Even Cady himself uses that language, once describing himself flatteringly as “one hell of an animal.” But in Scorsese’s hands, the common idea that an animal is less than human is supplanted by the Nietzschean idea of our animal nature being an essential part of being a complete human – a part that we repress at our peril. ", "It was my second audition ever," Witherspoon said in 1999. And he shook my hand, and as I shook his hand back my mouth moved, my lips moved and I said 'Me, too.' Then he mentioned the name Robert De Niro. ", Filming the scene in which Cady tortures Douglas's Davis was no small task. "It really hurt," Douglas told The AV Club. It has always been one of my favorite performances in film because what Mitchum created with Cady is a completely amoral, unapologetic villain, who is even more terrifying because he is human. Martin Scorsese was apprehensive about making Schindler's List after the controversy surrounding his previous two films, Goodfellas and The Last Temptation of Christ. "The original part was called 'The Drifter.' "It was to my advantage because I knew that was not a normal situation for [De Niro], interviewing young girls," Lewis said. The first take was the one used in the final cut. In the final showdown on the Cape Fear river, Cady goes after both Peggy and Nancy, and Sam has to make the choice of just what to do with him. 260.) To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please, “Among all the forms of intelligence that have been discovered to date, ‘instinct’ is the most intelligent. But Cady has been reading law books, and knows how to avoid legal traps. Illeana Douglas had that infamous crime in mind when preparing to play the role of Lori Davis. And knowledge, for Nietzsche, involves a ‘will to truth’ – a passion to learn from errors which teach us lessons of self-preservation. By contrast, Scorsese’s remake subjects the whole system of modern Western values to an inexorably Nietzschean scrutiny, by means of which Scorsese takes us beyond the clich éd Hollywood opposition of good and evil. Terri Murray, a graduate of NYU Film School, is Managing Director of Blacksheep DV Productions. Based on the novel The Executioners by John D. MacDonald, Cape Fear stars Gregory Peck as Sam Bowden, a small-town lawyer who has a happy family life with his wife Peggy and teenage daughter Nancy. This ‘will to truth’ is a desire to let life be our teacher, to embrace the harsh lessons of experience, and to allow these lessons to shatter the illusions of established values. Advertise With Wicked Horror. Reach 250,000+ A Month on Display, Mobile, OTT VOD Apps and Video, Worst to First: Ranking the Fright Night Franchise, Zoo is a Compelling and Dark Love Story [Review]. The final scene of the film sees Sam hunched down on the ground like an ape, grunting like an animal, and fighting to the death with nothing but a stone for a weapon. Playing opposite Cady is Gregory Peck as Sam. He approaches the end of the bed where the girl is lying, and the look on his face as he stands there staring at her, bare-chested and balling one hand into a fist, shows all the violence and depravity of which this beast is capable. Kersek tempts Sam to hire thugs to do a ‘hospital job’ on Cady, but Sam still clings to the hope that he can contain Cady’s power by legal means: “I’m a lawyer. As we all eagerly anticipate the next new thing coming in genre film, it’s important that we not forget where it all started. In many ways Scorsese’s Cady is a Nietzschean mouthpiece, opening the all-American Bowden family’s (and the audience’s) seemingly simple modern moral presuppositions to a thorough revaluation. De Niro played Max Cady, a vengeful sex offender who, once out of jail, attempts to torture his lawyer, Sam Bowden (Nick Nolte), who he blames for his 14-year imprisonment.