seen on 4th of July parade float

Production

The film was adapted by Wesley Strick from the original screenplay by James R. Webb, which was an adaptation from the novel The Executioners by John D. MacDonald.

It was originally developed by Steven Spielberg, who eventually decided it was too violent and traded it to Scorsese to get back Schindler's List, which Scorsese had decided not to make. Spielberg stayed on as a producer, through his Amblin Entertainment, but chose not to be credited personally on the finished film.

It was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Robert De Niro, who lost to Anthony Hopkins for The Silence of the Lambs) and Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Juliette Lewis, who lost to Mercedes Ruehl for The Fisher King).

Nick Nolte is taller than Robert De Niro, but for the movie, Nolte lost weight and De Niro developed muscles until De Niro appeared to be the stronger man. De Niro reportedly took his body fat down to four percent. De Niro also paid a doctor $20,000 to grind down his teeth for the role to give the character a more menacing look.

Although a remake of the original Cape Fear, Scorsese's update is also greatly influenced by another Mitchum-starring film, The Night of the Hunter, in which a religiously fanatical criminal has tattoos on his hands reading "Love and Hate"; Cady's body is tattooed with various biblical verses such as "vengeance is mine saith the Lord", and he tells Sam to read the Book of Job (in which the sins of the father will be visited upon the wife and daughter) and so on. Mirroring the long journey downriver in The Night of the Hunter as Mitchum follows the children is the voyage down Cape Fear River in the houseboat in Cape Fear.

The work of Alfred Hitchcock was also influential on the style of Cape Fear. As with the 1962 film version, where director J. Lee Thompson specifically acknowledged Hitchcock's influence, strove to use Hitchcock's style, and had Bernard Hermann write the score, Scorsese made his version in the Hitchcock manner, especially through the use of unusual camera angles, lighting and editing techniques. Additionally, Scorsese's version has opening credits designed by regular Hitchcock collaborator Saul Bass and the link to Hitchcock is cemented by the reuse of the original score by Bernard Herrmann), albeit reworked by Elmer Bernstein. The scene where Cady murders with the piano wire while dressed as the maid Graciella also recalls Hitchcock, specifically the psychosexual crossdressing in female clothing which forms a core theme of Hitchcock's Psycho (although here Cady merely uses the woman's clothing as a deceptive disguise).

Cady's character has educated himself while in prison regarding not just legal procedures, but also literature. In the scene where he lures Danielle to the drama theatre, he references Henry Miller's trilogy Nexus, Sexus, and Plexus, and later gives her a copy of one of these novels, which for Cady represent his point of view that the daughter is being controlled by her parents and should liberate herself. Danielle is reading Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward Angel and Cady is able to show his familiarity with its themes. Furthermore, during the scene in which Cady is beaten by three men hired by Kersek on Sam's behalf to put Cady in the hospital, he quotes a 17th-century writer, and in the final scenes on the house boat, Cady frequently refers to the Ninth Circle of Hell, representing Treachery - a concept derived from Dante's Divine Comedy, specifically from Dante's Inferno.

This is also the first film Scorsese shot in the wider 2.39:1 aspect ratio, as opposed to the smaller 1.85:1 ratio in which he had filmed all his previous works (excluding New York, New York, which was shot in 1.66:1).

Gregory Peck, Martin Balsam, and Robert Mitchum appear in supporting roles, Peck as Cady's lawyer, Balsam as the judge, and Mitchum as the police lieutenant who suggests to Bowden the possibility of using "alternative" means to stop Cady.

Reception

The film was a box-office success, making $182,291,969 worldwide on a $35 million budget.

The film received generally positive reviews by critics. It currently has a 76% "fresh" rating on the film aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, with an average score of 7.1 out of 10. Roger Ebert gave the film three stars, commenting: "Cape Fear is impressive moviemaking, showing Scorsese as a master of a traditional Hollywood genre who is able to mold it to his own themes and obsessions. But as I look at this $35 million movie with big stars, special effects and production values, I wonder whether it represents a good omen from the finest director now at work."

Awards nominations and honors

Robert De Niro was nominated for both the Academy Award for Best Actor and the Golden Globe for Best Actor – Drama. Juliette Lewis received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture. The film was nominated for the Golden Bear at the 42nd Berlin International Film Festival.

American Film Institute recognition:

• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes:
  • "Come out, come out, wherever you are!" – Nominated

Cultural references

The film was parodied in the 1993 Simpsons episode "Cape Feare", with Sideshow Bob in the role of Cady. They also pay homage to another Robert Mitchum film The Night of the Hunter in which Sideshow Bob's knuckles say "Love" (Luv) and "Hate" (Hat).

In 1995, professional wrestler Waylon Mercy made his WWE (then WWF) debut, with his gimmick based on De Niro's portrayal of Max Cady. However, he only lasted a few months with the company due to a buildup of previous injuries, and the character was abandoned. In 2013, WWE debuted Bray Wyatt, another character partly based on De Niro's portrayal.

In the Seinfeld episode "The Red Dot", as Elaine's boyfriend rampages through her office to get revenge on Jerry for making him lose his job, Elaine makes a reference to the film.

In the Rick and Morty episode "Ricksy Business", Lucy (the deranged maid who tries to take Jerry hostage on the Titanic) appears under their car as they drive home, maniacally shouting "Ha, I'm doing like the movie Cape Fear!"

See also

• List of films featuring home invasions
• List of 1991 box office number-one films in the United States
• Night and the City, another remake also starring De Niro and Lange

Further reading

• Machura, Stefan and Robson, Peter, eds. Law and Film: Representing Law in Movies (Cambridge: Blackwell Publishing, 2001). Thain, Gerald J., "Cape Fear, Two Versions and Two Visions Separated by Thirty Years." ISBN 0-631-22816-0, ISBN 978-0-631-22816-5. 176 pages.

External links

• Cape Fear at IMDb
• Cape Fear at AllMovie
• Cape Fear at Box Office Mojo
• Cape Fear at Rotten Tomatoes