there goes cookie with his knife
Okay. Seriously. I have got to talk about Cape Fear.
The original, dude, not the 90s remake.
Cos, see, I watched it waaaaaaaay back when I was in my teens and it made such a huge impression on me, especially that last scene so dramatic and dark. I still remember the shot of them tussling in the water. That was my first viewing of Gregory Peck, I'm pretty sure. And I've always remembered Robert Mitchum's name because of that film. Actually, reading about The Defiant Ones reminded me because, according to Wiki, he refused it cos he didn't want to work with a black man. Which kinda made me go "You what? Robert Mitchum, you bastard" and naturally that reminded me of Cape Fear. Last week finally I spotted it on the lowest shelf in the classic section of my video store.
I watched it Friday afternoon, right? It is now Monday evening and it is still in my head. And haha, great song to be playing while I'm talking about this film. *nervous laugh, shifty eyes, gulps*
It was so creepy, so malevolent and really quite shocking, vile and shocking. In this totally brilliant subtle elegant WONDERFUL way. The fact that it isn't garish at all, all elegant black and white that is all lovely shades of grey in the day but becomes fabulously gothic high contrast at night, exactly what I've been wanting to see over the past few weeks.
And the fact that the evil of Robert Mitchum is all in his demeanour, that cruel malicious pitiless look in his eye, and the way he prowls around Gregory Peck and the way Gregory Peck reacts to him with such watchful wariness. No bulging muscles or lurid tattoos here, it's two perfectly stylish men but the music and the acting is so creepily effective that eventually the sight of a white Panama hat is enough to make me want to stuff my fist into my mouth.
And the way they shot the violence, omg! I was practically rigid with horror in the hotel room scene and god, the way the camera retreated behind the closet door was just amazing, the final awful touch to what was already an awful sequence. The silence and unspoken sense of it, just the way he approaches the bed and you're screaming in your head right from the moment he appears. He has nothing in his hands but you know. You know.
Totally blindingly proves the fact that suggestion can be so much more terrifying than actually showing it in graphic detail. Cos jesus, by the time he actually gets violent, I'm ready to fling myself into the nearest small space and whimper in silence, paws over my eyes.
All because he tells us --- tells Gregory Peck --- exactly what he's capable of, what he did to his very own wife, the mother of his child. And even the language was fascinating there because he didn't actually go into detail. He didn't say "and then I used the pliers to pull out her toenails and shredded the skin off her thighs with a sharpened wire hanger." He says none of those things, all he says that I remember is how he forced her to write a note to her new husband to say she was taking a trip away, and then he kept her for three days.
Holy mother of god. Without even being told, you just know he did the most unspeakable things to her and that she didn't survive them. It's all in my own imagination but from the very first scene, a tiny sequence of things shows him to be an awful subtly and not so subtly misogynist Bad Man.
He looks all dapper and relaxed, ever so civilised as he walks down the lovely sunlit street towards the courthouse. The civilised gentleman.
Except that as he enters the courthouse, a couple of women leave and he watches them go with a brief appreciative smile that edges a little too close to a leer. That's our first hint and even then he could just be a lustful man, not a vicious man, he could be a man who loves women.
Except that the very next shot is a woman passing him on the stairs with a stack of books. One falls almost on his foot and he doesn't even break his stride, he doesn't even look at her, walks right past. And suddenly you know this is a man who does not respect women.
And even Gregory Peck sometimes gives you cause for concern. Well, a woman like me of this day and age, just the barest hint of it. When he comes home after that first encounter with Max Cady and his daughter --- who looks disturbingly like a little woman --- tells him he's late, he says with that wry smile "It's always a mistake to teach a woman how to tell time. She's forever using it against you."
Talk about me blinking and wondering if I'd just heard right. He's chauvinistic in his own way but uses it with a gentle irony. And when I started to fear that he would do the whole patriarchal "keep the little women in the dark for their own good, the little darlings, and not tell them anything or let them make any decisions" bullshit routine, he totally didn't.
It was a truly marvellous relationship, actually, the husband and wife dynamic between him and Polly Bergen. That he told both her and the daughter Nancy the truth directly and without compromising his masculine integrity as head of the household and protector of his women. And not just that but the way he discussed each moral quandary with Peggy, his wife, far more than I'd expected. It was such a wonderfully equal relationship, so awesome to see on the screen.
And even better that it totally got tested when his rage overtakes him to such an extent that he grabs the gun and storms out of the house. And she promptly calls the police.
Totally brilliant.
She is his moral conscience when his own masculine rage overpowers him. And it wasn't in any way as nauseating as, say, Mina Harker being the sweet female angel with the intellect of a man. Peggy makes her own mistake and it's all the more chilling when at that final showdown he says to her "We don't have to do this" and waits and she's the one to say with this totally thrilling awful steely resolve: "Call him."
Both of them are corrupted by Cady. The monstrous threat of him makes them capable of monstrous decisions. And now I kinda wonder about that last shot of them in the boat. Peggy and Nancy sitting close, arms around each other, but Sam sitting apart, staring numbly ahead. Why? Has Max Cady changed him so much, like Pacino changed Johnny Depp so much in Donnie Brasco that he just couldn't go back to his old life?
We're never told, no proof, we don't get to see that.
But all the way through is this creepy sense of push and pull between the two men. It's almost doppelgangerish, except Mitchum always seems inferior to Gregory Peck. Mitchum's face is all exaggerated brutish humped contours compared to the classic fabulous symmetry and winged elegance of Peck's features. Peck is all sleek tall lines, slim hipped and broad shouldered, narrow in all the right places and broad in all the right places. Mitchum frequently squares his shoulders and sucks in his gut with an almost comically visible effort. Trying too hard to be a physical threat to Peck who just stands there in the early scenes, regarding him with a cool disdain.
But still it's all about them. That creepy scene in the bar where they could very well be friends sitting there and talking about their relationships. And in fact Cady calls him 'my friend' all the way through that scene and you get this horrible sense that yes, they are two men who could very well feel the exact same way about women, two strongwilled physically powerful men in complete control of the women in their lives. And Cady could persuade Sam Bowden to see things his way, he's so intimate and friendly, convivial with him. Argh, it does my head in. Cos Peck plays the revulsion there so low key as to be almost but not quite absent. Nope. Not 'friend'. 'Cousin'. *shudders*
He's already corrupted by then. Cos he's there to offer Cady money, to bribe him away from his women. They're already bound together by then. Gah!
What completely maddened and thrilled me was how we were never told the gender of Cady's child. And I thought --- knew! --- that would be so telling. If it was a girl, that would completely skew Cady's character to either redeemable or irredeemable, no middle ground. Maybe he'd want to rape all women but protect his daughter = redeemable. Or maybe he'd lust after possessing her too = irredeemable.
If the child was a boy, that would be awesome too because it would raise the masculinity discourse to a whole other level. Does Cady want to teach his son how to deal with women? Would he see it as his duty to empower his boy in ways of control and intimidation? Or has the mother robbed him of his son, his masculine heir, by turning him into a sissy who kowtows to women and treats them nice?
I wonder if it's made explicit in the book. The Executioners. I forget who it's by. *wikis* John D. MacDonald. I wonder if I can find it, I wonder if I'd like it. Because oh man, what a delicious title, binding the two men together again. Sam Bowden's a lawyer tempted to take the law into his own hands. Max Cady's an ex-con determined to exact his own brand of justice. Judge, jury and executioner, the both of them.
And there was this fascinating detail of costuming all the way through. In the heat of the American South, Max Cady quite willingly strips off his shirt more than once. In the two most horrific sequences, he's barechested. Peggy almost always wears strappy or small sleeved dresses. Nancy wears sleeveless dresses or tiny tiny shorts. Even the police chief is in short sleeves at least once.
We never ever Ever see Sam Bowden in anything less than long sleeves and maybe not even an unbuttoned collar. He is always fully clothed, always proper and dignified. Always the civilised man.
And Cady who starts out all dapper and stylish literally strips off through the film, sheds all the civilised trappings until he's this half naked feral predator sliding silently through the water, so strong he holds a fully grown man under the water until he drowns. In silence. And earlier he's even called an animal, with relish, with a horrible selfloathing delight by the very woman he'll thoroughly brutalise in the hotel room. "I couldn't sink any lower than you." Christ.
See, that's the thing. Normally I would be attracted to the bad guy. Hell, I adore Patrick Bateman. ah, but Patrick's a totally selfdeluded dork desperately trying to cling to the last shred of soul he has left. There's no mistaking Max Cady. He's not a bad boy like Buddy Love who makes your skin crawl but you still want to fuck. Max Cady is a Bad Man, every woman's worst nightmare. He will rape you for three days straight and humiliate you thoroughly because he enjoys it. *facedrags*
I was thinking it was no surprise there were no alligators or crocodiles in those swamps. Cos Cady was the most dangerous predator around ... just look at the way he moves into and through the water, through the swamp undergrowth. Gah.
But it was fabulous to see Peck get into the water and pit that physical strength against Mitchum. That's what I remember from watching it way back when. How desperate their fight was, the sheer power of these two men fighting to the death, what I thought and was convinced would be the death. I think though that it thrilled rather than scared me then. Cos I really don't remember being so bloodcurdlingly terrified of Mitchum. I didn't know enough then.
I mean, god, the violence in that showdown. The violence of Cady against Peggy and the fabulous way they moved through the doors and spaces, blocked from our view and revealed once more. I was ready to burst into noisy tears by then but didn't dare make a sound or even blink for fear of missing anything.
I did think Polly's sobbing was a bit overdone but that was explained when I read that that scene was mostly improvised. Holy god. And dear god, for at least ten seconds I was convinced he raped her. Raped her less than a swamp length away from her husband. Damned fiendish brilliant use of a cut away and delayed reveal. Urgh.
And that scene right after when he finally gets to Nancy. I mean, all he does is break the glass, unlock the door, take the poker away from her and guide her out the door but holy FUCK, the gibbering terror of seeing his hands on her, the wet feral half nakedness of him so tall and big and brutal and she completely innocent and helpless, completely unequipped and unprepared for the horrific trauma ahead for her.
Kinda reminds me just how different Juliette Lewis is in comparison. And reminds me how thrilled I was by the attraction between her and De Niro in the remake. But here it's pure undiluted trauma and that is so much more brilliant to me now. The unflinching horror of it.
Mind you, having said that, I think the actress in the hotel room scene totally ruined it. Barrie Chase, apparently. She was great in the bar with the staring, although I didn't like her hair at all, but then in the car when she went into that great speech about him being an animal and how she couldn't sink any lower, they were great words and she totally overplayed them. But I figured that was the point, that I was meant to not like her very much.
And she was great in that moment of silence when he approaches the bed and she opens her eyes and slowly looks over at him and gradually realises just how bad a mistake she's just made. That was brilliant. She was very good in silence. And she delivered one line in the aftermath very well. I forget it now but I remember the chill of approval I felt when she said it.
Everything else she said and did in the aftermath was completely wrong. She was still at all the wrong moments, jittery and restless in all the wrong moments. She read almost every line wrong, either underplaying or overplaying exactly the wrong ones. And most of all, I just couldn't believe how many times she sat down. Jesus Christ, no doubt she has just been raped and brutally beaten. I have no doubt that he violated every damned orifice and prolly used any number of implements on her. The last bloody thing I think she would do is sit down. Hell, even if she wanted to, I doubt she could.
It was great writing, though, the whole depiction and discussion of the woman with loose morals blaming herself and feeling like she has no right to justice, not even capable of seeking it. And the way the private detective treated her was no better. He said some pretty harsh things even though he was apparently urging her to seek justice. It wasn't her he wanted to help, it was the decent woman Cady would attack next. Very telling, that. Fascinating stuff. And you really did feel for her, understand why she said what she did to Sam Bowden on the stairs. *sigh*
The final moments of the showdown were so brilliant. I was convinced Sam would hold Cady under water, just like Cady did the sheriff, let his dead body slide into the dark water, never to be found again. Hell, I could see it. But as much as I wanted it, I knew it would make him exactly the same as Cady --- that wonderful classic movie dilemma --- and I was on tenterhooks, wondering if the film would go there, end on that shocking terrible but totally justified note.
And that final speech was just marvellous, the way Gregory Peck delivered it, words of such reason and order and civilisation, delivered with such vicious bloodthirsty gloating vehemence. My skin totally thrilled, such a fucking excellent juxtaposition cos it satisfied both my ideals and my need for vengeance. Gah.
And the way the camera focuses in on Mitchum's face, all yearning and submissive, his eyes so wide and beautiful with the lashes suddenly clear all around. Suddenly I realised this is what he's wanted all along, he said so. He said Sam took his family away. What Sam says to him is "We'll take real good care of you," and ha, isn't that what family does? Sam gives him a family, only happens to be in jail. Great language, and there is Cady yielding like a mute yearning animal to the powerful alpha male human towering over him, the father lawman in his sopping wet clothes and holding a phallic gun too! *lol*
The camera pulls away at that point, leaving the two of them trapped deep in the tangled swamp and darkness. That, I think, is why the next shot seems so weird and artificial, of Sam sitting apart from his women in the boat speeding back over the open sunlit water towards civilisation. Maybe that's not really Sam, maybe that's why he looks so alien and absent, gone. Maybe he's still back in the swamp, locked in that visual embrace with Max Cady, his doppelganger.
Or I could just be a big gay perv.
But oh I did love the cinematography. Finally a movie that really used the drama of black and white to full effect. Made in 1962 but yeah, the days were grey and the nights were deliciously high contrast. That shot of Peggy in bed, the stark white wall behind her and the blackness of the shadow. And then omg later in the film, quite possibly in the showdown, maybe when he finally gets to Nancy, there's that absolutely hair-raising stunning close-up of Mitchum and holy fuck, all the black shadows carved into his face, totally monstrous and cinematically perfect.
Plus there were at least two shots that were just gorgeously composed, one in each bar scene that I remember clearly. Somebody else blocks the majority of the frame but the rest of the shot is taken up with the face and it's mesmerising. I wonder if it's a Hitchcock thing seeing as how apparently this film was made in a deliberately Hitchcock style.
Sooner or later, I'm going to have to watch Psycho. Yes, I know. I haven't seen it yet. Because, because the first Hitchcock movie I ever saw was The Birds and that traumatised me so thoroughly at a very young age it's taken me all these years to work up the nerve to get to Strangers On A Train. I'll get there, I'll get there.
As for Cape Fear, I kept wavering on the score. Part of me really liked how present it was, how threatening it was in the beginning and then how responsive it was to the unfolding film. At other times though, it became a little too hysteric for my liking, where I thought a bit of silence would work much better. But I have no doubt that quite a lot of my powerful reaction is because of that hairtrigger score. I forget who did it, not a name I knew or recognised.
*wikis*
Bernard Herrmann. Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen anything else by him. Ah, he did Hitchcock. Oh wait, The Ghost And Mrs Muir and Fahrenheit 451, I've seen those! which reminds me: must post about Gene Tierney. Interesting ...
So anyway. The 90s remake, from my memory, just seems so garish and lurid in comparison, not the least of which being the fact that it was shot in colour and De Niro's tats and muscle and shirts and Juliette Lewis being such a skank. *shudders* Mind you, De Niro's knuckle tattoos have totally got me all curious and already terrified to watch Night Of The Hunter. Just skimming the synopsis had me gulping with fear. Goddamned Robert Mitchum. Another Leo. And racist, remember? *growls* Wait, he was in Undercurrent with Kate? I don't remember him in that! I loved that film, zomg!
Still can't believe that was Polly Bergen. The colour and style of her hair totally threw me. Polly Bergen! Who I know from The Stooge! How utterly marvellous and also a little freaky.
WHAT?! MITCHUM WAS IN DEAD MAN?! How the fuck did I miss that?! *scrambles out of bed to get DVD* *squawks* He is! Bloody hell, clearly it's been too long since I've watched that film. I even forgot Crispin Glover was in it. Cos I am getting this close to renting out Willard. This close.
All right, all right. I'll shut up and go to bed now.
The original, dude, not the 90s remake.
Cos, see, I watched it waaaaaaaay back when I was in my teens and it made such a huge impression on me, especially that last scene so dramatic and dark. I still remember the shot of them tussling in the water. That was my first viewing of Gregory Peck, I'm pretty sure. And I've always remembered Robert Mitchum's name because of that film. Actually, reading about The Defiant Ones reminded me because, according to Wiki, he refused it cos he didn't want to work with a black man. Which kinda made me go "You what? Robert Mitchum, you bastard" and naturally that reminded me of Cape Fear. Last week finally I spotted it on the lowest shelf in the classic section of my video store.
I watched it Friday afternoon, right? It is now Monday evening and it is still in my head. And haha, great song to be playing while I'm talking about this film. *nervous laugh, shifty eyes, gulps*
It was so creepy, so malevolent and really quite shocking, vile and shocking. In this totally brilliant subtle elegant WONDERFUL way. The fact that it isn't garish at all, all elegant black and white that is all lovely shades of grey in the day but becomes fabulously gothic high contrast at night, exactly what I've been wanting to see over the past few weeks.
And the fact that the evil of Robert Mitchum is all in his demeanour, that cruel malicious pitiless look in his eye, and the way he prowls around Gregory Peck and the way Gregory Peck reacts to him with such watchful wariness. No bulging muscles or lurid tattoos here, it's two perfectly stylish men but the music and the acting is so creepily effective that eventually the sight of a white Panama hat is enough to make me want to stuff my fist into my mouth.
And the way they shot the violence, omg! I was practically rigid with horror in the hotel room scene and god, the way the camera retreated behind the closet door was just amazing, the final awful touch to what was already an awful sequence. The silence and unspoken sense of it, just the way he approaches the bed and you're screaming in your head right from the moment he appears. He has nothing in his hands but you know. You know.
Totally blindingly proves the fact that suggestion can be so much more terrifying than actually showing it in graphic detail. Cos jesus, by the time he actually gets violent, I'm ready to fling myself into the nearest small space and whimper in silence, paws over my eyes.
All because he tells us --- tells Gregory Peck --- exactly what he's capable of, what he did to his very own wife, the mother of his child. And even the language was fascinating there because he didn't actually go into detail. He didn't say "and then I used the pliers to pull out her toenails and shredded the skin off her thighs with a sharpened wire hanger." He says none of those things, all he says that I remember is how he forced her to write a note to her new husband to say she was taking a trip away, and then he kept her for three days.
Holy mother of god. Without even being told, you just know he did the most unspeakable things to her and that she didn't survive them. It's all in my own imagination but from the very first scene, a tiny sequence of things shows him to be an awful subtly and not so subtly misogynist Bad Man.
Click to viewHe looks all dapper and relaxed, ever so civilised as he walks down the lovely sunlit street towards the courthouse. The civilised gentleman.
Except that as he enters the courthouse, a couple of women leave and he watches them go with a brief appreciative smile that edges a little too close to a leer. That's our first hint and even then he could just be a lustful man, not a vicious man, he could be a man who loves women.
Except that the very next shot is a woman passing him on the stairs with a stack of books. One falls almost on his foot and he doesn't even break his stride, he doesn't even look at her, walks right past. And suddenly you know this is a man who does not respect women.
And even Gregory Peck sometimes gives you cause for concern. Well, a woman like me of this day and age, just the barest hint of it. When he comes home after that first encounter with Max Cady and his daughter --- who looks disturbingly like a little woman --- tells him he's late, he says with that wry smile "It's always a mistake to teach a woman how to tell time. She's forever using it against you."
Talk about me blinking and wondering if I'd just heard right. He's chauvinistic in his own way but uses it with a gentle irony. And when I started to fear that he would do the whole patriarchal "keep the little women in the dark for their own good, the little darlings, and not tell them anything or let them make any decisions" bullshit routine, he totally didn't.
It was a truly marvellous relationship, actually, the husband and wife dynamic between him and Polly Bergen. That he told both her and the daughter Nancy the truth directly and without compromising his masculine integrity as head of the household and protector of his women. And not just that but the way he discussed each moral quandary with Peggy, his wife, far more than I'd expected. It was such a wonderfully equal relationship, so awesome to see on the screen.
And even better that it totally got tested when his rage overtakes him to such an extent that he grabs the gun and storms out of the house. And she promptly calls the police.
Totally brilliant.
She is his moral conscience when his own masculine rage overpowers him. And it wasn't in any way as nauseating as, say, Mina Harker being the sweet female angel with the intellect of a man. Peggy makes her own mistake and it's all the more chilling when at that final showdown he says to her "We don't have to do this" and waits and she's the one to say with this totally thrilling awful steely resolve: "Call him."
Both of them are corrupted by Cady. The monstrous threat of him makes them capable of monstrous decisions. And now I kinda wonder about that last shot of them in the boat. Peggy and Nancy sitting close, arms around each other, but Sam sitting apart, staring numbly ahead. Why? Has Max Cady changed him so much, like Pacino changed Johnny Depp so much in Donnie Brasco that he just couldn't go back to his old life?
We're never told, no proof, we don't get to see that.
But all the way through is this creepy sense of push and pull between the two men. It's almost doppelgangerish, except Mitchum always seems inferior to Gregory Peck. Mitchum's face is all exaggerated brutish humped contours compared to the classic fabulous symmetry and winged elegance of Peck's features. Peck is all sleek tall lines, slim hipped and broad shouldered, narrow in all the right places and broad in all the right places. Mitchum frequently squares his shoulders and sucks in his gut with an almost comically visible effort. Trying too hard to be a physical threat to Peck who just stands there in the early scenes, regarding him with a cool disdain.
But still it's all about them. That creepy scene in the bar where they could very well be friends sitting there and talking about their relationships. And in fact Cady calls him 'my friend' all the way through that scene and you get this horrible sense that yes, they are two men who could very well feel the exact same way about women, two strongwilled physically powerful men in complete control of the women in their lives. And Cady could persuade Sam Bowden to see things his way, he's so intimate and friendly, convivial with him. Argh, it does my head in. Cos Peck plays the revulsion there so low key as to be almost but not quite absent. Nope. Not 'friend'. 'Cousin'. *shudders*
He's already corrupted by then. Cos he's there to offer Cady money, to bribe him away from his women. They're already bound together by then. Gah!
What completely maddened and thrilled me was how we were never told the gender of Cady's child. And I thought --- knew! --- that would be so telling. If it was a girl, that would completely skew Cady's character to either redeemable or irredeemable, no middle ground. Maybe he'd want to rape all women but protect his daughter = redeemable. Or maybe he'd lust after possessing her too = irredeemable.
If the child was a boy, that would be awesome too because it would raise the masculinity discourse to a whole other level. Does Cady want to teach his son how to deal with women? Would he see it as his duty to empower his boy in ways of control and intimidation? Or has the mother robbed him of his son, his masculine heir, by turning him into a sissy who kowtows to women and treats them nice?
I wonder if it's made explicit in the book. The Executioners. I forget who it's by. *wikis* John D. MacDonald. I wonder if I can find it, I wonder if I'd like it. Because oh man, what a delicious title, binding the two men together again. Sam Bowden's a lawyer tempted to take the law into his own hands. Max Cady's an ex-con determined to exact his own brand of justice. Judge, jury and executioner, the both of them.
And there was this fascinating detail of costuming all the way through. In the heat of the American South, Max Cady quite willingly strips off his shirt more than once. In the two most horrific sequences, he's barechested. Peggy almost always wears strappy or small sleeved dresses. Nancy wears sleeveless dresses or tiny tiny shorts. Even the police chief is in short sleeves at least once.
We never ever Ever see Sam Bowden in anything less than long sleeves and maybe not even an unbuttoned collar. He is always fully clothed, always proper and dignified. Always the civilised man.
And Cady who starts out all dapper and stylish literally strips off through the film, sheds all the civilised trappings until he's this half naked feral predator sliding silently through the water, so strong he holds a fully grown man under the water until he drowns. In silence. And earlier he's even called an animal, with relish, with a horrible selfloathing delight by the very woman he'll thoroughly brutalise in the hotel room. "I couldn't sink any lower than you." Christ.
See, that's the thing. Normally I would be attracted to the bad guy. Hell, I adore Patrick Bateman. ah, but Patrick's a totally selfdeluded dork desperately trying to cling to the last shred of soul he has left. There's no mistaking Max Cady. He's not a bad boy like Buddy Love who makes your skin crawl but you still want to fuck. Max Cady is a Bad Man, every woman's worst nightmare. He will rape you for three days straight and humiliate you thoroughly because he enjoys it. *facedrags*
I was thinking it was no surprise there were no alligators or crocodiles in those swamps. Cos Cady was the most dangerous predator around ... just look at the way he moves into and through the water, through the swamp undergrowth. Gah.
But it was fabulous to see Peck get into the water and pit that physical strength against Mitchum. That's what I remember from watching it way back when. How desperate their fight was, the sheer power of these two men fighting to the death, what I thought and was convinced would be the death. I think though that it thrilled rather than scared me then. Cos I really don't remember being so bloodcurdlingly terrified of Mitchum. I didn't know enough then.
I mean, god, the violence in that showdown. The violence of Cady against Peggy and the fabulous way they moved through the doors and spaces, blocked from our view and revealed once more. I was ready to burst into noisy tears by then but didn't dare make a sound or even blink for fear of missing anything.
I did think Polly's sobbing was a bit overdone but that was explained when I read that that scene was mostly improvised. Holy god. And dear god, for at least ten seconds I was convinced he raped her. Raped her less than a swamp length away from her husband. Damned fiendish brilliant use of a cut away and delayed reveal. Urgh.
And that scene right after when he finally gets to Nancy. I mean, all he does is break the glass, unlock the door, take the poker away from her and guide her out the door but holy FUCK, the gibbering terror of seeing his hands on her, the wet feral half nakedness of him so tall and big and brutal and she completely innocent and helpless, completely unequipped and unprepared for the horrific trauma ahead for her.
Kinda reminds me just how different Juliette Lewis is in comparison. And reminds me how thrilled I was by the attraction between her and De Niro in the remake. But here it's pure undiluted trauma and that is so much more brilliant to me now. The unflinching horror of it.
Mind you, having said that, I think the actress in the hotel room scene totally ruined it. Barrie Chase, apparently. She was great in the bar with the staring, although I didn't like her hair at all, but then in the car when she went into that great speech about him being an animal and how she couldn't sink any lower, they were great words and she totally overplayed them. But I figured that was the point, that I was meant to not like her very much.
And she was great in that moment of silence when he approaches the bed and she opens her eyes and slowly looks over at him and gradually realises just how bad a mistake she's just made. That was brilliant. She was very good in silence. And she delivered one line in the aftermath very well. I forget it now but I remember the chill of approval I felt when she said it.
Everything else she said and did in the aftermath was completely wrong. She was still at all the wrong moments, jittery and restless in all the wrong moments. She read almost every line wrong, either underplaying or overplaying exactly the wrong ones. And most of all, I just couldn't believe how many times she sat down. Jesus Christ, no doubt she has just been raped and brutally beaten. I have no doubt that he violated every damned orifice and prolly used any number of implements on her. The last bloody thing I think she would do is sit down. Hell, even if she wanted to, I doubt she could.
It was great writing, though, the whole depiction and discussion of the woman with loose morals blaming herself and feeling like she has no right to justice, not even capable of seeking it. And the way the private detective treated her was no better. He said some pretty harsh things even though he was apparently urging her to seek justice. It wasn't her he wanted to help, it was the decent woman Cady would attack next. Very telling, that. Fascinating stuff. And you really did feel for her, understand why she said what she did to Sam Bowden on the stairs. *sigh*
The final moments of the showdown were so brilliant. I was convinced Sam would hold Cady under water, just like Cady did the sheriff, let his dead body slide into the dark water, never to be found again. Hell, I could see it. But as much as I wanted it, I knew it would make him exactly the same as Cady --- that wonderful classic movie dilemma --- and I was on tenterhooks, wondering if the film would go there, end on that shocking terrible but totally justified note.
And that final speech was just marvellous, the way Gregory Peck delivered it, words of such reason and order and civilisation, delivered with such vicious bloodthirsty gloating vehemence. My skin totally thrilled, such a fucking excellent juxtaposition cos it satisfied both my ideals and my need for vengeance. Gah.
And the way the camera focuses in on Mitchum's face, all yearning and submissive, his eyes so wide and beautiful with the lashes suddenly clear all around. Suddenly I realised this is what he's wanted all along, he said so. He said Sam took his family away. What Sam says to him is "We'll take real good care of you," and ha, isn't that what family does? Sam gives him a family, only happens to be in jail. Great language, and there is Cady yielding like a mute yearning animal to the powerful alpha male human towering over him, the father lawman in his sopping wet clothes and holding a phallic gun too! *lol*
The camera pulls away at that point, leaving the two of them trapped deep in the tangled swamp and darkness. That, I think, is why the next shot seems so weird and artificial, of Sam sitting apart from his women in the boat speeding back over the open sunlit water towards civilisation. Maybe that's not really Sam, maybe that's why he looks so alien and absent, gone. Maybe he's still back in the swamp, locked in that visual embrace with Max Cady, his doppelganger.
Or I could just be a big gay perv.
But oh I did love the cinematography. Finally a movie that really used the drama of black and white to full effect. Made in 1962 but yeah, the days were grey and the nights were deliciously high contrast. That shot of Peggy in bed, the stark white wall behind her and the blackness of the shadow. And then omg later in the film, quite possibly in the showdown, maybe when he finally gets to Nancy, there's that absolutely hair-raising stunning close-up of Mitchum and holy fuck, all the black shadows carved into his face, totally monstrous and cinematically perfect.
Plus there were at least two shots that were just gorgeously composed, one in each bar scene that I remember clearly. Somebody else blocks the majority of the frame but the rest of the shot is taken up with the face and it's mesmerising. I wonder if it's a Hitchcock thing seeing as how apparently this film was made in a deliberately Hitchcock style.
Sooner or later, I'm going to have to watch Psycho. Yes, I know. I haven't seen it yet. Because, because the first Hitchcock movie I ever saw was The Birds and that traumatised me so thoroughly at a very young age it's taken me all these years to work up the nerve to get to Strangers On A Train. I'll get there, I'll get there.
As for Cape Fear, I kept wavering on the score. Part of me really liked how present it was, how threatening it was in the beginning and then how responsive it was to the unfolding film. At other times though, it became a little too hysteric for my liking, where I thought a bit of silence would work much better. But I have no doubt that quite a lot of my powerful reaction is because of that hairtrigger score. I forget who did it, not a name I knew or recognised.
*wikis*
Bernard Herrmann. Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen anything else by him. Ah, he did Hitchcock. Oh wait, The Ghost And Mrs Muir and Fahrenheit 451, I've seen those! which reminds me: must post about Gene Tierney. Interesting ...
So anyway. The 90s remake, from my memory, just seems so garish and lurid in comparison, not the least of which being the fact that it was shot in colour and De Niro's tats and muscle and shirts and Juliette Lewis being such a skank. *shudders* Mind you, De Niro's knuckle tattoos have totally got me all curious and already terrified to watch Night Of The Hunter. Just skimming the synopsis had me gulping with fear. Goddamned Robert Mitchum. Another Leo. And racist, remember? *growls* Wait, he was in Undercurrent with Kate? I don't remember him in that! I loved that film, zomg!
Still can't believe that was Polly Bergen. The colour and style of her hair totally threw me. Polly Bergen! Who I know from The Stooge! How utterly marvellous and also a little freaky.
WHAT?! MITCHUM WAS IN DEAD MAN?! How the fuck did I miss that?! *scrambles out of bed to get DVD* *squawks* He is! Bloody hell, clearly it's been too long since I've watched that film. I even forgot Crispin Glover was in it. Cos I am getting this close to renting out Willard. This close.
All right, all right. I'll shut up and go to bed now.