7.5 | / 10 |
Users | 4.2 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
A convicted rapist, released from prison after serving a 14 year sentence, stalks the family of the lawyer who originally defended him.
Starring: Robert De Niro, Nick Nolte, Jessica Lange, Juliette Lewis, Joe Don BakerPsychological thriller | 100% |
Drama | 76% |
Crime | 74% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Video codec: VC-1
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French: DTS 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French: DTS 5.1 (768 kbps, 48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
BD-Live
Mobile features
Region free
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
You could roughly divide the reactions to Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island along the lines of those who share the director's passion for old-fashioned Hollywood artificiality and those who don't. One way or another, Scorsese's imagination always bends back to his formative afternoons sitting in the dark (or watching TV) projecting himself into the creations of the old studio system. But Scorsese is never content just to repeat; he always wants to push the old forms in a new direction. Shutter Island became such an over-the-top exercise in the thriller machinations of nothing-being-what-it-seems that people are still arguing over the ending (which, I suspect, was the point). Scorsese's previous venture into thrillers, his 1991 remake of J. Lee Thompson's Cape Fear (1962), bore the same stamp. Thompson's film was elegantly crafted and brilliantly performed, but it was (as Scorsese notes in the accompanying documentary) a "B" movie, in which the characters weren't very deep and the plot dynamics were straightforward. All Robert Mitchum's Max Cady had to do to terrify audiences was be a cool, self-possessed rapist, even though prevailing standards would not permit the word "rape" to be used. When Mitchum rubbed eggs on Peggy Bowden (Polly Bergen), audiences got the point. But Scorsese wanted something more extreme and complex, and he wasn't particularly concerned about realism in the process. (It's hard to imagine a mainstream director working today who more embodies Kubrick's dictum that "interesting is better than real".) In Thompson's film, Cady is a bad man who targets a good man, Sam Bowden (Gregory Peck), and his family, because the good man did the right thing in standing up against evil. There are no moral ambiguities, just the need for eternal vigilance to keep evil at bay. Characters of such simplicity don't interest Scorsese. He's much more drawn to those, like Mitchum's preacher in Night of the Hunter, who bear the marks of both good and evil. In Scorsese's Cape Fear, Max Cady is a wronged man -- wronged by Sam Bowden. No matter how vilely and viciously Max behaves, he never tires of reminding the Bowden family that it was Sam who brought this fate upon them by setting himself up as Max's judge and jury -- and now Max has assumed that very role over Sam. Usurp the system of justice against others, and they'll usurp it against you, with a vengeance (literally). At one level, Scorsese's remake remains a revenge thriller, but at another -- and this is the level where the film lives and breathes -- it's about sin, conscience and the inexorable revelation of dirty secrets. "I told you, you can't escape your demons just by leavin' home", Max says to teenage Danielle Bowden, but he might as well be speaking to Sam. In the final act of the film, when Max performs physical feats and withstands injuries that seem more appropriate to the indestructible villain of a slasher film than a realistic thriller, it's because he's no longer entirely human (he even says so). He's become a metaphor for all the guilty truths that the Bowden family can't (or won't) say to themselves or each other. And that's how you know you're watching a Martin Scorsese picture.
"Still, things won't ever be the way they were before he came. But that's all right. Because if you hang onto the past, you die a little every day. And for myself, I know I'd rather live. The End."
After many Blu-ray disappointments with Universal catalogue titles, I'm happy to report good news on Cape Fear. But let's pause a moment for a look back. Cape Fear occupies a significant place in Martin Scorsese's resumé, because it was the first film he shot in 2.35:1 ratio. Scorsese has said many times (and again in the documentary on this disc) that he had refrained from using the wider frame, because he didn't want the images destroyed for TV broadcasts by panning and scanning. By 1991, though, he expected to see widescreen televisions adopted shortly, allowing home viewers to experience his original compositions. For his first venture into anamorphic widescreen, Scorsese chose two-time Oscar-winning cinematographer Freddie Francis (Glory and Sons and Lovers), with whom he worked closely in creating the film's framing. Scorsese's hopes for the quick adoption of widescreen home video turned out to be wildly optimistic, and he ended up overseeing the 1.33:1 version personally. I wish I'd kept a copy, because it's a fascinating artifact, in which Scorsese seems to be going out of his way to draw attention to the panning and scanning, as if to say: "Do you see what your square screen is forcing me to do?" Purists could buy the widescreen laserdisc, which was heartbreaking, because analog NTSC video was no match for Freddie Francis' detailed imagery. At least until the latter half of the film, when most scenes were dark enough to conceal the flaws, Cape Fear on laser was an orgy of aliasing. Sam Bowden's wire-rim glasses were a constant distraction. Instead of watching the strain in his eyes, you studied the flicker across his forehead. Ten years after the film's release, a two-disc DVD edition finally gave home viewers something approximating Cape Fear's true look. The aspect ratio was correct, the aliasing was tamed, and the only real flaw was the lack of sufficient detail to let you appreciate the late Henry Bumstead's meticulous production design and the increasingly chaotic action, especially in the sodden third act. That failing has been remedied on Universal's 1080p, VC-1-encoded Blu-ray, which demonstrates that Universal is fully capable of doing a catalogue title justice, when it wants to. Images are detailed, smooth and film-like throughout. Traces of grain remain in the image, but in minor amounts and without visible evidence of high-frequency filtering, transfer-induced ringing or other inappropriate digital tampering. Black levels are strong, which becomes increasingly essential as the action shifts to darkened interiors and hours after dark. The palette of Cape Fear is an interesting study in the subliminal use of color. When we first meet the Bowden family, much of the clothing, furnishings and general surroundings are beige, pale and pastel; the color scheme reflects the tame surface of a family where feelings are being held in check. Max, who holds back nothing, is associated with brighter and more saturated colors; he drives a red car, and the shirt he's wearing when he encounters Lori is a deep red. When Leigh Bowden first sees Max, he's sitting on a wall with fireworks exploding behind him in intense CGI-generated hues that, as noted in the documentary, real pyrotechnics are incapable of producing. (No one ever accused Scorsese of being subtle; Leigh has just experienced bland sex with her husband, and the imagery suggests that Max would offer something different. As Max tells her later in the film, "A few minutes with me, darlin', and you'll be speaking in tongues." Unless, of course, he bites it off.) I've watched the concluding sequence on the storm-tossed houseboat many times, but this is the first time I can remember feeling that I was really seeing everything while it happened. Despite the confusion, Scorsese's shots and Thelma Schoonmaker's editing do show you how everyone ends up where they are. But now you can finally see all of it, even with the water pouring in. ("No more water pictures!" Scorsese told an interviewer, shortly after the film wrapped.)
Cape Fear was released in Dolby Surround and later remixed for discrete 5.1, which is here presented in DTS lossless. Water is the dominant presence in the surrounds, and it makes itself heard immediately during the opening credit sequence, a mini-movie by Saul and Elaine Bass featuring image after image of rippling water and mysterious reflections. Whenever anything in the film relates to water, whether as rainfall or river flow, the sound expands into the surrounds. Even the anticipation of water triggers surround activity; as the Bowden family drives toward Cape Fear, faint sounds of water and river birds can be heard in the surrounds, as if we are inside their heads experiencing their anticipation. And, of course, once they're on the boat, the surrounds are never silent. The end credits are unusual, because they continue this motif. There is almost no music, but thunder, flowing water and bird cries continue to echo around the room. Keep listening to the very end, and you will hear something that sounds like an amusement park ride, complete with squealing patrons. In their original version, the credits concluded with an ad for the Universal Studios theme park, and that sound cue accompanied the ad. Even with the ad gone, the cue remains. Leaving aside the sounds of water, the front soundstage is fully occupied with the powerful Bernard Herrmann score (as rearranged and "punched up" by Elmer Bernstein) and various amped-up sounds that jolt both the characters and the audience at key moments, whether it's a telephone ringing, Max's laughter, or the sound of racketball. The dialogue sounds natural at some times, and at others it too sounds slightly amplified -- not, I suspect, as a result of poor ADR, but because it had to be balanced with the barrage of other "subjective" sounds of which the film's sonic dimension is composed. Overall, it's a powerful and distinctive soundtrack, and the presentation does it justice.
The extras have been ported over from the 2001 two-disc DVD "collector's edition". They offer subtitle options in English SDH and Spanish (but not, as on the DVD, French). Omitted from the DVD's extras are the production notes, cast and filmmaker bios, and DVD-ROM features (notably, the script).
Max Cady was the last role (to date) for which Robert De Niro received an Oscar nomination. To a large extent, he's been a victim of his own success. After his Jake La Motta, probably no one expected him to create a character even more extreme; and after Max Cady, he hasn't tried. Indeed, since Max, he's more often seemed drawn to characters who are controlled, even low-key, like Neil McCauley in Heat or Sam in Ronin or the weary cop Turk in Righteous Kill. (The comedies are another subject altogether.) In his next and, as it turned out, last collaboration (for now) with Scorsese, De Niro played a Vegas numbers guy, Ace Rothstein, who wasn't even a true gangster. In retrospect, Max Cady appears to be the summing up of all the dangerous, extreme outsiders De Niro and Scorsese developed through their long partnership, and by far the worst. He's the synthesis of everything nightmarish in Travis Bickle, Johnny Boy, Jake La Motta, Rupert Pupkin and Jimmy Conway, tattooed with Scripture and filtered through the Bible Belt. Lock your doors and windows, and hope Max doesn't find another way in. Highly recommended.
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