The Film "Cape Fear" Comparison Essay by serendipity

This paper relates that the first "Cape Fear's" technical uses of camera angles caused many film critics to call it "Hitchcockian", but this broad designation neglects another: Hitchcock's use of suspense and his simultaneous embrace of the grotesque. The author believes that American director, Martin Scorsese, shares Hitchcock's use of humor; but technically, Scorsese is less apt than Hitchcock to use sharp camera angles. Scorsese's camera is more apt to linger, as well as to jump-cut. The author contends that the second "Cape Fear" is more horrific than the first film because the modern viewer of the 1990s and beyond is so much more apt to identify with the difficulties and complexities exhibited by the characters, as opposed to the more 'perfect' setting that is intruded upon in the first film.