Essay On Cape Fear

1585 Words7 Pages
Cape Fear (1991) is a neo-noir film directed by Martin Scorsese starring Robert De Niro as Max Cady, Nick Nolte as Sam Bowden, and also featuring Jessica Lange, Juliette Lewis, Joe Don Baker, Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, Illeana Douglas, and Martin Balsam. The film is about a psychopath (Max Cady) just released from prison for rape, and is on a mission to make the unlawful lawyer (Sam Bowden) that underrepresented life a living hell as well as for his family. To Scorsese, the original Cape Fear directed by John Lee Thompson was a masterpiece that should not be touched when first approached in pre-production to direct the remake, but after Robert De Niro and Steven Spielberg convinced him that he was the right director, Scorsese immediately decided that the change the Cape Fear…show more content…
Neo-Noir films is represented by the recycling of classical film noir elements such as slat-shadowed atmosphere, adultery, water & reflections, tracking shots, first person narration, eroticism, murder, violence, and betrayal (Rubin171). Scorsese usually establishes the neo-noir genre in his films at the beginning of the film and thru the use of tracking shots to show the abnormalities of specific characters. In the beginning of Cape Fear, we see blurred faces reflected in water, as well as an eagle, which represents freedom, and proceeding forward we finally see a close up of a girls eyes in red coloring that proceeds to voice over narration of Danielle Bowden, the daughter of Sam Bowden. Other noted films of Scorsese that start off with neo-noir characteristics are Taxi Driver with the shadow (also seen in Raging Bull), rain in the streets of New York, and the red close up of Travis Bickle’s eyes. Goodfellas also begins with the night atmosphere and bloody violence that proceeds to voice over narration of Henry Hill. Throughout the entire film of Cape Fear, neo-noir aspects are continued like the use of color

More about Essay On Cape Fear

Open Document