Cape Fear is a great movie starring Robert De Niro, Nick Nolte, Jessica Lange, Juliette Lewis and Joe Don Baker. Directed by Martin Scorsese.
About the Movie
Cape Fear is, first of all, a magnificent film. Great performances (of course, De Niro stands out playing a total psychopath). The plot: an ex-convict comes to embitter the life of a lawyer for not doing his job well many years later. But during his 14 years inside, the guy has had a hard time (he was a rapist, no less), so he learned to read and imbibed Nietzsche and other concepts and… he digested them as he digested them (although they said the same thing about the Nazis, the philosopher is to blame).
The film is a metaphor and a religious tale, with dreamlike images (the changing sky) and an irreal setting. What I mean is, sometimes the director (Scorsese, no less) tricks us with the editing (as always, Thelma Schoonmaker was behind it) and the thing is not Dogma-like (we appreciate it, hee hee). I mean that the tricks are noticeable but Scorsese makes them patently apparent and that we are watching a movie. Literary theme: Thomas Wolfe is very present as is his angel that looked at us one day. Now that angel is a psychopath who comes to torment us and wreak vengeance in our lives (a bit different from Wolfe’s book, hence the metaphor).
A very intelligent film, different, that plays with the viewer and with classic suspense… nor does it take anyone’s side, because the traditional family it defends… is also in a way broken from the inside due to the husband’s infidelities…, by her passivity…, by a girl who is a teenager.
The angel has arrived and we will see what she shows us.
Recommended, even if some years have passed.
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