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Films
Cape Fear
Terri Murray observes Scorsese’s battle of moralities.
“Among all the forms of intelligence that have been discovered to date, ‘instinct’ is the most intelligent. In short, you psychologists should study the philosophy of the ‘rule’ in its battle with the ‘exception’: there you will have a spectacle fit for the gods and for divine malice!”
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good & Evil (1885)
Martin Scorsese’s 1991 re-make of J. Lee Thompson’s 1962 film Cape Fear gave him a perfect opportunity to explore two of the themes for which he has become renowned – male violence and religion. But it also allowed him to incorporate Nietzsche’s critique of modern morality into a narrative, using the conflict between a law-abiding citizen and a violent criminal to illustrate the opposition between the liberal values Nietzsche despised (democracy, equality, socialism), and the more primal ‘noble values’ he admired.
The original film involved a predictable Hollywood conflict between Sam Bowden (Gregory Peck), a paragon of virtue, and Max Cady (Robert Mitchum), an irredeemably depraved predator.
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