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Devil’s Advocates Devil’s Advocates

Devil’s Advocates
Cape Fear Cape Fear
Rob Daniel
Rob Daniel
DEVIL’S ADVOCATES is a series devoted to exploring the classics of horror
cinema. Contributors to Devil’s Advocates come from the worlds of teaching,
academia, journalism and fiction, but all have one thing in common: a passion for the
horror film and for sharing that passion.

Martin Scorsese’s Cape Fear (1991) opens with a shot of water and climaxes on a raging river.
Despite, or perhaps because of, the film’s great commercial success, critical analysis of the film
typically does not delve beneath the surface of Scorsese’s first major box office hit. As it reaches
its 30th anniversary, Cape Fear is now ripe for a full appraisal.
Author Rob Daniel investigates the fascinating ways Martin Scorsese’s style and preoccupations
transformed the film into a horror epic, featuring new interview material with Cape Fear’s
screenwriter, Wesley Strick. A remake of J. Lee Thompson’s 1962 movie, Cape Fear was originally
conceived as a straightforward thriller for Steven Spielberg. This book explores how when
Scorsese joined as director, his love of horror cinema, his Catholicism, and filmmaking techniques

Cape Fear
pushed the film into terrifying psychological and psychosexual waters. The analysis also examines
the extensive input of star Robert De Niro, the influence of Gothic literature, fairy tales, and
shifting trends in horror cinema. Finally, the author addresses the controversy surrounding the
film’s sexual politics, at the time of release and over subsequent decades.

Rob Daniel is a contributing author to the collections Art of Darkness: The Cinema of Dario
Argento and Fear Without Frontiers (both FAB Press), and has written and lectured on the cinema
of, amongst others, David Cronenberg, David Lynch, Miike Takashi and Guillermo del Toro. He
has over twenty years experience programming multiple UK TV channels.

Rob Daniel

www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/imprints/Auteur/

DevilsAdvocatesbooks DevilsAdBooks
ISBN: 978-1-80085-702-5
Cover photograph: © Amblin Entertainment/Cappa Films/Tribeca Productions/Universal
Pictures
Devil’s Advocates

DEVIL’S ADVOCATES is a series of books devoted to exploring the classics of

horror cinema. Contributors to the series come from the fields of teaching, academia,
journalism and fiction, but all have one thing in common: a passion for the horror film
and a desire to share it with the widest possible audience.

‘The admirable Devil’s Advocates series is not only essential – and fun – reading for
the serious horror fan but should be set texts on any genre course.’
Dr Ian Hunter, Reader in Film Studies, De Montfort University, Leicester

‘Auteur Publishing’s new Devil’s Advocates critiques on individual titles... offer bracingly
fresh perspectives from passionate writers. The series will perfectly complement the
BFI archive volumes.’ Christopher Fowler, Independent on Sunday

‘Devil’s Advocates has proven itself more than capable of producing impassioned,
intelligent analyses of genre cinema... quickly becoming the go-to guys for intelligent,
easily digestible film criticism.’ Horror Talk.com

‘Auteur Publishing continue the good work of giving serious critical attention to
significant horror films.’ Black Static

DevilsAdvocatesbooks

DevilsAdBooks
Also available in this series
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night Farshid Ju-on The Grudge Marisa Hayes
Kazemi
Let the Right One In Anne Billson
Black Sunday Martyn Conterio
M Samm Deighan
The Blair Witch Project Peter Turner
Macbeth Rebekah Owens
Blood and Black Lace Roberto Curti
The Mummy Doris V. Sutherland
The Blood on Satan’s Claw David Evans-
Nosferatu Cristina Massaccesi
Powell
Peeping Tom Kiri Bloom Walden
Candyman Jon Towlson
Re-Animator Eddie Falvey
Cannibal Holocaust Calum Waddell
Repulsion Jeremy Carr
Carrie Neil Mitchell
Saw Benjamin Poole
The Company of Wolves James Gracey
Scream Steven West
The Conjuring Kevin Wetmore
The Shining Laura Mee
Creepshow Simon Brown
Shivers Luke Aspell
Cruising Eugenio Ercolani & Marcus
Stiglegger The Silence of the Lambs Barry Forshaw
The Curse of Frankenstein Marcus K. Suspiria Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
Harmes
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre James Rose
Daughters of Darkness Kat Ellinger
The Thing Jez Conolly
Dead of Night Jez Conolly & David Bates
Trouble Every Day Kate Robertson
The Descent James Marriot
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
The Devils Darren Arnold Lindsay Hallam
Don’t Look Now Jessica Gildersleeve The Witch Brandon Grafius
The Evil Dead Lloyd Haynes Witchfinder General Ian Cooper
The Fly Emma Westwood
Frenzy Ian Cooper Forthcoming
Halloween Murray Leeder [REC] Jim Harper
House of Usher Evert Jan van Leeuwen Prevenge Andrew Graves
In the Mouth of Madness Michael Blyth Scrooge Colin Fleming
It Follows Joshua Grimm Snuff Mark McKenna
Devil’s Advocates

Cape Fear

Rob Daniel
Acknowledgements
They say no-one writes a book alone. That rings true here, and I have numerous people to thank.
Firstly, Cape Fear’s screenwriter, Wesley Strick, who generously recounted his experiences on the
film. His wit and insight improved both my understanding of the movie and the text in this book.
Thanks also to Liz Parkinson at the BFI for providing audio materials from past lectures on Martin
Scorsese. Images featured in the book would not have been as polished without the expert
assistance of Michael Harrison. Ian Bird, Sarah Johnson, Robert Wallis, and Adrian Zak all suggested
revisions and additions that made this a better book that it otherwise would have been. Any errors
are mine alone. Huge thanks to John Atkinson at Auteur/LUP for supporting the project from
inception, and making it a reality. This book is dedicated to my mum, who drove me to a cinema
showing Cape Fear back in 1992, and who, to quote Barry Norman’s review featured in this book,
thought it was a “cracking good picture”.

First published in 2021 by

Auteur, an imprint of
Liverpool University Press,
4 Cambridge Street,
Liverpool
L69 7ZU

Series design: Nikki Hamlett at Cassels Design

Set by Cassels Design, Luton UK
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying
or storing in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use
of this publication) without the permission of the copyright owner.

All illustrations from the 1991 Cape Fear are © Amblin Entertainment/Cappa Films/Tribeca Productions/Universal
Pictures. Others are as indicated in the picture caption.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN paperback: 978-1-80085-702-5

ISBN hardback: 978-1-80085-701-8
ISBN epub: 978-1-80085-829-9
ISBN PDF: 978-1-80085-747-6
Contents

Synopsis............................................................................................................................................................................7

Introduction...................................................................................................................................................................9

Chapter 1: Scorsese and Horror Cinema..................................................................................................19

Chapter 2: Devil in the Details – Horror and Cape Fear..................................................................37

Chapter 3: Troubled Waters – Sexual Politics in Cape Fear.............................................................77

Chapter 4: Filmmaking at the Speed of Fear............................................................................................99

Chapter 5: Legacy and Impact........................................................................................................................109

Bibliography...............................................................................................................................................................121
 Cape Fear
Synopsis
New Essex, North Carolina, 1991. Max Cady (Robert De Niro) is released from
prison after serving fourteen years for rape and aggravated sexual battery. He begins a
campaign of intimidation against Sam Bowden (Nick Nolte), the lawyer who defended
him. He follows Sam, Sam’s wife Leigh (Jessica Lange), and their fifteen-year-old daughter
Danielle (Juliette Lewis) to a movie theatre and then to an ice cream parlour.

The following day, Cady reintroduces himself to Sam, muttering “You’re gonna learn
about loss.” That night, Leigh spots Cady sitting on their garden wall. The next day, Sam
confesses to a colleague that he was so appalled by Cady’s crimes, he purposely buried
evidence that showed the victim was promiscuous and may have consequently led
to a lighter sentence or acquittal. Cady again confronts Sam, informing him that while
imprisoned Cady became conversant with the law, and represented himself during
various appeals. Sam’s offer of money to Cady to leave town is rejected by the ex-con.

After the Bowden family dog is poisoned, Sam calls on police lieutenant Elgart (Robert
Mitchum) to strongarm Cady into leaving town. When strip searching Cady the police
discover he is covered with religious tattoos. They also learn he is independently wealthy,
so are unable to bust him for vagrancy. He is released.

During a 4th of July parade, Cady goads Sam into attacking him by making lascivious
comments about Leigh. In a bar, Cady picks up Lori (Illeana Douglas), a legal clerk with
whom Sam has a flirtatious relationship. Cady attacks Lori in her apartment, biting a
chunk from her cheek and raping her. Knowing she will be ‘victim blamed’ by Cady’s
defence team, a terrified Lori tells Sam she refuses to bring charges against the ex-con.

Sam becomes convinced Cady plans to rape Leigh and Danielle as revenge for his
suppression of evidence back in 1977. Leigh accuses Sam, whose history of adultery
meant they relocated to New Essex for a fresh start, of sleeping with Lori. Sam claims
this is part of Cady’s plan to create a rift between them, which will exacerbate tensions
in the already dysfunctional household.

Sam hires private investigator Claude Kersek (Joe Don Baker) to tail Cady. The ex-con
quickly realises he is being followed. Kersek’s attempt to intimidate Cady into leaving
New Essex fails.
Devil’s Advocates
Cady drives up to the road outside the Bowden’s house and returns the family dog’s
collar to Leigh, claiming he found it. Leigh realises who he is and tells him how much he
disgusts her. That evening, Cady calls Danielle, claiming to be her summer school drama
teacher. He gives her advice on how to navigate adolescent awkwardness, and tells her
their class has been moved to the school theatre. Danielle meets Cady in the theatre
the next day, and realises he is the man her father warned her about. Cady convinces
Danielle he means no harm, then subtly undermines her trust in her parents. He violates
Danielle by slipping his thumb into her mouth and kissing her.

Having discovered a joint given to her by Cady, the Bowdens realise the ex-con came
at Danielle. Sam agrees to Kersek’s offer for three men to hospitalise Cady. Cady
overcomes his attackers, then hires Lee Heller (Gregory Peck) to press charges against
Sam, having previously recorded a conversation in which the lawyer threatened him.

Sam pretends to be away at a disbarment hearing, but remains home with his family
and Kersek. Kersek plans to shoot Cady if he breaks into the house. Cady does break in,
killing both Kersek and Sam’s maid, Graciella (Zully Montero). The family flees, Sam telling
Lt. Elgart they will return when Cady is found. But Cady attaches himself to their Jeep’s
undercarriage and attacks the family aboard their houseboat on the Cape Fear river.

After tying up Sam and putting Danielle in the hold, he attempts to rape Leigh, only
stopping when she goes for his gun. He then releases Danielle in order to rape her and
Leigh in front of Sam. While Cady is lighting a cigar, Danielle sprays him with lighter fluid
she found in the hold. Aflame, Cady leaps into the river and Leigh and Danielle free Sam.
Cady reappears on the boat and stages a mock trial, making Sam answer for failing to
defend his client fourteen years earlier. Sam explains to his family he knew Cady was
guilty of raping and battering his victim.

Cady tells Leigh and Danielle to strip, but the stormy waters of the river begin to rip the
boat apart. Leigh and Danielle jump overboard, and Sam and Cady fight. Sam handcuffs
Cady’s foot to a railing in the houseboat before it is destroyed.

On the riverbank, Sam attempts to kill Cady, but the river sweeps the ex-con away
and the wreckage pulls him underwater to his death. The family are reunited, but in
voiceover Danielle says things will never be the same.
 Cape Fear
Introduction
I set out to make a picture that was more mainstream and ‘commercial’, whatever
that is… I mean, you can’t – I can’t – gauge what an audience is going to like and
what’s going to make money. There’s no way. I just try to make the best picture I can.
– Martin Scorsese, quoted in Empire, March 1992

Martin Scorsese’s fourteenth film and first remake is a movie only he could have made.
Granted, it is a reinterpretation of John D. MacDonald’s 1957 novel The Executioners and
J. Lee Thompson’s 1962 screen adaptation, also titled Cape Fear and starring Gregory
Peck as Sam Bowden and Robert Mitchum as Max Cady. But, the director’s thematic
preoccupations, personal baggage, dynamic formalism, and vast working knowledge
of cinema are all present in what the opening credits proclaim is, ‘A Martin Scorsese
Picture’. More accurately, it should read, ‘A Martin Scorsese Horror Picture’.

Yet, it all could have been so different. In 1989 this re-telling was intended to reach
audiences as a Steven Spielberg film. Spielberg would have been no stranger to remakes;
screenwriter Wesley Strick first met with him to discuss Cape Fear on the MGM lot,
where the director was completing Always (1989), his reimagining of the Spencer Tracy
vehicle A Guy Named Joe (Fleming, 1943).

In one sense, that Spielberg circled this dark, violent thriller is unsurprising. As the man
behind Duel (1971) and Jaws (1975), his credentials as a suspense showman were
beyond reproach. Despite having a reputation for sentimentality, depictions of fractious
domestic life in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and E.T. – The Extra Terrestrial
(1982) revealed a darker directorial view of suburban America. Scorsese’s Cape Fear
even shares minor parallels with Spielberg’s 1972 TV movie Something Evil, in which
a family discovers the wife has been targeted for possession by an unseen presence
lurking within their newly bought farmhouse. A director seemingly unburdened by the
sexual guilt Scorsese has often explored in his own work, it is intriguing to wonder
how Steven Spielberg would have dramatised the sexual aggression at the centre of
Max Cady’s revenge. Most likely his interpretation would not have attracted the ire that
greeted Scorsese’s film from some critics upon release.

Accounts vary as to why Spielberg departed the project. In De Niro: A Life, author
Devil’s Advocates
Shawn Levy writes that post-production on Hook and pre-production on Jurassic Park
forced Spielberg to drop the film from his schedule (2014, p.378). In a 1991 New York
Times article, the director is quoted as saying, “I just couldn’t find it inside me to make a
scary movie about a family being preyed on by a maniac” (Maslin, 1991, p.14). What is
accepted is Spielberg and Scorsese essentially swapped the properties they were lined
up to direct. An adaptation of Thomas Kenneally’s 1982 book Schindler’s Ark was being
prepped by Scorsese, but Spielberg talked his friend into relinquishing the rights so he
himself could direct it as Schindler’s List (1993) (Power, 2018).

Instead, Scorsese was persuaded to take Cape Fear to fulfill an agreement made with
Universal Pictures. This was to be a ‘one for them’ assignment, made as a thank you
to the studio after they bankrolled the ultimate ‘one for me’ film, The Last Temptation
of Christ (1988). Although appearing to share few similarities, Cape Fear is a diabolical
companion to the director’s messiah picture. Both depict men struggling with a conflict
between the flesh and the spirit, plus the painful road to salvation as a higher power
forces them to confront their own natures. But, where Scorsese focused on Jesus in The
Last Temptation of Christ, his attention was fixed on a Satanic figure in Cape Fear.

He was not just going to accept some anonymous studio assignment, however; a
creative reason was required to take the gig. Motivation would not be found in the
Bowdens, the family targeted by Max Cady. Scorsese read the script three times while
editing Goodfellas (1990) and hated it: “The happy family was too much of a rose-tinted
cliché. They were like Martians to me! Max was a bogeyman, and he was the one I
sympathized with: let him get these sanctimonious prigs off our backs!” (Wilson, 2011,
p.169).

Ironically, screenwriter Wesley Strick had also been reluctant to join the project. In
interview, he told me he had disliked Thompson’s original movie and, as a Jewish New
Yorker, believed himself the wrong person to pen a script set in the South. But, despite
outlining his misgivings to Spielberg in that meeting on the MGM lot, Strick stumbled
out finding himself the film’s scriptwriter. A first draft was delivered in November 1989,
while Spielberg was still onboard, and would undergo twenty-four rewrites before
Scorsese was happy. In Laurent Bouzereau’s 2001 documentary The Making of Cape
Fear, Strick recalls that Scorsese, “asked me to remove scores of details and moments
 Cape Fear
and lines of dialogue. And almost every one I had put in with Steven Spielberg in
mind.” Explaining that he worked on a “smaller canvas”, Scorsese collaborated with the
writer in fleshing out the Bowdens’ dysfunction (Bouzereau, 2001). But, even from draft
one they were far removed from the apple pie family in J. Lee Thompson’s 1962 film,
according to Strick: “I dirtied up the Bowdens, and especially Sam, right away” (interview
with author).

In the original film, described by Scorsese as a “perfect B-picture” (Bouzereau, 2001),

Sam testified against Cady at his rape trial and secured his imprisonment. In the
remake, Sam is recast as Cady’s defence attorney, who suppresses evidence that Cady’s
victim was promiscuous after becoming convinced his client is guilty. From this ethical
transgression and Sam’s later infidelity, both occurring before the film begins, is created
a maelstrom of family trauma. Scorsese wanted to dive deep into the dysfunction,
particularly in the resentment Leigh feels for Sam, telling Strick, “Let’s let them really go
at it.” Strick queried the number of pages this ‘thriller’ was dedicating to marital discord,
explaining that “Jewish family fights last for three pages.” Scorsese countered, “Well,
Sicilian family fights are six pages” and won the argument (interview with author). Strick
would be kept on throughout production, the first time the director had allowed this, to
incorporate into the script extensive improvisation sessions between Robert De Niro,
Jessica Lange, Nick Nolte, and Juliette Lewis. One plot event from the original film Strick
recalls being told to retain was the houseboat climax (Bouzereau, 2001). Relocated from
the Bowdens’ house in the novel to the Cape Fear river, this also provides both film
adaptations with their more evocative title (the Cape Fear river never being mentioned
in The Executioners).

Someone committed to the project from the beginning was De Niro. While wrapping
up acting duties on the McCarthy witch hunt movie Guilty By Suspicion (Winkler,
1991), he was prepping his next two films, Backdraft (Howard, 1991) and Cape Fear
(Levy, 2014, p.372). De Niro’s role as a fire investigator in Backdraft was essentially an
extended cameo, and he devoted more time to developing Max Cady, although his
scenes with Donald Sutherland’s serial arsonist have the feel of a quick turnaround
homage to The Silence of the Lambs, Jonathan Demme’s shocker that had terrorised
audiences earlier that year. It would be Scorsese’s most famous onscreen alter-ego who
persuaded the director to accept Cape Fear as his next movie: “’Bob leaned down at the
Devil’s Advocates
table,’ recalls Scorsese, smiling at the memory. ‘He knelt beside me, took my ear, and said,
‘We could do something with this guy, you know?’” (Gleiberman, 1992, p.64).

Robert De Niro has a habit of dragging his friend to projects that contribute to the
director’s reputation as a master filmmaker. Raging Bull (1980), The King of Comedy
(1982) and The Irishman (2019) are other projects De Niro persuaded him to accept.
In July 1990, he and Spielberg organised a script read in New York to convince Scorsese
to join Cape Fear. De Niro played Cady, Kevin Kline was Sam, Patricia Clarkson read for
Leigh (when the character was still named Karen), and Moira Kelly was Danielle (Levy,
2014, p.378), although in The Making of Cape Fear, Strick recalls Kline’s wife Phoebe
Cates playing the daughter…. The production company credits opening the film speak
to its evolution, with Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment, Scorsese’s Cappa Films, and De
Niro’s Tribeca Productions all ‘presenting’ the movie.

As he had done with Raging Bull, De Niro began an exercise regime to portray a
character at peak physical fitness. Robert Mitchum’s Cady in the 1962 original is a
brawny, barrel-chested menace; De Niro’s incarnation is a 5% body fat weapon, biblical
tattoos adorning his ripped torso. The actor also elected to spend $5,000 making his
teeth crooked to give Cady the look of someone from a breadline background, then
a further $20,000 fixing them after shooting had wrapped. Nick Nolte was cast in the
Gregory Peck role as Sam Bowden. Nolte had been the lead in Life Lessons, Scorsese’s
segment of the 1989 portmanteau film New York Stories, with Francis Ford Coppola
and Woody Allen providing the other two sections. Other actors mooted for Bowden
had included Warren Beatty and Robert Redford (both also considered as directors),
plus Mel Gibson, Clint Eastwood, Robin Williams, John Lithgow, and Liam Neeson (Levy,
2014, p.378). The latter would cameo for Scorsese as a supportive father to Leonardo
DiCaprio in 2002’s Gangs of New York, and star as a less supportive Father in 2016’s
Silence.

Jessica Lange took the role of Leigh primarily to work with De Niro and Scorsese,
having missed out on the role of Vickie in Raging Bull to Cathy Moriarty. Lange worked
extensively with Strick to improve the role, and at the time of production told the Los
Angeles Times, “I don’t think they really planned on addressing the character until they
knew who was going to play it” (Morgan, 1991a). Hopefuls for the role of Bowden
 Cape Fear
daughter Danielle included Moira Kelly, Fairuza Balk and, according to Shawn Levy in De
Niro: A Life, Illeana Douglas. Douglas would instead play Lori, the legal clerk with whom
Sam has a flirtatious friendship and Cady’s savaged onscreen victim. Danielle would go
to Juliette Lewis, the first actor who auditioned for the part (Bouzereau, 2001). Lewis
had prior experience portraying a daughter trapped in a dysfunctional family, having
appeared in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (Chechik, 1989).

Fig. 1 Robert Mitchum and Gregory Peck in 1962’s Cape Fear… © Melville-Talbot Productions

Fig. 2 …and Robert De Niro and Nick Nolte in Scorsese’s version © Melville-Talbot Productions
Devil’s Advocates
Shooting began in November 1990, a year after Strick delivered his first draft, and
wrapped in March 1991. Following test audience feedback, a few days of reshoots
were added to clarify moments during the climax. Principal photography occurred in
Fort Lauderdale, with Florida doubling for North Carolina. To sell the illusion, North
Carolina’s distinctive moss was hung from trees in the Bowdens’ garden. The Bowdens’
house was real, not a set, which proved a challenge for a director used to break away
walls and ceilings to allow for the exact angles he wanted. A courthouse scene was shot
in Miami. The houseboat climax was filmed in a specially constructed 90ft tank in Fort
Lauderdale, with miniatures shot on the H Stage in Shepperton Studios, Surrey, UK.

Scorsese recruited Freddie Francis as Director of Photography. The horror director

and legendary cinematographer of such films as The Innocents (Clayton, 1961) and
The Elephant Man (Lynch, 1980) was brought on board for his “…instinct and deep
knowledge from the suspense and horror films he worked on” (Thompson/Christie,
1996, p.171). Thelma Schoonmaker edited the film, as she has done with every Scorsese
narrative feature since Raging Bull. Her professional relationship with the director
had begun far earlier, editing his debut movie Who’s That Knocking at My Door (1967).
Elaine and Saul Bass created a credit sequence that introduces the film’s themes
and atmosphere, described by Scorsese as a “mini-movie that precedes the picture”
(Bouzereau, 2001). The late Bernard Herrmann’s score from the original film was
used again in the remake. Elmer Bernstein, famed composer of many movies including
The Great Escape (Sturges, 1963) and An American Werewolf in London (Landis, 1981),
was recruited to rearrange Herrmann’s music and give it a sonic overhaul. Bernstein
would write approximately six minutes of new material to bridge gaps in the cues, and
incorporate tracks from Herrmann’s unused score for Alfred Hitchcock’s Torn Curtain
(1966) during the houseboat climax.

Cape Fear was premiered in New York on Sunday 6th October 1991, less than thirteen
months after Goodfellas’ NYC premiere in 1990. On Friday 15th November the film
went on general release in the US, and in the UK on Friday 6th March 1992. Beyond
being his introduction to the world of remakes, for Martin Scorsese this was a film of
other firsts: The first straight genre movie he had attempted; his first picture using the
2.39:1 aspect ratio; the first time he had tackled major action set pieces and employed
miniatures and CGI. Cape Fear was also Scorsese’s first bona fide blockbuster, grossing
 Cape Fear
$79m in the United States and a total $182m globally off a c.$35m budget. This box
office haul would be his biggest until Gangs of New York’s $194m over a decade later, but
the protracted shooting and editing schedules for that movie left it, and Scorsese, in the
red.

Cape Fear was also the director’s first horror film, although the genre label was not
typically applied, least of all by Scorsese himself. In Michael Henry Wilson’s Cahiers du
Cinema book Scorsese on Scorsese, the filmmaker said, “(Audiences) expect powerful
sensations because that’s part of the thriller genre. You can’t deny them that, but you can
perhaps find a way of getting around it” (2011, p.169).

The Scorsese way of “getting around it” moved Cape Fear far from the glossy
excitement of a Hollywood thriller. As I shall explore, his approach to the material and
his famous Catholic lens dovetailed with trends in contemporary horror cinema. One
year before Quentin Tarantino popularised the term by grounding his whole aesthetic
in it, Scorsese delivered a ferociously postmodern work, a cine-literate pastiche of
mainstream thrillers, with the director looking to movies that had provided formative
shocks, and recruiting personnel from the Classical Hollywood period. The result is a film
that plays as if Scorsese imagined his audience to be Alfred Hitchcock, Val Lewton and
Mario Bava.

Upon the film’s release, popular reviews played fast and loose with genre-specific
language. While few called it a horror film, quotes plastered on posters giddily
announced the terror that awaited those brave enough to buy a ticket. In Rolling Stone,
Peter Travers wrote, “Martin Scorsese unleashes a series of shocks that will leave you
breathless.” “Stay away if you’re squeamish,” warned Vincent Canby in The New York
Times. “See Cape Fear with someone you want to hold onto… tight,” declared no less
an authority than Piers Morgan in The Sun. “[M]ore scary than Silence of the Lambs,”
promised Drew MacKenzie in the Daily Mirror. The Silence of the Lambs comparison is
particularly relevant. Demme’s multi-Oscar winner is another example of a thriller that,
due to its visual style, sound design and approach to plot, reads more comfortably as
a horror film. Like Jaws and Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960), Cape Fear and The Silence of the
Lambs are movies that terrified audiences, but whose fluid approach to genre places
them across multiple categories. In 1995, David Fincher’s Seven would join their ranks.
Devil’s Advocates
While Scorsese was breaking new ground with Cape Fear, in other ways it was a
continuation, most notably in the controversy the film received upon release, particularly
in the US. The director was no stranger to passionate and passionately negative
reactions to his movies. Critics had decried both the casting of a 12-year-old Jodie
Foster as a child prostitute in Taxi Driver (1976), and the graphic violence during that
film’s climax. The Last Temptation of Christ, adapted from Nikos Kazantzakis’s pilloried
1955 novel, had drawn down the ire of the United States’ Christian right. They pressured
Paramount Pictures into dropping the film from its production slate in 1983, picketed
new studio Universal Pictures, and lambasted the movie sight unseen when it was finally
released in 1988. Goodfellas, Scorsese’s film before Cape Fear and an unexpected sleeper
hit, was attacked for purportedly glamourising the lifestyle, and thereby endorsing the
character, of mobster Henry Hill.

But Cape Fear was different. Scorsese had received criticism for the depiction of women
in previous films, but certain commentators read the gender politics here as cause for
alarm. Although critiquing character motivations and events from both The Executioners
and the original 1962 film, the remake nonetheless features an antagonist who uses rape
to exact revenge after serving prison time for the same crime. This brings it close to the
rape-revenge narrative present in film since the early days of cinema, and which rose
to become a recognised sub-genre from the 1970s onwards, following the success of
films such as Straw Dogs (Peckinpah, 1971), Deliverance (Boorman, 1972), The Last House
on the Left (Craven, 1972) and Death Wish (Winner, 1974). Often told from a rightwing
perspective, in a rape-revenge narrative the sexual attack on a female character initiates
a crusade, typically for the male lead (boyfriend or husband or family member, usually a
father), who embraces biblical justice. There may be handwringing on the protagonist’s
part as he sacrifices nobler characteristics to defeat his nemesis, but the film’s politics
will affirm as necessary this temporary acceptance of vigilantism.

While technically not true examples of the rape-revenge narrative, all versions of the
Cape Fear story share plot and character psychology crossovers. Both film adaptations
resultantly drew criticism for their depiction of sexual threat and sexual violence. The
1962 version was cut by a reported six-minutes to secure a UK release, much to
the chagrin of director J. Lee Thompson (Norman, 1962, p.3). In the UK, the original
film received an uncut home video release in early 1992, capitalising on the remake’s
 Cape Fear
publicity. An indication of the change in times was that Scorsese avoided the pre-
release problems Thompson encountered, Strick telling me: “I don’t recall Universal
ever inserting themselves into the process or trying to get us to compromise.”
Similarly, both the US and UK ratings boards passed the 1991 film uncut. But, some
critical commentary saw Scorsese as overstepping the mark in his depiction of sexual
terrorisation.

In the April 1992 issue of Sight and Sound, Pam Cook wrote that the film’s female
characters are attracted to their rapist and collude “in their own humiliation”. She closes
the article arguing: “Scorsese has produced his most overtly femino-phobic movie. We
can hardly thank him for that. At the most, we can thank him for laying on the line with
blistering clarity the way our culture devalues femininity as an alibi for male fears and
desires” (1992, p.15). The February 1992 issue of Empire outlined the controversy raging
in the US, in a feature entitled ‘Who’s Afraid of Cape Fear’: “…Scorsese is suddenly
being blasted for the alleged misogyny and violence inflicted against women in Cape
Fear, being specifically taken to task for the general swipe his film takes at the current
wave of ‘political correctness’ in the US, a movement currently sweeping through college
campuses across the country… some critics are now citing Cape Fear as Scorsese’s own
personal backlash against the entire feminist/PC movement in the US” (1992, p.6).

The film does contain sexual violence, the result of Robert De Niro’s typically extensive
research, that continues to shock audiences. The hysteria of the violence is enhanced by
the style in which it is depicted, marrying the kineticism of Goodfellas with the heated
delirium of Southern Gothic. But, what was the director’s intent when accepting the gig
of helming Cape Fear?

Here is a filmmaker renowned for intensely personal works, who typically subsumes
political commentary into his characters’ psychologies. Despite the presence of a
presidential hopeful in Taxi Driver, the film is an expressionistic depiction of insanity,
rather than a sociological study of the intersection between mental illness, violence and
government policy. Any critique of the American health care system in Bringing Out the
Dead (1999) is implied, while the film focusses on the spiritual anguish of Nicolas Cage’s
paramedic. When introducing a political element to Gangs of New York, the uneven,
confused storytelling speaks to Scorsese’s lack of interest in the subject. 2019’s The
Devil’s Advocates
Irishman was more successful in its retelling of post-war American politics, primarily due
to couching its discussion in the language of gangster cinema.

Arguably therefore, a “personal backlash against the entire feminist/PC movement in the
US” seems to be something beyond the interest of the director, and his subsequent films
do not appear to have continued a specific agenda in this area. Yet, Cook’s comment
of “male fears and desires” taps into a central Scorsese concern: an exploration of
tortured masculinity and toxic machismo. Exploration of this within a more commercial
setting seemed to power Scorsese’s interest in Cape Fear, and Cook’s claim that this
relates to a femino-phobia will be analysed.

While Cape Fear did meet with glowing critical praise upon release, it also saw the
business end of damning notices for failing more generally. Joel Siegel on Good Morning
America cited the film as proof that “Martin Scorsese is the greatest American director”
(poster quote). But, in The New Yorker, Terence Rafferty labelled the film “a disgrace”,
declaring, “It’s hard to find the pleasure, or value, in a horror picture that keeps providing
us with high-toned justifications for our basest reactions — insisting that the grueling
experience it’s putting us through is really meant to edify us” (Rafferty, 1991). Agreeing
with Joel Siegel’s assessment, Matt Mueller’s 5-star review in Empire asserted, “…with
Cape Fear, Scorsese solidifies his position as America’s greatest living filmmaker” (Mueller,
1992, p.17). In the Chicago Reader, Jonathan Rosenbaum offered a negative assessment:
“It’s hard to understand why Martin Scorsese wanted to remake a nasty, formulaic 1962
thriller whose only ’classic’ credentials are a terrifying performance by Robert Mitchum
and a Bernard Herrmann score” (Rosenbaum, 1991).

Another of the film’s critics is Martin Scorsese himself. In Tom Shone’s Scorsese: A
Retrospective, he is quoted as saying, “The films I make are very personal films… I think
it requires a great deal of humility to make a thriller and I can’t do that. I promised
Universal I’d make them a picture. I’m not excusing the film; I tried a lot of things with
it – some successful, some not – and quite honestly I don’t know if it works or not”
(Shone, 2014, p.158).

Apt then that this critical analysis is for the ‘Devil’s Advocates’ series, pleading a case for
the defence.
 Cape Fear
Chapter 1: Scorsese and Horror
Cinema
Somebody once wrote, I think a British critic, if you don’t really understand or
appreciate the horror genre, you really have no love or understanding of film itself. –
Martin Scorsese, interviewed on Late Night with David Letterman, February 1982

Scorsese famously said his whole life is movies and religion. His incorporation of horror
themes and imagery into his work can usefully be viewed in connection to both.

The Horror of Scorsese’s Cinema

In 2015, website The Daily Beast invited Martin Scorsese to share his scariest films of all
time. The list of 11 movies he supplied offers insight into the director’s formative shocks,
plus the thematic concerns of those chillers that would influence his work, including
Cape Fear.

1. The Haunting (Wise, 1963)

2. Isle of the Dead (Robson, 1945)

3. The Uninvited (Allen, 1944)

4. The Entity (Furie, 1982)

5. Dead of Night (Cavalcanti, Crichton, Dearden, Hamer, 1945)

6. The Changeling (Medak, 1980)

7. The Shining (Kubrick, 1980)

8. The Exorcist (Friedkin, 1973)

9. Night of the Demon (Tourneur, 1957)

10. The Innocents (Clayton, 1961)

11. Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960)

Scorsese was asked to name his scariest movies of all time. Whether he would have
Devil’s Advocates
answered differently had he been requested to list the best horror films of all time is a
tantalising thought. Despite the lack of international cinema on the list, it reveals that the
director who said, “I’d like horror to be taken more seriously” (Thompson/Christie, 1996,
p.101) draws inspiration from diverse cinematic shockers, sometimes in unlikely places.
The one surprising omission is Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom (1960), for which Scorsese
spearheaded a restoration that premiered at a Museum of Modern Art retrospective on
Powell and Emeric Pressburger in New York in 1980.

Using the list as a basis for what informs the director’s sense of horror, the fundamental
question of whether evil exists as its own entity, or is it in man’s nature to be evil, figures
prominently. Cape Fear wrestled with this as part of its recalibration of Sam’s moral
code from previous versions. It also insists the audience does likewise in placing Sam’s
actions against the danger posed by Cady. Here we see Scorsese’s thematic obsessions
dovetailing with those of horror cinema: guilt, sin, penance, redemption and the
impossibility of redemption, psychosis, and psychosexual dread. He frequently illustrates
these themes through depictions of bodily destruction, evoking sensations most often
found in horror. Notice how many titles on that list of eleven deal with those same
themes, and note also the recurrence of that cornerstone convention of the horror
movie, a family undergoing crisis.

Scorsese said he recruited The Innocents’ cinematographer Freddie Francis for Cape
Fear due to the Englishman’s “understanding of the concept of the Gothic atmosphere”
(Morgan, 1991b). Gothic cinema made an impact on the young Scorsese, particularly
American International Pictures’ Edgar Allan Poe movies, directed by Roger Corman
and starring Vincent Price. Scorsese cites The Fall of the House of Usher (Corman, 1960)
as important to his peer group for the “beautiful atmosphere in its use of colour and
Cinemascope. We loved this blend of English Gothic and French grand guignol, mixed
together in an American film” (Thompson/Christie, 1996, p.20).

Corman would give Scorsese his first professional movie, hiring him to direct indie
exploitation picture Boxcar Bertha (1972). A Bonnie and Clyde (Penn, 1967) rip-off
intended as a follow-up to AIP’s Bloody Mama (Corman, 1970), Boxcar Bertha provided
a crash course in commercial filmmaking. Corman allowed the young Scorsese to “test
his radical, aesthetic ambitions against the discipline of genre imperatives and audience
 Cape Fear
reaction” (Thompson/Christie, 1996, p.xix). Good grounding for putting thematic and
emotional meat onto the skeleton of the Hollywood thriller in Cape Fear years later.
As a thank you to Corman, Scorsese would include a scene from The Tomb of Ligeia
(Corman, 1964) in Mean Streets (1973). The scene features a character being consumed
in flames, small comfort to the street criminals seeking solace in a cinema when real-life
danger presses in. Mean Streets’ original title, ‘Season of the Witch’, also belies a fondness
for Gothic horror…and the music of Donovan, whose song ‘Atlantis’ would years later
counterpoint a vicious beating in Goodfellas.

Many of the director’s thematic concerns appear within Gothic fiction. Therefore, it is
understandable that his approach to depicting fear should synch with formative Gothic
author Ann Radcliffe’s three definitions: the physical and mental terror of pain and death,
the horror when perceiving something as evil or morally repugnant, and the mystery of
encountering something beyond explanation (Monléon, 1990, p.11).

Mystery, which we shall refer to as ‘the uncanny’, is particularly applicable to Scorsese,

with those inexplicable experiences being “…thereby productive of a nameless
apprehension that may be called religious dread in the face of the wholly other” (quoted
in Monléon, 1990, p.11). While ostensibly a director fixed in recognisably real worlds, the
uncanny bleeds into Scorsese’s work. The religious dread in his films suggests unseen,
unfriendly forces. But, often these orchestrating powers are explained as a character’s
delusion or psychosis, making Scorsese’s men heirs to Norman Bates’ mantle. Cape Fear
is his film that most embraces the uncanny. Like many titles on the list (The Haunting, The
Innocents, The Shining, segments of Dead of Night), it does not wholly reconcile its central
tension. The audience must decide whether Cady is merely psychotic, or imbued with
the power and authority of a higher agency.

Paranoia seeps into most films on that list of eleven, often fuelled by the uncanny. The
superstitions that grip a plague ridden island in Isle of the Dead. The fear of something
inexplicable taking over characters’ lives in Dead of Night, or threatening loved ones as in
The Innocents. A husband’s rage when suspecting his wife of undermining his ambitions
in The Shining. Paranoia impedes redemption, and characters are destroyed by their
own fears, something Scorsese explored in 1963’s What’s a Nice Girl Like You Doing In a
Place Like This?, his first student movie, which he described as a film of “pure paranoia”
Devil’s Advocates
(Thompson/Christie, 1996, p.15). Laced with mordant wit, it features the character of
Algernon (Zeph Michaelis) as the first of many Scorsese obsessives. Algernon’s life
crumbles after he becomes fixated on a photograph of a figure in a rowboat on a lake.
Perhaps the figure in the photo is responsible; it is after all Scorsese in his first cameo.
Delusions of persecution and betrayal blight many Scorsese males, none more so than
Raging Bull’s Jake La Motta, who spies marital infidelity in every look and comment. The
director claims La Motta is more accepting of himself come the movie’s close, but his
existence still appears purgatorial.

“Guilt. There is nothing you can tell me about guilt,” Scorsese once said during a
conversation with Roger Ebert and Paul Schrader (Ebert, 2008, p.43). Unsurprisingly,
guilt, and its mischievous cousin sin, are present in all eleven films on the list, be they
tales of dead family members returning to uncover a terrible past crime (The Changeling,
The Uninvited), a family ripping itself apart (The Shining), or destructive manias created by
repressed sexuality (The Innocents, Psycho, The Haunting). Sexual dread also looms heavy
and foreboding. The Shining’s woman in room 237 can be seen as the product of a guilty
mind recoiling at the consequences of adulterous urges. The Exorcist remains disturbing
in large part due to its corruption of sexuality through abasement and self-mutilation.
William Friedkin’s influential shocker would also play a part in bringing Scorsese into the
industry; due to the film’s success, The Exorcist star Ellen Burstyn had the freedom to
make 1974’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, and hire a relatively unknown Scorsese as
director. Alice’s commercial success and a Best Actress Oscar for Burstyn cemented the
director’s status in Hollywood.

Sexual terror is the bedrock of The Entity. This “based on true events” horror film,
about a woman’s sexual abuse at the hands of a poltergeist, has a visual flamboyance
that seems to inform Cape Fear. The film’s treatment of sexual violence as a means
of exploring male weakness and control also aligns with Scorsese’s remake, but did
not draw as much critical anger. This is possibly due to its fantastical nature, along with
mainstream attitudes of the time; The Entity blends elements of the devil and rape-
revenge films, both of which were drawing sizeable audiences in the early 1980s. The
film also benefits from Barbara Hershey’s sensitive lead performance. Hershey had
previously played the title character in Scorsese’s Boxcar Bertha, and would later portray
Mary Magdalene in The Last Temptation of Christ.
 Cape Fear

Fig. 3 Dynamic framing in The Entity © American Cinema Productions

Fig. 4 A similarly canted view of the world in Cape Fear

From Scorsese’s earliest output, sexual dread bubbled beneath and frequently broke
the surface. When horror movie distributor Joseph Brenner offered him $37,000 to
complete Who’s That Knocking at My Door, the filmmaker complied with Brenner’s
proviso that he include a sex scene. The extra sequence is a fantasy, featuring Harvey
Keitel’s character J.R. and a series of brunette women… all set to the Oedipal section of
The Doors track, ‘The End’. This sexual dread takes on near-mythic proportions in After
Hours (1985), Scorsese’s (arguably) first foray into fantastical feature filmmaking. While in
a café reading Henry Miller’s The Tropic of Cancer (from which the film’s story will draw
loose inspiration), Paul (Griffin Dunne) begins a conversation with Marcy (Roseanna
Arquette). On the promise of a bagel-shaped paperweight and the suggestion of a
Devil’s Advocates
more intimate encounter, Paul journeys down to Marcy’s SoHo apartment. But a night
of frustrated expectations and misunderstandings sees him wrongly accused of being
a burglar terrorising the neighbourhood. The vigilante mob that takes to the streets to
catch him recalls the pitchfork branding villagers of Frankenstein (Whale, 1931). The
coincidences and contrivances that prevent Paul leaving SoHo become near cosmic.
On the film’s audio commentary, Scorsese describes the characters as “mythological
in some way,” adding “I always liked the character from Greek mythology going across
the river to Hades. But he has no money to pay the boatman.” Here, Paul loses the $20
with which he was going to pay a cab driver, so like those mythical penniless souls is
condemned to wander this underworld.

The paranoia Paul feels in Scorsese’s After Hours often stems from women. A sense of
punishment for his impure thoughts is ever-present, plus a fear of, and bafflement in, the
opposite sex. In the director’s words, “You think you’re going to heaven, but it’s hell that
awaits you!” (Wilson, 2011, p.123). Joe Minion was a postgraduate student at Columbia
University when he penned the script, but the then-fortysomething Scorsese confessed
to sympathising with Paul’s “erotic difficulties” (Wilson, 2011, p.123). In this world,
women are an unknowable, sometimes monstrous Other. Paul becomes obsessed
with the idea Marcy is scarred with burns after misreading clues (ointment, a medical
journal), and a childhood memory of being alone in a hospital burn ward. In The Scorsese
Connection, Lesley Stern writes, “There is the idea of woman as wound (or rather the
idea of female lips, genitalia as wound), and woman as… potentially lethal” (1995, p.109).
Stern ties this back to the tension between the supernatural and explainable: “And,
each time, the woman is uncannily familiar, indicating the female lips/wound as curiously
unheimlich” (1995, p.109).

This sense of the unheimlich, the tension between the rational and unexplainable, was
even more prominent and monstrously fantastic in the script’s outrageously Freudian
original climax. A maternal figure grows to huge proportions and Paul seeks safety inside
her. Producer David Geffen said no, so Paul was instead transformed into a frozen paper
mâché sculpture by Verna Bloom’s unnervingly maternal artist. It was Michael Powell
who suggested the film’s circular fairy-tale style ending, with Paul abducted and winding
up back at his office. Peter Jackson would later explore that original ending’s imagery in
the memorable splatterfest Brain Dead (1993).
 Cape Fear
When Paul flicks through the medical journal, glimpsing images of burn victims, the
scene employs the visual language of horror: low angle camerawork, key light on the
eyes, deep shadow background. On the After Hours audio commentary, cinematographer
Michael Ballhaus says, “The movie sometimes looked like a horror movie… sometimes
it was important that it was scary. It was in a way realistic and it had this touch of the
surreal. That gave it a very interesting thrill. It was Marty’s way of doing things.”

“Marty’s way of doing things” often draws upon horror aesthetics...

Psycho, film number 11 on the list, looms over much of Scorsese’s work. Bernard
Herrmann reprised the final musical notes from Hitchcock’s shocker for the closing
moments of Taxi Driver, completing the score the day he died. While shooting Cape Fear,
the director said, “(I) constantly had Herrmann’s music in my head – that of the first
Cape Fear but especially Psycho” (Thompson/Christie, 1996, p.173). Saul Bass, designer of
Psycho’s jagged opening credits sequence, approximates the font for Cape Fear’s credits.
The close-up of Norman Bates’ eye peering through a spyhole at Marion undressing is
referenced in both Goodfellas, as the young Henry Hill observes the gangsters on the
street below, and in Cape Fear when Danielle watches Cady’s attempted rape of her
mother. Scorsese uses the shot in two moments that denote a child’s end of innocence,
which may provide insight into how he views Norman Bates. Jake La Motta’s bloody final
fight with Sugar Ray Robinson in Raging Bull was modelled on the Psycho shower scene
(Wilson, 2011, p.96-97). As La Motta allows himself to be pummelled, the impact of
the rapidly edited close-ups, oddly framed high angle shots, and fragmented body parts
echoes Hitchcock’s most celebrated sequence.

Cape Fear has its own (overblown) Psycho moment when Cady disguises himself
as murdered maid Graciella, who is initially more a mother figure to Danielle than
Leigh. However, this contribution came not from Scorsese, but Steven Spielberg, who
suggested it in a script session with Wesley Strick (interview with author). Spielberg also
suggested the scene where Cady ‘ruins’ a family trip to see Problem Child (Dugan, 1990)
(interview with author). This seems to have been a holdover from a scene Spielberg
wanted for Jaws, in which Quint would howl through a showing of Moby Dick (Huston,
1956) until he was the only audience member remaining. The idea had to be abandoned
after the rights holder to Moby Dick requested Spielberg not feature the film in that way
Devil’s Advocates
– said rights holder was original Sam Bowden, Gregory Peck (Bouzereau, 1995). That
Peck named the production company behind 1962’s Cape Fear Melville Productions
provides an indication of his regard for that fishy tale. Coincidentally, Moby Dick would
go on to inspire Scorsese on Taxi Driver, in which he used that film’s style of colour
printing to desaturate the bloody climax in his movie, thereby avoiding an ‘X’ rating in
the US (Taxi Driver audio commentary). The film was certified ‘X’ in the UK, where the
classification did not carry the same association with hardcore pornography.

“Hitchcock is always on my mind,” Scorsese is quoted as saying. “If the original (Cape
Fear) had been directed by Hitchcock, I’d never have touched it” (Wilson, 2011, p.169;
292). It’s easy to see why the Catholic Hitchcock landed such an impression; their
anxieties and thematic preoccupations overlap, and Scorsese’s dynamic style echoes
Hitchcock’s directorial stamp. Both adopt subjective presentations of reality, externalising
characters’ emotional and mental states. Often called the most personal of directors,
Scorsese frequently places the audience in his position: “I do want them to see the way I
see” (Thompson/Christie, 1996, p.88).

Visual influence is also found in the work of Val Lewton, Roger Corman and Mario Bava.
What Scorsese calls Bava’s “Italian Gothic” (Thompson/Christie, 1996, p.103), with its
heavy coloured-gel lighting, attention to atmosphere, and lurid displays of violence, is
echoed in Cape Fear. On the DVD audio commentary for Taxi Driver, a film indebted
to horror cinema, the director notes: “The camera moves for Travis’ paranoia are in
direct line with the tradition of the horror film. The camera moves by Mario Bava in the
Italian films of the sixties to Mark Robson in Isle of the Dead to Jacques Tourneur in Cat
People, any of the Val Lewton pictures. Not that you sit down and say, ‘Hey, let’s do the
moves from a horror film.’ But, somehow from my subconscious they’re interpreted that
way on paper. It has the same kind of dread that I was hoping to communicate to the
audience.”

This drawing on horror cinema is evident in the film’s climax. Travis Bickle annihilates
mafioso and pimps with the relentlessness of James Arness’ alien in another Scorsese
favourite, The Thing From Another World (Nyby, 1951), all given the explosive touch of
John Carpenter’s 1982 remake, courtesy of prosthetics supplied by The Exorcist’s make-
up artist Dick Smith. While Mean Streets’ climax frenetically depicts De Niro’s Johnny
 Cape Fear
Boy sustaining a gushing gunshot wound to the neck, Taxi Driver’s carnage is more in line
with the violence in Scorsese’s 1967 short, The Big Shave. In both the camera observes
with a cool detachment, the director understanding that the graphic make-up effects
need little stylistic embellishment.

The Big Shave features an object favoured in horror cinema, an object Scorsese has
fetishised most during his career: the mirror. In The Passion of Martin Scorsese, Annette
Wernblad argues for Scorsese’s filmography being a cinema of the Jungian shadow: the
suppressed aspect of ourselves that permits us to operate within society, but if totally
buried can fester and erupt in psychologically and physically painful ways (2011, p.6).
A mirror is the most elegant visual method of conveying this idea. In the “You talkin’ to
me?” scene, Travis Bickle’s madness is literally reflected back at him. Raging Bull opens
and closes with Jake La Motta confronting his bloated self in the mirror, taking his
fallen reflection to task through the “I coulda been a contender” speech from On the
Waterfront (Kazan, 1954). After Paul has bailed on Marcy in After Hours, his guilt comically
manifests in graffiti of a man’s penis being bitten by a shark, drawn next to a toilet
mirror. The shadow self can also reside in another character: Johnny Boy for Charlie in
Mean Streets, Rupert Pupkin for Jerry Langford in The King of Comedy, Judas for Jesus
in The Last Temptation of Christ. In the next chapter we will discuss how this reaches an
apotheosis in Cape Fear.

Appropriately, mirrors loom large in Scorsese’s first unmistakable venture into horror
territory. In 1986, Steven Spielberg invited him to direct an episode of the short-
lived TV series Amazing Stories (1986). Penned by After Hours scribe Joe Minion from
a story by Spielberg, Mirror, Mirror tells the tale of horror writer Jordan Manmouth
(Sam Waterston), who begins to see a mysterious cloaked phantom (Tim Robbins,
unrecognisable) bearing down upon him whenever he looks into a mirror. Or, as it
transpires, any reflective surface. Echoing After Hours’ fear of women, the killing stroke
arrives when Manmouth comes face-to-face with the phantom in the reflection of his
lover’s eye. Manmouth then becomes the phantom in the real world, and chooses to kill
himself rather than live as this dark reflection. Mirror, Mirror evokes the atmosphere of
classic horror, quoting Hammer Studios in a clip from The Plague of the Zombies (Gilling,
1966) and referencing the Italian chillers of Mario Bava and Dario Argento. The shot of
Manmouth’s chauffeur’s eyes reflected in the rearview mirror is a direct quote from Taxi
Devil’s Advocates
Driver, linking the urban horror of that movie with the fantastical chills of this foray into
TV.

Manmouth’s lover is named Karen, played by Helen Shaver, who had previously worked
with Scorsese on The Color of Money (1986). Coincidentally, Karen was Leigh’s name in
Wesley Strick’s early drafts of Cape Fear, but was changed because Henry Hill’s wife in
Goodfellas was also named Karen, and Scorsese was tired of hearing that name yelled
over and over for months (interview with author). In my discussion with him, Strick did
not recall the change to Leigh being a reference to Psycho’s Janet Leigh. Yet, this would
have surely struck Scorsese, particularly as Jessica Lange’s hair styling echoes Leigh’s in
the Hitchcock film.

Endings to Scorsese films can carry the sting of a horror climax. The granddaddy of
these is Taxi Driver. Travis Bickle’s closing flash of mania, startled by his own reflection
(naturally) in the rearview mirror, is a Palme d’Or winning film’s equivalent to Freddy
Krueger popping up for one last fright. Assisting the impact of this moment is the jarring
pop of a reversed cymbal crash, a suggestion from Bernard Herrmann. A vanquished
monster returning stronger than ever occurs in The King of Comedy, with Rupert Pupkin
out of prison and a celebrity in the same ironic fashion as Travis Bickle. Tommy De Vito
returns from the dead to figuratively shoot Henry Hill (and the audience) at the end of
Goodfellas, combining the gangster movie, the horror film, and the Western, as the shot
directly quotes Edwin S. Porter’s The First Great Train Robbery (1903).

Scorsese as Virgil in the Inferno

The Last Temptation of Christ’s shrill angelic choir accompanying Jesus’ acceptance of his
divinity closes the film on a jump scare. Scorsese’s literal passion project trades in horror
imagery: the raising of Lazarus is depicted as a terrifying act, complete with a jolt as the
resurrected man’s gnarled hand bursts into frame. Make-up here is more reminiscent of
a Lucio Fulci zombie flick than a Cecil B. DeMille biblical epic.

Scorsese has said his life is movies and religion. Often it is horror movies and religion.
Not many filmmakers would mention Mario Bava’s Kill, Baby… Kill (1966) when
discussing The Last Temptation of Christ (Thompson/Christie, 1996, p.143). Not that
 Cape Fear
religion automatically equates to horror, but horror cinema often draws inspiration
from religious themes. By articulating its religious subject matter with cutting edge FX
and William Friedkin’s near-documentary directing style, Scorsese favourite The Exorcist
revolutionised the genre. The film also offered something absent in most Scorsese
movies no matter how deep their religious themes: the possibility of redemption.
In Martin Scorsese’s Divine Comedy, Catherine O’Brien calls the director’s cinema
“Dantesque”, showing “visions of (a Living) Hell; a (Daily) Purgatory and a striving for
Paradise” (2018, p.5). Whether Paradise is ever a possibility for Scorsese characters is
debatable. They seem largely trapped in the Inferno, sometimes reaching Purgatorio, but
with Paradisio out of reach.

That the promise of damnation is so prevalent in Scorsese’s cinema may have to do

with an active imagination raised in a Catholic upbringing. More precisely, the pre-
Vatican II Catholic church, before some of the more restrictive and punitive elements
were softened or removed. As fellow Catholic Roger Ebert recalled, “…we were drilled
on mortal sins, venial sins, sanctifying grace, the fires of hell…” (Ebert, 2008, p.1). The
possibility of damnation and the concept of salvation impacted the young Scorsese,
to the point where he considered entering the priesthood (Thompson/Christie, 1996,
p.12). Women and rock n’ roll are reasons given for why his vocation did not stick,
but the prosaic explanation that his grades and attendance record fell short is a more
likely answer. Even so, women and rock n’ roll would go on to preoccupy both him
and his films. Beyond the tenets of Catholicism, religion in Scorsese’s early life was
often inflected with a Gothic-tinged mortal dread. During the Cold War, he and his
classmates would be rushed into the catacombs of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral for drills
in case of a nuclear strike. “The camera movement in a lot of my films certainly comes
from creeping around those catacombs, with the sound effects of the echoing rosary”
(quoted in O’Brien, 2018, p.34).

As in many of the eleven horror films on his list, Scorsese’s cinema is preoccupied with
reconciling the spiritual with the corporeal, particularly when linked to sexuality, which
the filmmaker has said he correlates with the “reptilian, shameful, ignoble” due to his
Catholicism, adding that, “Some of us never manage to free ourselves from that guilt”
(Wilson, 2011, p.154-155). Sex, guilt and punishment are present from the beginning of
his career. Who’s That Knocking at My Door climaxes with a montage of statues in states
Devil’s Advocates
of violent martyrdom, while lead character J.R. attempts to confess a sexual relationship
with a character credited only as ‘The Girl’ (Zoe Bethune). That film also features a
Madonna/whore complex that would resurface in many of the director’s films. Women
are idealised, cast as saints until, in the men’s eyes, they are sullied by life, experience or
desire. They are then cast aside or must themselves be redeemed by men looking for
salvation.

Chapter 3 discusses the depiction of women in Scorsese’s films, including Who’s That
Knocking at My Door’s confused rape subplot, and the impact of religion. For now, it is
worth noting that Scorsese’s cinema critiques the male viewpoint as immature and
destructive, but the guilt-inducing shadow of religion repeatedly hangs over scenes of
intimacy. Scorsese has also shown himself to be simply more interested in the male
characters. ‘The Girl’ has the most dramatic and challenging arc, but she is adjunct to the
director’s interest in J.R.’s emotional and spiritual turmoil. This narrative device is reused
by the filmmaker in other films, including Cape Fear.

Alongside this is the director’s attraction to unsympathetic characters. While never

condoning their actions, he searches for the humanity within them. A Christian pursuit,
invoking Matthew 7:1 – “Judge not, that ye be not judged” – this has created impressive
examinations of male fragility and destructive machismo, as seen in Taxi Driver, Raging
Bull, The King of Comedy, Goodfellas, and others. Yet, in Cape Fear, a tension arises: Max
Cady is a serial rapist targeting the wife and child of a flawed ‘hero’. The film is careful
not to create pity for Cady, but searching for humanity in such a monster, particularly
within a film dressed in the production values and style of a Hollywood A-picture, may
be one reason accusations of misogyny were levelled against it.

When reviewing the Catholic influence within Scorsese films, their visual creation of
hellish environments is the aspect most immediately noticeable. This convention was
present from the beginning: the 1959 short film Vesuvius VI, a “miniature epic set in
Ancient Rome,” ended with the credit “Directed by Martin Scorsese” being engulfed
in flame (Thompson/Christie, 1996, p.13). Fire and smoke appear with infernal
connotations throughout his work. During Jesus’ forty days and nights in the desert in
The Last Temptation of Christ, Satan appears as a large, majestic flame. In Mean Streets,
Charlie (Harvey Keitel) habitually punishes himself with fire, holding his fingers over a
 Cape Fear
burning match or the flame from a stove in a restaurant kitchen. That restaurant is about
to be given to Charlie by his mobster uncle, taken from an owner who cannot meet
loan repayments.

For characters in Scorsese’s films, life and religion is all about what is owed upwards.
Charlie’s thoughts are dominated by the guilt and dread of punishment for accumulated
sin. “It’s all bullshit except the pain,” he says. “The pain of hell. The burn from a lighted
match increased a million times” (Scorsese, 1973). Charlie goes on to say Hell holds
two forms of pain, the physical and spiritual – spiritual being the worst, that of eternal
damnation. Similarly, Raging Bull sees Jake La Motta begging for water as he sizzles in a
sauna preparing for an upcoming fight, but also a taste of the punishment that awaits
once his actions cause him to lose everything.

Goodfellas’ Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) and Tommy De Vito (Joe Pesci) are themselves the
destroyers of Eden, corrupting everything and everyone around them. Scorsese wryly
invokes this when they bankrupt and torch The Bamboo Lounge, a club decorated
in the style of an island paradise. Eden has been well and truly tapped dry, it seems.
Earlier in the movie, the teenage Henry sells his soul to the Mafia by committing arson
in a used car lot. Fleeing the scene of the crime, the film freeze-frames him against a
backdrop of fire as the cars explode. In 1985’s After Hours, Paul smokes a joint lit from
the large flame of a candle in Marcy’s red-walled bedroom. Marcy is the temptation he
has followed down into SoHo, a decision that will transform his world into a comically
threatening Hades. Another character residing in a hell of his own making is De Niro’s
deluded, dangerous Rupert Pupkin in The King of Comedy. Dwelling in his mother’s
(red) basement, acting out fantasies of being a chat show host, Pupkin is a deceiver of
everyone around him, including himself. An ambiguous ending leaves the audience to
decide whether the self-deception continues, or if he has achieved the ironic salvation of
celebrity success.

In Scorsese movies, red colour schemes denote Hell, damnation and danger. The bar
Charlie frequents in Mean Streets is lit so scarlet it resembles a photographer’s dark
room. The hangout is a cave of temptation and perdition, where topless dancers
perform on stage while in the men’s room customers shoot heroin or each other.
Small wonder the bar is underground. Also subterranean is Henry Hill’s path into the
Devil’s Advocates
Copacabana nightclub, with girlfriend Karen (Lorraine Bracco) on his arm. Sidestepping
the long queue, Henry leads his wide-eyed date through a suitably red-walled service
tunnel, past a bouncer eating a large sandwich (gluttony) and two staff members making
out (lust, sloth), whom Henry jokingly berates with “Every time, every time you two!
Don’t you work?”

An infernal red is omnipresent in Goodfellas. It washes over the entire screen as Henry
Hill recalls the murder of a mob boss in the trunk of his car. The tablecloths in the
Copacabana are red when Bobby Vinton sends Henry and Karen champagne, tempting
her to step further into Henry’s life. When Tommy berates Henry for laughing too hard
at his jokes, the Bamboo Lounge is lit red, and a sense of danger is reinforced by certain
diners wearing complementary red costumes. Scorsese acknowledges this infernal
influence when describing Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family, Nick Pileggi’s 1985 source
book: “It seemed that Nick was taking us through the different levels of purgatory and
hell in the underworld, like Virgil or like Dante” (O’Brien, 2018, p.5). This all may look like
Paradise, but one wrong word can put you directly in the Inferno.

Sticking with the Inferno, New York of the 1970s was fertile ground for Scorsese and
screenwriter (and Calvinist) Paul Schrader to depict Hell on Earth. From Taxi Driver’s
opening credits the audience knows it is travelling through an underworld. Travis Bickle’s
yellow taxicab emerges from, and plunges into, thick steam rising from the streets. Red
light washes over his eyes as he surveys the city by night, rendered an abstract landscape
of unsettling shapes through the rain slicked windscreen. Steam engulfs passers-by, the
billows coloured crimson as the director’s credit appears. That steam will roll over the
ring in Raging Bull, and shroud Paul’s journey through the night in After Hours. That red
wash will accompany Scorsese’s credit at the beginning of Cape Fear, over a shot of a
tear drop, or a drop of blood, or a bloody tear…

Does the presence of a higher power temper any of this mortal dread? Rarely.
Scorsese’s characters search for salvation and are typically still searching, or have
accepted purgatory, come the closing credits. A loving God is absent, characters best
described by Travis Bickle’s self-applied label: “I am God’s lonely man.” Yet the director
frequently employs high angle shots, sometimes referred to as ‘God shots’ or ‘God’s-eye-
view shots.’ Scorsese calls them “the priest’s-eye-view”, reflecting the viewpoint looking
 Cape Fear
down at the implements of Mass set upon the altar (Ebert, 2008, p.275). To less-religious
audiences, the more general ‘God’s-eye-view’ is a better description. These visuals
seem to be observing events from a higher vantage point (the overhead tracking shot
regarding Taxi Driver’s climactic carnage), or sitting in judgement (Paul Newman’s Fast
Eddie realising pride has led to him being hustled in The Color of Money, Tommy De Vito
dropping to the floor after being executed in Goodfellas). Scorsese’s own interpretation
of these shots, however, lends an even bleaker view. If they are merely replicating the
priest’s view of the altar, then God truly is absent, even in the overhead shot of Jesus’
journey to Calvary in The Last Temptation of Christ. It is a notion the director would
wrestle onto the screen, and then wrestle with, in Silence.

Fig. 5 A God’s eye view at the end of Taxi Driver © Columbia Pictures

This notion brings us back to classic horror fiction. In Taxi Driver, After Hours, Cape
Fear, and later Bringing out the Dead, Shutter Island (2010) and Silence, there is a near
cosmic dread that comes with the thought of being alone in the universe. Rather than
scripture, these characters seemingly live by H.P. Lovecraft’s philosophy, “The oldest and
strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of
the unknown” (Lovecraft, 1927). Which could explain why violence in Scorsese films is
scrappy and messy, but for the characters is at times almost ecstatic. Charlie holding his
hand to the fire demonstrates a desire to reach God. Travis Bickle’s culmination of his
mission is a massacre that baptises him in blood. Max Cady believes violent suffering will
Devil’s Advocates
bring about Sam Bowden’s salvation from a higher power.

In The Big Shave, sacrifice and martyrdom are depicted with a minimalist elegance
reminiscent of fellow Catholic director Robert Bresson. The Big Shave was Scorsese’s
first colour film. It had to be. This six-minute non-narrative piece dispassionately regards
an unnamed man (Peter Bernuth) repeatedly shaving himself, registering no emotion
as he begins mutilating his face. Monochrome photography would have blunted the
impact of deep-red blood contrasted against a gleaming white bathroom. The short
film establishes a template for the psychosis that often dwells in the Scorsese male.
As Annette Wernblad notes, “…there is a fine line between trying to get redemption
through self-flagellation and complete psychosis, [leaving] us wondering which side of
the mirror this particular man is on” (2011, p.80).

Likewise, Mean Street’s Charlie, Taxi Driver’s Travis Bickle, New York, New York’s (1977)
Jimmy Doyle, and Raging Bull’s Jake La Motta. These men seek out pain in life, and when
they cannot find it they create it to ensure their suffering. Raging Bull exemplifies this.
While not a boxing fan, for research Scorsese attended two fights at Madison Square
Garden. He took from them the blood-soaked sponge washing the boxer’s chest and
blood dripping off the ropes (Thompson/Christie, 1996, p.80). Both these moments
made it into the finished film, as La Motta sacrifices himself to rival Sugar Ray Robinson,
penance for beating both his wife and brother while in a jealous rage. The blows
are depicted in rapid edits, but the visuals slow so the audience can register blood
spraying from cuts above La Motta’s eye and forehead. Blood splashes onto ringside
commentators, underlining the impression of a biblical execution. Jake absorbs the
punishment not for all humankind, but solely for himself, for the sins he has committed.
In the complicated world of a Scorsese movie, La Motta will fall from grace again and his
penance will not be as swift, continuing beyond the film’s fade-out. Again, the worst pain
is the spiritual.

While Scorsese would not carry the gore of Taxi Driver or Raging Bull over to his staging
of the crucifixion in The Last Temptation of Christ, he did look to his B-movie beginnings,
borrowing shots from the climactic crucifixion in Boxcar Bertha. When discussing Taxi
Driver with the director, Scorsese’s parish priest, Rev. Francis Principe, said, “I’m glad
you ended it on Easter Sunday and not on Good Friday.” (Reidy, 2012). While this
 Cape Fear
arguably misunderstands the film’s climactic sting, it is an effective way to summarise the
director’s work. To the point where the quote has been bastardised as “Too much Good
Friday, not enough Easter Sunday,” when discussing his output (Reidy, 2012).

Cape Fear is all Good Friday. Sam assuming himself as an ultimate arbiter of the law is
not regarded favourably by higher powers suggested to be at play. To dramatise this,
Scorsese supercharges the foreboding religion-inspired themes and images of his earlier
work, transforming a standard revenge thriller into a blood and thunder horror film.
 Cape Fear
Chapter 2: Devil in the Details –
Horror and Cape Fear
Michael Henry Wilson calls Scorsese’s Cape Fear, “…the first of his films that belongs to
a clearly defined genre, in this case the thriller” (2011, p.305). But as we shall explore in
this chapter, like the swampy waters of the film’s river its genre is anything but clear.

When reading critical commentary on Cape Fear it is notable how many writers invoke
the horror genre. Equally important is how horror is used as evidence that Cape Fear
saw Scorsese slumming it. Lesley Stern in The Scorsese Connection comments, “The
operatic in Cape Fear… brings together a yearning for the sublime with an invincibly
bathetic craving for B-grade Horror” (1995, p.170). A similar sentiment is offered by Pam
Cook in her Sight and Sound article, ‘Scorsese’s Masquerade’: “It’s no secret that, in a bid
for commercial success, Scorsese decided to remake J. Lee Thompson’s taut black and
white thriller as a horror movie… Cape Fear owes everything to low-budget horror
movies – Abel Ferrara’s 1987 [sic] Ms. 45 (Angel of Vengeance) for instance” (1992, p.14).

In Chapter 1, we reviewed horror’s influence on Scorsese’s movies up to Cape Fear.

Arguments have been made that he is a frequent traveller through the genre. In
Nightmare Movies Kim Newman writes, “The poet laureate of the psycho movie is
Martin Scorsese, whose horror films are rarely recognised as such” (2011, p.134).

In Cape Fear, Leigh recalls her husband’s time as a defence lawyer with the softly caustic
remark, “Oh, I remember those days; ol’ Slippery Sam.” Horror can be similarly difficult
to get hold of and hang on to. Opinions inevitably shift over time, so what was once
regarded as terrifying now seems cosy. 1931’s Frankenstein and 1954’s The Creature from
the Black Lagoon (Arnold) are unlikely to frighten today’s horror audience, for whom
the biggest shock may be the lack of colour. As its style and conventions continue
to be absorbed into other genres, titles once agreed upon as ‘horror’ are now being
reevaluated. With police procedurals on the big screen and small routinely tackling darker
subject matter, often with graphic make-up prosthetics, film discussion boards and Twitter
threads will ask, “Is The Silence of the Lambs a horror film?” The same has been asked of
Seven. An interesting inversion of this can be applied to films such as Jaws and Blue Velvet
(Lynch, 1986), arguing they are horror, not adventure or arthouse-thriller, respectively.
Devil’s Advocates
Even the commonly understood principle aims of horror – to shock, scare, repulse –
have been lifted and shifted into unlikely environments. 24 (2001-14), Daredevil (2015-
18) and Jessica Jones (2015-19) use horror conventions to elicit these responses in TV
series still best read as belonging to thriller and superhero categories. Brigid Cherry
succinctly captures the difficulty in offering one simple definition of horror. She argues
that the genre’s longevity, coupled with its drawing upon myriad sources such as novels,
theatre, real life, etc. from different countries, means it is most usefully viewed as a
diverse group of sub-genres (2009, p.4).

Cherry lists these sub-genres as:

- The Gothic

- Supernatural, occult and ghost film

- Psychological horror

- Monster movies

- Slashers

- Body horror, splatter and gore films

- Exploitation cinema, video nasties or other forms of explicitly violent films

(Cherry, 2009. p.5-6).

Bar ‘monster movies’, we will see elements of Cape Fear in all these groupings, which will
be no surprise to those familiar with Scorsese’s back catalogue. Renowned for his cine-
literacy, when working in a new genre (the thriller), and uncertain of his ability to be
successful within it, it is no surprise that he focussed on those aforementioned “powerful
sensations”. Even less surprising that he looked to horror cinema to achieve them.

When cameras started rolling on 1991’s Cape Fear, horror cinema had enjoyed almost
twenty years of mainstream commercial and cultural success. The Exorcist, with its
demon child plot, had entered the pop culture lexicon and spawned a slew of religious
themed shockers. The Omen (Donner, 1976), starring Gregory Peck, was a similarly
influential box office hit. Whether Deliverance is a horror film is up for debate, but its
success popularised a rural or ‘backwoods’ horror sub-genre typified by The Texas Chain
 Cape Fear
Saw Massacre (Hooper, 1974) (whose title is seen on a cinema marquee in urban-
horror film Taxi Driver), The Hills Have Eyes (Craven, 1977) and Rituals (Carter, 1977).
Both The Exorcist and Deliverance have antecedents in horror films from previous
decades. ‘Backwoods horror’ was a trend supercharged by the arrival of Psycho and given
violent, censor-rebuking make-overs during the 1960s by such films as Two Thousand
Maniacs (Lewis, 1964) and Spider Baby (Hill, 1967). Old Nick too had hits in the
swinging sixties, with Hammer’s The Devil Rides Out (Fisher, 1968) and Rosemary’s Baby
(Polanski, 1968). Like Rosemary’s Baby, differentiating Deliverance and The Exorcist from
other horror movies was the kind of box-office receipts that only come with crossover
audience success.

Devil horror and rural horror are felt in the sub-genre that would dominate horror
cinema in the 1980s: the slasher movie. Prototypes of the slasher include A Bay of Blood
(Bava, 1971), a key influence on the first two Friday the 13th instalments, and Black
Christmas (Clark, 1974). As well as cementing conventions of the colour giallo, Mario
Bava’s Blood and Black Lace (1964) can also be viewed as a proto-slasher. Generating too
many titles to mention here, the slasher cycle proper was launched with the unexpected
success of John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978). It would be dominated by that movie’s
subsequent franchising, plus the long running series of both Friday the 13th (1980-
2003) and A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984-2003). These movies remained profitable
throughout the 1980s and crossed into the mainstream, particularly Elm Street.

Detractors accused slashers of relying on spectacular gore and nubile flesh to

compensate for lazy plots and thin characterisation, tarnishing horror anew with the
routinely applied no-brow label. An argument can be made that the term ‘psychological
thriller’ was created to allow cinemagoers intellectual peace of mind when opting to
watch a fright film. But, devil horror, rural horror and the slasher shaped and evolved the
genre to the point where conventions and expectations would seep into other movies,
regardless of intent. In my conversation with Wesley Strick, he said Southern inhospitality
movies and slasher films were not front of mind when writing Cape Fear. The film’s most
graphic moment of violence – Cady mutilating Lori’s face – came from of De Niro’s
research and was not, in Strick’s words, “just a nod to the slasher genre”. Yet, these three
branches of horror can be seen in Cape Fear, dramatised through that most terrifying of
horror staples: the family.
Devil’s Advocates
Home is Where the Hurt is
The family is the best microcosm to work with. If you go much beyond that you’re
getting away from a lot of the roots of our own primeval feelings. Let’s face it, most of
the basic stories and the basic feelings involve very few people: Mommy, Daddy, me,
siblings, and the few other people in the room. – Wes Craven (quoted in Wood, 2003,
p.114)

Eight of the eleven films Scorsese lists as the scariest of all time focus on familial
trauma, guilt and betrayal (Isle of the Dead, Dead of Night and Night of the Demon are
the – arguable - exceptions). In Scorsese’s cinema, the family can be a repository of
intimidation or violent recrimination, e.g. Mean Streets, New York, New York, Raging Bull,
and Goodfellas. Annette Wernblad posits the intriguing suggestion that Rupert Pupkin’s
seen-but-not-heard nagging mum (voiced by Scorsese’s actual mother, Catherine)
has actually passed and is a Psycho-style figment of his imagination (2011, p.94). Travis
Bickle’s anniversary-cum-birthday card to his parents also carries a suspicion this is
correspondence to the departed. Appropriate, then, that Scorsese has proven such a
talented chronicler of the Mafia, the ultimate example of a family that never gives, only
takes. Or that he would make a mob movie titled The Departed (2006). Even when the
family is absent, a proxy family of friends and acquaintances offers scant more support.
In The Color of Money, Vincent is betrayed by surrogate father Eddie. Paul in After Hours is
a bad boyfriend, while the female characters are threatening wife and/or mother figures.
Even Jesus struggles with a distant father.

Cape Fear remains the director’s bleakest depiction of a family because it is both
terrorised by and inadvertent creator of the monstrous Cady. Scorsese frames his
antagonist as “…an evil spirit who represents the fear and guilt of each member of the
family… The family is vulnerable from the start because it is dysfunctional. Like every
family I know! These Bowdens are all imperfect, so I’m able to love them!” (Wilson, 2011,
p.170).

This notion of the family generating its own torment was a key element of horror’s
evolution in the 1970s, and Cape Fear’s depiction of the family has roots in the shifting
values of that decade. As the above-mentioned three horror sub-genres began
dominating cultural conversation, the call was increasingly coming from inside the house.
 Cape Fear

Fig. 6 Marital discord in Cape Fear

Andrew Tudor identifies two trends in the genre, Secure Horror and Paranoid Horror,
and both are useful when analysing Cape Fear, particularly in its relation to the 1962
original. Secure Horror, which Tudor ascribes to movies pre-1960s (i.e. before Psycho),
sees the threat as typically external to the norm. Protagonists have an expertise that
allows them to defeat the menace, while authorities and the established order are
essentially just and worth preserving. Social agencies create boundaries that separate
the protagonist from the destructive antagonist, preserving societal norms, exemplified
by the nuclear family. Come the film’s close, normality is restored (1989, p.103).

While I do not view 1962’s Cape Fear as a horror film, Tudor’s definition of Secure
Horror largely applies. Wesley Strick stuck close to changes screenwriter James R. Webb
made to MacDonald’s book for the original movie; basic plot events are so similar
that the opening credits state the 1991 film is based on both MacDonald’s novel and
Webb’s script. But, Strick abandons the endorsement of frontier justice found in both
The Executioners and the first movie. In Thompson’s film Cady is depicted as antithetical
to the values espoused by the Bowdens. As in the novel, the morally upstanding Sam
of the earlier version tackled Cady while he was raping a young girl, and subsequently
testified at his trial. Therefore, when the law is ineffective in containing the ex-con, Sam’s
planned vigilantism receives tacit legal approval by the presence of an Officer Kersek
to assist him in killing Cady. Interestingly, this first adaptation is the only version to date
in which Cady survives; the Hays Code would not have permitted an endorsement
Devil’s Advocates
of lethal vigilantism, and it would have sat uneasy with the real-life politics of famed
Hollywood liberal Gregory Peck. But, as per the rape-revenge narrative, Sam twists the
law to accommodate his vengeance, implying that Cady’s imprisonment is a slower form
of execution, “…until the day you rot.” Crucially, the Bowden family is united in their fight
against the psychotic ex-con. This unity is taken even further in the novel, both in the
gung-ho bloodlust of Sam’s wife Carol and when the family enjoy a day of group gun
practice; preparation in case Cady comes calling.

With Paranoid Horror, protagonists are overwhelmed by the encroaching peril and
any intervention to stop it usually fails. Institutions prove unreliable and unable to
maintain harmony. Chaos and disorder are the norms as victims form their own
defences against the threat, one that is often internal as boundaries grow diffuse, and
is routinely undefeated come the unresolved ending. Scorsese’s Cape Fear fits snugly
into this bracket. Sam’s ethical failing in suppressing evidence at Cady’s trial marks both
the system weakening and the conception point of Max Cady the avenger. Coupled
with Sam’s later infidelity, this creates flaws in the Bowdens’ defences, while rendering
unworkable an endorsement of vigilante justice. With Sam being Cady’s lawyer rather
than a witness for the prosecution, the remake is thus transformed into a narrative
about the dangers of vigilante action, that violent example of excessive pride. Sam
rejects the supremacy of law, thereby undermining the foundations he believes hold him
and his family safe. Subsequent attempts to double down on this impulse (hiring goons
to assault Cady, enticing the ex-con to break into his house) are shown to be just as
damaging to himself and those around him.

In an example of blanket auteurism, this change to Sam’s role in the story is often
ascribed to Scorsese. In fact, it was a plot switch Strick added from draft one, explaining
to me: “I think it’s something any half decent screenwriter would have done in updating
the material… I liked the irony of it. In a macro sense Sam did the right thing, but we
can’t condone that kind of behaviour, especially in a professional context. It wasn’t
necessarily immoral, but it was unethical, and he pays a huge price for it” (interview with
author).

Crossing boundaries becomes a recurring motif in the film. Cady taunts the Bowdens
by sitting on the wall that bounds their property, a legal act of intimidation and a near-
 Cape Fear
trespass in response to Sam’s previous ‘trespasses’. Moreover, he gains access to the
Bowdens’ spacious house early in the film to poison Ben, the family dog. Cady continues
to invade their domestic space for the remainder of Cape Fear, even when the family
relocates to the moving target of the houseboat. This near paranormal slipperiness is
encapsulated in Sam’s escalating panic when he says to Kersek, “I believe he’s able to
slip into the house and out undetected. Although is he out, I can’t tell. He’s either out
or he’s in, I’m not sure.” Kersek, who in this telling is a private investigator Cady suggests
was kicked off the force for past misdeeds, replies, “Well, I can’t see through walls, Mr.
Bowden.” This dooms the P.I. because Cady can… Sam’s transgression has created a
force of vengeance the established order cannot withstand. Cady is also able to cross
the most important boundary, getting into the heads of the respective Bowdens, either
directly with Danielle or indirectly with Leigh. His attack on Lori sows fresh suspicions
of adultery. As Sam’s dark reflection, Cady can second guess the lawyer’s every move,
including his final act escape plan. As the Bowdens flee for the houseboat, they drive
past a handmade sign reading, ‘Where will you spend eternity?’, written in lettering
markedly similar to Cady’s tattoos.

Robert Mitchum’s Lt. Elgart compromises societal law by suggesting Sam adopt a
vigilante strategy. To this Sam damns the central plan of the original movie when he
exclaims, “What are you suggesting, Lieutenant? That I use my family as bait? And then
what? I’m going to hope that this psychopath attacks my wife and child? And then what,
blow his head off?” Even as the power of the law seems to abandon Sam, it bolsters
Cady, who has mastered it while incarcerated. A character feature of the original film, in
the 1991 version this self-improvement receives greater emphasis, culminating in Cady’s
‘trial’ of Sam Bowden. Expertise is ineffectual when the antagonist is as skilled as the
protagonist.

Robin Wood’s Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan is also valuable for identifying in Cape
Fear elements that began to surface in 1970s American horror. Discussing concepts of
repression in socio-political and socio-sexual contexts, Wood claimed 1970s horror
depicted an eruption of repressed forces and an exploration of societal taboos, while
also acknowledging horror can be reactionary as well as revolutionary (an accusation
he targets at slasher cinema) (1986, p.70-94). Wood argued that since the 1960s, horror
has contained five recurring motifs: a human psychotic as the monster, the revenge of
Devil’s Advocates
nature, a satanism or possession theme, the terrible child, and cannibalism. These appear
in various forms in Cape Fear and, as Wood writes, all are drawn together by “the
unifying master figure – the Family” (1986, p.83).

On one level a sexual psychotic, Cady is also coded as a Satanic figure who, in a reverse
baptism, rises from the swamps of the Cape Fear river, ready to possess and corrupt.
He also demonstrates a predilection for cannibalism, both onscreen with Lori and in
information Kersek relays to Sam. Danielle’s disgust at her parents’ failings makes her the
terrible child in Cady’s plan, until the full extent of his malevolence is revealed. Horror
here is internal, a dark force linked to the family, and erupting from within to destroy
the host. Apt then that Wesley Strick likened Cady hanging on to the underside of the
Bowden’s Cherokee to the facehugger from Alien (Scott, 1979) (Bouzereau, 2001). The
screenwriter also believes the family in crisis is what drew Scorsese to the material:
“A lot’s been written about Marty’s Catholicism, about his ideas of blood guilt and
expiation of sin and all that, but I think his immediate connection to this material was as
a domestic melodrama” (Maslin, 1991, p.14).

In many ways, Cape Fear literally brings its horrors home. Over fifty-five minutes (47%
of the film’s running time bar end credits) is set in the Bowden household or on their
houseboat. Cady attacks and rapes Lori in her home, and emerges from a gingerbread
house on the school stage to seduce Danielle. While we briefly see Cady’s apartment,
the suggestion is he haunts every area of the Bowdens’ lives and domestic space.
Freddie Francis externalises this in his cinematography to reflect the Bowden’s panic,
and explained “…the atmosphere of the house changes with them – it degrades as
the story goes along. The thing starts off bright and sunny and then slowly gets more
downbeat…” (Morgan, 1991b). Scorsese visualises this most dramatically in the climax,
when the Bowdens’ house(boat) is ripped apart and consumed by a swirling vortex.
God’s-eye-view shots of the boat tossed on the stormy river, complemented by Cady’s
biblical rantings, suggest a higher power at play, setting the stage for the Bowdens’
redemption and Cady’s (ambiguous) damnation.

A scene featured in both the novel and the 1962 version, in which Cady tells Sam how
upon release he kidnapped and raped his ex-wife, then blackmailed her to stay silent,
was also shot for the remake. But the monologue was ultimately cut from the finished
 Cape Fear
film, presumably as it detracts from Cady’s relentless focus on Sam as the target for
his revenge. In Scorsese’s version, there is the suggestion that Cady’s ex-wife is Loretta,
whose name is tattooed on his arm and above the broken heart on his chest. When
Lori asks who she is, he replies, “The love of my life who’s no longer with us,” implying
here an even worse fate has befallen his ex-spouse.

Much of the extensive script revisions went on splintering the family. In a draft dated
‘August 31, 1990’, approximately three months before cameras first rolled, the Bowdens
are written as dysfunctional but more united than in the final film. They are shown
walking as a family to the cinema (Strick, 1990, p.4) and there is less friction in the
dialogue between Sam and Leigh (or Karen as she is named in this draft). In the film,
Leigh’s suggestion to Sam they get a gun “in case things get a little exciting”, followed by,
“we’d probably end up using it on each other” is a substitution for “I’m a little scared,
Sam” in this earlier draft (Strick, 1990, p.15).

Strick recalls Scorsese telling him that Jessica Lange, “…told me straight up when she
signed on she wasn’t satisfied with the role as written, and I promised her she’d have
your services to help her find a character that is more layered” (interview with author).
The writer would realise that Lange “never wanted to play on the nose. If there was a
scene in which Leigh was frustrated, she wanted lines that sounded kittenish or girlish,
and then she would play the frustration beneath that” (interview with author). This
explains why Leigh is generally more supportive of Danielle in this ‘August 31, 1990’
draft, and became more sardonic after Lange’s involvement in shaping the character. In
the film, Leigh finds a maternal bond with Ben the family dog that is missing with her
daughter, telling him, “They switched babies on me in the hospital, didn’t they?” That
line is missing from the earlier draft, and Leigh and Danielle’s exchanges are absent a
sarcastic undercurrent (Strick, 1990, p.3).

In the finished film, Danielle has a warmer relationship with Graciella, the family’s maid,
than she does with her mother. The teenager entering the house with Graciella at the
beginning of the movie, brightly conversing in broken Spanish, was added later. In that
earlier draft Danielle sees the maid through the kitchen window, but their conversation
is not heard (Strick, 1990, p.3). Presumably, the film comparing the maid to the dog as
another surrogate family member was unintended insensitivity. Both Leigh and Danielle
Devil’s Advocates
lose these emotional proxies and must support each other come the houseboat climax,
something we shall explore in relation to Cape Fear and the trope of the Final Girl.

If Cady represents the Bowdens’ collective trauma, then responsibility for that trauma
lies with Sam. Sam’s decision to suppress evidence can be read as the first crack in
his moral armour (or his first prideful action) that would lead to marital infidelity and
continued flirtation with female colleagues. As Cady says in separate scenes, “You go
everywhere you want with whomever. That much freedom could maybe get a fella
into trouble, what you think?” and “I’m gonna teach you the meaning of commitment.”
The Bowdens fit the archetypal horror family coming out of the 1970s into the 1980s,
facing a foe that embodies the principles of Paranoid Horror. But, Scorsese adds another
twist of the blade that risks alienating audiences: although viewers can understand the
family and their problems, some may find it difficult to muster sympathy for them. As
Roger Ebert commented in the 1991 Siskel & Ebert review: “[Scorsese has] made it
very difficult to identify with any of the characters. Everyone in this movie is flawed
or dishonest in one way or another, and the message seems to be that evil corrupts
everyone who comes into contact with it.”

Ebert also dubs the film a “terrifying tragedy”, which speaks to Scorsese’s possible
intentions; the audience will be battered on the stormy waters of high emotion, without
a life jacket of likeability. This may be what Pam Cook meant when writing that the
film owed everything to low-budget horror movies. Horror films, particularly those
unburdened by the need to generate huge box office to show a profit, can explore
troubling situations populated by less than sympathetic characters. For fans of these
movies this tension is a bonus, offering an alternative to the four-quadrant appeal found
in mainstream Hollywood fare. But, Cape Fear is mainstream Hollywood fare. Polished,
big-budgeted, and, with De Niro and Lange, sporting two Oscar winners in its lead cast.
Gregory Peck and Martin Balsam, both of whom appeared in the 1962 original and
cameo here, were also previous Academy Award winners. At this point then, it is worth
introducing another practical analytical tool: Robin Wood’s concept of the “incoherent
text”.

Wood argued that certain films were interesting because they failed to marshal their
viewpoint into a coherent ideology. The resultant incoherence creates a tension that
 Cape Fear
makes these films fascinating in a way not true of more ‘successful’ examples of the
genre. He ascribes this incoherence to multiple factors: the personal, and possibly
contradictory, interests of the filmmakers, cultural assumptions of the viewing audience,
and the social milieu in which the film was made (Wood, 1986, p.47). Central to Wood’s
theory, and his understanding of the horror film, is that society is built on repression.
Certain films will justify that repression, others will rail against it, often reflecting the
wider attitudes of the time. He sees the damage of crises such as the Vietnam war and
Watergate on the national psyche as key factors for a number of ‘incoherent texts’ in
1970s Hollywood (1986, p.49). While authority and institutions were widely challenged,
no satisfactory social or economic alternatives were forthcoming. Counterculture
options, e.g. communes and shared houses, were regarded with distrust by a frustrated
working and middle class. John G. Avildsen’s Joe (1970) captures these anxieties but is
not itself an incoherent text. By the tragic closing moments it is comfortable with its
ideology: action before understanding is catastrophic.

Wood cites Taxi Driver, along with Looking for Mr. Goodbar (Brooks, 1977) and Cruising
(Friedkin, 1980), as a prime example of the incoherent text. Taxi Driver, he writes,
is caught between Scorsese’s Catholicism, humanism and fascination with Classical
Hollywood, and writer Paul Schrader’s “quasi-fascism”, plus the societal upheaval against
which the film was made. As a result, the film cannot decide what it wants from the
character of Travis Bickle (1986, p.51). Time seems to have granted more clarity, with Taxi
Driver an acknowledged masterpiece of urban alienation and contemporary madness.
Society’s celebration of the clearly insane Bickle has only gained relevancy in an age of
warped celebrity worship, even if he could now be regarded as a spiritual grandfather to
self-pitying InCels on social media, plus Joaquin Phoenix’s character from Joker (Phillips,
2019) and the subsequent memes.

Like Taxi Driver, Cape Fear can be read as an incoherent text, and again the primary
reason lies in a character portrayed by Robert De Niro. Max Cady is a serial rapist
whose revenge plan includes a fifteen-year-old girl, so there is inevitable friction in
casting him as an avenging angel sent to recalibrate Sam’s moral lens, particularly when
Scorsese has loaded so many emotional problems onto the Bowdens. Compounding
this is the question of whether the family deserves the level of violence, threat and chaos
that crashes into their lives. Sam’s ethical transgression is understandable: evidence that
Devil’s Advocates
Cady’s victim was promiscuous could have resulted in a rapist walking free. Judging by
Cady’s actions in the film, Sam did prevent other women from being attacked while the
rapist was incarcerated. But, the film positions Sam’s misdeeds as profound enough to
warrant incurring such wrath. By breaking his oath to uphold the Sixth Amendment (“…
in every criminal prosecution the accused shall have the assistance of counsel for his
defence”) Sam has placed his own judgement above that of the law, and by extension
all higher authority. His inability to operate within the law speaks to an unchecked pride:
he did not believe the prosecution could present a case against Cady that would best
his defence. But, if Cady were successfully prosecuted in that way, it would have resulted
in women perhaps being unafraid that victim-blaming would be a legal weapon used
against them. Sam’s actions created a rot in the legal profession, and rather than work to
resolve it, he retreated into corporate law.

A heady ethical conundrum for audiences expecting the commercial movie Scorsese
had signed on to make. Therefore, making Sam promiscuous (something for which
Cady’s victim would have been lambasted) adds a more audience friendly “sin” that the
lawyer needs to redress. Not that infidelity is something Scorsese takes lightly. He once
said of his divorces, “I am living in sin and I will go to hell because of it” (Ebert, 2008,
p.103). That guilt of marital failure and the need to atone hangs heavy in Cape Fear.
Or in Scorsese’s words, “I introduced guilt into this story. I made it Catholic!” (Wilson,
2011, p.170). Max Cady’s Pentecostal fundamentalism is therefore revealed as colourful
window dressing; this is a film steeped in the worldview of someone raised in pre-
Vatican II Catholicism.

Despite its antagonist’s religiosity, there is not a single church in Cape Fear. Similarly,
although Sam is a lawyer, the only time characters appear in a courtroom is when Cady
reveals Sam’s perversion of the law in embracing vigilante justice. Penance takes its cue
from Charlie’s opening monologue in Mean Streets: “You don’t make up for your sins in
the church. You do it in the streets. You do it at home. The rest is bullshit and you know
it.” Resultantly, characters are denied the easy remedy of the frontier justice enacted in
The Executioners and the 1962 Cape Fear. In the original movie, audiences are invited
to feel appalled at how Cady is shielded by legal protections: “A man like that doesn’t
deserve civil rights,” says Sam’s wife Peggy (Polly Bergen). By 1991, Sam discovers the
ease with which he committed his transgression is replicated throughout the legal
 Cape Fear
system, and safeguards he assumed robust begin to crumble; again, Paranoid Horror
brings the societal into the personal space.

J. Lee Thompson’s Cape Fear avoids ideological incoherence by framing Bowden as a

paragon of decency, a near dress rehearsal for Peck’s performance as Atticus Finch in
To Kill A Mockingbird (Mulligan, 1962). Unblemished from the start, he has no difficulty
in uniting his family against the predatory menace. When seeing wholesomeness
threatened by such evil, the film can justify Sam’s reactionary tactics. 1962’s Cape Fear
stress tests society’s institutions and certifies them sound. MacDonald’s book takes this
further by stress testing the law and finding it sound only when useful. Unwittingly killing
Cady when firing a shot that nicks an artery in the ex-con’s arm, Sam later regards the
body and “…searched through himself for a sense of shame. And found only a sense of
savage satisfaction… the neat and careful layers of civilised instincts and behaviour were
peeled back to reveal an intense exultation over the death of an enemy” (MacDonald,
1957, p.192). Reflecting on his experiences and how it has reshaped his view of the
law, Sam says, “I think I was getting too stuffy. I was idealizing my profession, and leaning
on it too heavily. Now I know it’s just a tool… use it wisely and it can help you. And
when it’s of no use to you, you take a course of action that will be of use” (MacDonald,
1957, p.197). Its very title, The Executioners, suggests an institutionally approved taking of
life despite moral doubts Sam has earlier in the book. But, there is no room for moral
reassurance when Cady is a demon summoned by the family’s dysfunction.

The Sam at the end of The Executioners is the Sam fourteen years before 1991’s Cape
Fear begins; a man who regards his own judgement as superior to the laws upon which
his country is built. In Scorsese’s version, however, rather than solving a problem, this
abrogation of oath lights a slow-fuse bomb that will explode fourteen years later. While
commenting on the conservatism baked into the book and original movie, the remake
also critiques a vigilante sub-genre legitimised by the success of Death Wish, and which
flourished during the 1980s. As Strick said at the time, “…between me and Marty it’s
certainly not going to seem like Charles Bronson… that was my real fear, that it would
be like Death Wish” (Morgan, 1991c). Embracing a Reaganite ‘might-is-right’ philosophy,
these films presented a world of chaos impervious to legal sanctions. Direct physical
force was the only corrective, dispensed by characters with minimum critical reflection.
Best illustrating this are Sylvester Stallone’s Cobra (Cosmatos, 1986), Chuck Norris’ Silent
Another random document with
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Clavecin
 This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
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eBook.

Title: Clavecin

Author: Fagus

Release date: March 30, 2024 [eBook #73294]

Language: French

Original publication: Paris: A la cité des livres, 1926

Credits: Laurent Vogel (This file was produced from images

generously made available by the Bibliothèque
nationale de France (BnF/Gallica))

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CLAVECIN ***

 L’ALPHABET DES LETTRES

CLAVECIN
PAR

FAGUS

PARIS, A LA CITÉ DES LIVRES

Copyright by Fagus, 1926
A EDGAR MALFÈRE
ET
A LA MÉMOIRE
DE
PIERRE QUILLARD
 AU LECTEUR

Celui qui fait profession de poésie doit s’efforcer dans tous les
genres, apportant même soin au madrigal, au sonnet sans défaut,
qu’à construire un long poème. C’est la meilleure méthode, sinon la
seule, pour se rendre maître du plus sublime des instruments.
Les aînés donnent l’exemple : Racine ne dédaigna pas
l’épigramme, ni Victor Hugo le calembour ; Virgile chantait le
Moucheron, et le divin Homère le Combat des Rats et des
Grenouilles, dit-on.
 BALLADES

PRIÈRE A LA TRÈS SAINTE-VIERGE

Pour M. l’abbé Mollière, curé de Pringé.

— Reine des cieux, régente terrienne,

Empérière aux infernaux palus,
Je meurs de soif au bord de la fontaine
D’où pleut le sang de mon Seigneur Jésus.
Que fus-je ici que ce trouble Fagus
Qui peu valut mais souffert a ses peines ?
Accordez-lui de joindre vos élus :
Je meurs de soif au bord de la fontaine.

François Villon et son frère Verlaine

Ont péché certe autant que moi ou plus,
Vous les sauviez, ô Vierge souveraine :
Veuillez sauver le serviteur Fagus.
Mon fils aimé, ma femme ne sont plus,
Mais je sais bien qu’aux cieux ils interviennent,
Vierge, de Vous soient leurs voix entendues :
Je meurs de soif au bord de la fontaine.
Par devant Vous j’invoque dans ma peine
Sœur Mélanie à qui parla Jésus,
Et Bernadette à qui sous la fontaine
Par dix-huit fois Vous êtes apparue,
Et vous, Thérèse-de-l’Enfant-Jésus
Qui de mon fils au ciel êtes marraine :
Je vous en prie, rendez-nous absolus :
Je meurs de soif au bord de la fontaine.

Reine des cieux, régente terrienne,

Ai-je tout dit ? Je ne vois rien de plus,
Que vous prier de redire à Jésus,
Qui fut si bon à la Samaritaine :
Je meurs de soif au bord de la fontaine.
BALLADE VOTIVE A JEAN-MARC BERNARD

— Au matin d’or qu’éveille à peine un vent,

Les clairs rideaux de peupliers s’appellent ;
Le Rhône énorme emporte en tournoyant
Les premiers feux et les premiers bruits d’ailes,
Et vers la rive où bleuit l’asphodèle,
Un jeune dieu levé sur l’horizon
Retient là-haut une étoile nouvelle :
Jean-Marc Bernard, de Saint-Rambert d’Albon.

— Sous la tonnelle aux grappes d’or mouvant,

Villon, Ronsard et Platon s’interpellent
En travestis d’inlassés bons vivants,
Quand, dispersant la joyeuse querelle,
Sa voix à lui s’élève comme une aile :
L’ode a jailli ! tous rediront ce nom
Saisi vivant par Minerve éternelle :
Jean-Marc Bernard, de Saint-Rambert d’Albon.

— Heure ni jour, l’enfer se soulevant,

L’horreur, le sang, et des spectres s’appellent,
Une prière à Dieu, puis, dans l’instant,
Un coup affreux : la boue et la cervelle,
Les os noircis, on ramasse à la pelle,
De croix pas même : où la mettre, à quoi bon ?
La mort du brave a pris sous sa tutelle
Jean-Marc Bernard, de Saint-Rambert d’Albon.

Épitaphe en Envoi
— Seigneur Jésus, Jean-Marc fut doux et bon ;
A sa patrie, à son prince fidèle,
Chantant pour eux il vint mourir pour elle :
Veuille accueillir au Paradis profond
Jean-Marc Bernard, de Saint-Rambert d’Albon !
 BALLADE DU PAUVRE BOUGRE

Ici sui com l’osière franche

Ou com l’oisiau sur la branche :
En été chante,
En hyver plore et me gaimante
Et me défeuil aussi com l’ente
Au premier gel.

Rutebœuf.

Dans un grenier qu’on est bien à vingt ans,

Dans son taudis qu’on est triste à quarante !
Contre mon poële au cœur agonisant
Je viens blottir ma chair lasse et dolente :
Dans un grenier qu’on est bien à vingt ans !
Dehors il neige à grand foison et vente,
Et bat mon cœur à l’unisson du temps ;
Dans un grenier qu’on est bien à vingt ans,
Dans son taudis qu’on est triste à quarante !

Mon fils aîné sous la neige sifflante

Trotte en soufflant dans ses doigts et toussant ;
Mon plus jeunet que la fièvre tourmente
Dans son lit froid délire et se lamente :
Dans un grenier qu’on est bien à vingt ans !
Et toi ma femme, oh si douce et vaillante,
Malade aussi, tu vas nous consolant :
Dans un grenier qu’on est bien à vingt ans,
Dans son taudis qu’on est triste à quarante !
O Toi de qui sont les gueux en attente,
Seigneur Jésus, Seigneur des pauvres gens,
De Toi jadis était notre âme absente,
Jeunesse est vaine et de tout ignorante :
Dans un grenier qu’on est bien à vingt ans !
Mais l’âge arrive, on pleure et se lamente,
On Te recherche, hélas ! il n’est plus temps ;
Dans un grenier qu’on est bien à vingt ans,
Dans son taudis qu’on est triste à quarante !

Envoi

— Seigneur Jésus, dans la nue foudroyante

Quand Tu viendras au renouveau des temps,
Qu’à nos erreurs soit Ta bonté clémente,
Tant avons-nous souffert en Ton attente :
Prends en pitié tous Tes pauvres enfants !
 SONNETS

SILENCIEUSE

J’aurais voulu, je veux encore

Unir à votre nom mon nom,
Le dur destin qui nous dévore
Insiste pour répondre : Non.

En vain ! je me veux faire encore

Tenace plus que le démon,
Très chère amie, et même amphore
Enclot votre nom et mon nom.

Tout nous unit, tout nous sépare,

Hé quoi, n’est-ce pas mieux ainsi ?
Une telle aventure et rare

A la fois que si belle aussi :

Nulle étreinte, rien qui dépare
En rien le compagnon choisi !

1922.
 INVENTION DU SONNET

A Mademoiselle France Mathieu.

— Aux soirs d’or où les dieux redécouvrant leurs frères

Multipliaient sur terre et se mêlaient à nous,
Aux éphémères beaux, harmonieux et doux,
Ils léguèrent la lyre aux quatre cordes paires ;

Quand Terpandre eut trouvé les trois voix septénaires,

Nos maîtres en leur cœur se sentirent jaloux :
Filleuls exhérédés soudain réveillés loups,
Nous maudîmes la lyre et les dieux émigrèrent ;

Deux revinrent ; des fibres d’un grand cœur saignant,

Tressèrent chacun une lyre et les joignant
— Pétrarque d’Arezzole et Dante de Florence —

Pour qu’à nouveau l’on pût tendre sur l’univers

Une arche de beauté, de deuil et d’espérance,
Le sonnet fils des dieux ourdit deux fois sept vers.
CONFECTION SUR MESURE

— Pour résoudre l’obscur sonnet

Qui fermente en ton mésentère
De toi suffira-t-il de traire
Deux quatrains, deux fois un tercet

Selon le dessin qu’en traçait

Boileau monté sur Despautère
(Six, et sept : il est salutaire
De compter : huit) voyez, ce n’est

Rien de plus, et tel le souhaite

(Neuf, et dix) le maître poète
Avec le maître menuisier ;

On assemble, et cheville et rogne,

Et Minerve au fond du panier
En pénitence grogne, grogne.

II

— Sertir en quatorze vers

Selon des règles concises
Aux prescriptions précises
Le discobole univers,
 Revers trouble, absurde avers,
Esthétiques indécises,
Éthiques sur rien assises,
Érotiques à l’envers,

Toutes aurores qu’on lève,

Et toutes bulles qui crèvent,
Démons qu’on ne sait bannir,

Tout ce qui nous fait maudire

La vie et la vient bénir,
Tout ce qu’un sonnet doit dire.

III

— Gloire humaine offerte aux vers,

Calme extase des églises,
Chant des gouffres, chœur des brises,
Tout ce que l’orbe univers

Roule, angélique ou pervers,

Neige au cul des Cydalises,
Aubes en fleur, ailes grises,
L’empreindre en ce rien de vers,

Cœurs déclos, âmes fermées,

Cieux qui s’ouvrent, joies, fumées,
Ce qui meurt, ce qui renaît,

Tout espoir et toute envie,

C’est beaucoup pour une vie,
C’est assez pour un sonnet.
SUR UN PIED DANSE…

Entends comme brame…

— Mon
Ame
Brame
Son

Bon
Drame :
Trame
Dont

Mène
La
Laine

Ma
Verve
Serve !

ou bien :

— Brame
Son
Bon
Drame

Mon
 Ame :
Trame
Dont

Ma
Verve
Serve

La
Laine
Mène !

ou encore :

Brame
Mon âme
Son bon drame :
Trame dont mène
La laine
Ma verve
Serve. etc…
 PRINCIPES

— Il me semble pourtant que j’omets quelque chose,

Quoi, je ne sais pas dire, et pourtant je sens bien,
Ce recueil-là n’est pas complet : quelle est la chose
Qui lui manque pour être bien, tout à fait bien ?

Malheureux, tu n’as point promulgué ta technique !

Voilà l’âpre hiatus, et voilà le souci
Qui ce cœur dévasta ! Seulement, de technique,
Il faut donc l’avouer, je n’eus jamais souci !

Il urge cependant que je m’en déterre une :

Tant de héros jamais n’ayant produit rien plus
N’en sont héros que plus ! je vais en bâtir une,
Fais-lui, Lecteur, accueil : quoi te faut-il de plus ?

Technique

— Tu veux naître Poète, eh ! gars ? baise ta plume,

Tes brosses, burin, lyre ou pipeaux, puis écris,
Vers carrés, biscornus, vers, proses ; sois tout gris
Ou tout resplendissant ; mastique, fange et brume

Ou ravage l’azur : mais que ton cerveau fume

D’un intérieur feu ! trotte avec les esprits
Bien peignés, ou bien sois un ange malappris,
Comme l’Enfant Sigfried bête et dieu, fends l’enclume,

Mais comme lui sors-nous ton glaive de géant :

Et le reste n’est pas, et le reste est néant,
Et l’art sans rage aux reins, c’est morne apostasie ;

Entends ce seul avis, — il semble insane — que :

L’unique arcane pour fleurir en Poésie,
C’est se sentir Poète, et le reste un beau jeu !
 ÉPITAPHE

Passant : j’ai fait Psyché, puisant là ma substance,

Anthinéa, L’Étang de Berre, Inscriptions,
Et Le Chemin de Paradis, pour l’excellence
Du parler précellant sur toutes nations.

Prospecteur de l’Avenir de l’Intelligence,

J’ai scruté son présent, ses délabrés passés :
Les Amants de Venise abrutis de démence
M’ont ouvert tout un siècle en ses cerveaux blessés.

Tel mon contemporain le bon poète Eschyle,

Passant, je tais ceci. Mais, sur le monument
Qui me résumera contre un mur de ma ville,

Il me plairait que fût gravé tout simplement,

Sans la palme qu’on voit le mois d’après flétrie :
Ci-gît Charles Maurras, il servit sa Patrie.
RYTHMES ET CHANSONS

DOUBLE RONDEAU FLEURI

Muse évadons-nous aux campagnes folles

Où nous engloutit une herbe odorante,
Sentir nous bercer, immense auréole,
Ton souffle, Nature, haleine géante
Pour qui j’étais né.

J’étais né pour être encensé des roses.

J’étais né pour être encensé des roses

Par Mai balancées avec harmonie :
Pourquoi m’enliser en d’abjectes proses
D’où toute syntaxe honnête est bannie :
Pour être encensé ?

J’étais né pour être encensé des roses !

Quoi, polémiquer à même des choses

Pour qui j’eus toujours nausée infinie,
O prosopopée ! O hypotypose !
La prosopopée a tordu ses ailes
Et l’hypotypose a crevé ses yeux ;
Nous avons perdu la face des dieux
Et votre reflet, clartés immortelles :
La prosopopée a tordu ses ailes.

Sanglote, épopée ; hurlez, villanelles.

Trompette, fends-toi ; fleur, fais tes adieux :
Tout est fade et gris, tout est odieux :
La prosopopée a tordu ses ailes.

Immergeons en chœur aux boues actuelles :

Nous avons perdu l’oreille des dieux
Et votre reflet, clartés immortelles,
Trompette, pipeaux, à vous tous adieu :

La prosopopée a tordu ses ailes

Et l’hypotypose a crevé ses yeux.
 NOËL BRETON

Sur l’air d’Anne de Bretagne

A la mémoire de mon fils Georges

C’est Marie, reine des vagues

Et des goëmons, (bis)
Qui regagne sa Bretagne :
Vivent Marie et sainte Anne,
Ah ! Ah ! Ah !
Ave, ave Maria !

Saint Corentin l’accompagne

Et saint Yve aussi. (bis)
Ils cherchent par les campagnes,
Vivent Marie et sainte Anne,
Ah ! Ah ! Ah !
Jésus qu’on dit près d’ici.

Ils ont fait toute la terre

Et n’ont rien trouvé, (bis)
Ils ne savent plus que faire :
Où l’a-t-on caché, ma mère,
Ah ! Ah ! Ah !
Marie se met à pleurer.

Tous les maudits de la terre,

Tous les mécréants, (bis)
Nous poursuivent de leur haine,
Nous et tous ceux qui nous aiment,
 Ah ! Ah ! Ah !
Qu’ont-ils fait de mon enfant ?

— Ma fille, lui dit sainte Anne,

Encore essayons : (bis)
Nous revoilà-z-en Bretagne,
Vivent Marie et sainte Anne,
Ah ! Ah ! Ah !
Où c’est tout des bons garçons.

Entrent dans une cabane,

Chez des paysans : (bis)
— Que demandez-vous, Madame ?
Vivent Marie et sainte Anne,
Ah ! Ah ! Ah !
Vous êtes bien fatiguée.

Acceptez un coup de cidre

Qu’on tire pour vous, (bis)
Dites ce qui vous amène,
Contez-nous vite vos peines,
Ah ! Ah ! Ah !
Et d’abord asseyez-vous.

— Je cherche mon fils, Madame,

C’est l’Enfant Jésus ; (bis)
Les maudits me le volèrent
Et c’est moi qui suis sa mère,
Ah ! Ah ! Ah !
Et nous ne le trouvons plus.

— Regardez-le qui sommeille

Contre notre fils, (bis)
Il sommeille comme un ange,
Et j’ai taillé pour son lange,
Ah ! Ah ! Ah !
Ma robe de mariée.

Son lit est fait d’herbe fraîche

Et genêt fleuri, (bis)
Le bœuf et l’âne le lèchent
Tout comme au temps de la crèche,
Ah ! Ah ! Ah !
Le chien et le chat aussi.

Jésus dans l’instant s’éveille,

A tous il sourit ; (bis)
— Bonjour mère, et vous, sainte Anne,
Et vous l’hôte, et vous, Madame,
Ah ! Ah ! Ah !
Que la paix soit avec vous !

C’est vraiment grande merveille

Qu’enfant si petit (bis)
Parle avec tant de sagesse,
Car pour faire politesse,
Ah ! Ah ! Ah !
C’est en breton qu’il parla.

— Je monte revoir mon père

Au ciel des élus ; (bis)
Pour vous que pourrons-nous faire,
Parlez-en donc à ma mère,
Ah ! Ah ! Ah !
Qui m’avez si bien reçu ?

— Seigneur, les gens de Bretagne

Ne demandent rien, (bis)
Qu’être chez eux en Bretagne
Vivent Marie et sainte Anne,
Ah ! Ah ! Ah !
Et le droit d’être chrétiens.
— Mes amis, dit l’Enfant Juste,
C’est très bien parlé ; (bis)
A vos droits si l’on y touche,
Prenez vos fusils, vos fourches,
Ah ! Ah ! Ah !
Je serai-z-à vos côtés.

Et je vous confie ma mère

Pour me la garder, (bis)
Tout le temps que sur la terre
— Vivent Jésus et sa mère,
Ah ! Ah ! Ah !
Il lui plaira de rester.

Moi, le ciel je le regagne

Et vous laisse en don (bis)
Notre-Dame à la Bretagne,
Vivent Marie et sainte Anne,
Ah ! Ah ! Ah !
Et la Bretagne aux Bretons !

Mois de Marie 1924.

 RYTHMES

I. Haï-Kaï triple

— Une cloche tinte,

Le jour lutte, l’ombre monte,
Tout sombre, tout sombre.

Quelle cloche tinte ?

Oh mon cœur, il bat si fort :
Quoi donc va mourir ?

La nuit dans mon cœur

Et la nuit sur les campagnes ;
Rien ne tinte plus.

II. Pantoum = Haï-Kaï

— Il pleure dans mon cœur…

— Il pleut doucement sur la ville…
— Hélas, quelle langueur !

— Sous une averse de lumière

La ville bout dans sa poussière…
— Tout sombre, tout sombre…

— Mon cœur émigre, où, le sait-il ?

Vers tout delta d’or et d’avril…