Both versions of Cape Fear are from the mystery/thriller genre, though many categorize the original version in 1962 as film noir—even though it is not. Yet, by studying the techniques used in each version of the film, the original directed by J. Lee Thompson and the remake directed by Martin Scorsese in 1991, we see how modern filmmakers have lost the ability to involve our emotions in film characters and to engage us psychologically. One of the most effective director of psychological thrillers, Alfred Hitchcock, once explained that the reason the infamous shower scene is Psycho had such a deep and lasting impact on viewers was because it left them imagine their own horrors, something they could do much better than Hitchcock knew he could portray visually. Therefore, despite the gruesome nature of the scene, we never see the victim stabbed. We merely have scenes of splattering blood, a large knife slashing through the air, and the horrible screams of Janet Leigh. The end result carries much more of a psychological impact than anything that could have been graphically portrayed. Martin Scorsese seems to have missed this valuable film lesson somewhere along the line. His version of Cape Fear is much less psychologically engaging than the original.
The original of Cape Fear gives us Robert Mitchum as Max Cady. His character is so sinister and moves us so much emotionally because he appears so normal and almost decent when he is not menacing the Bowden’s. However, Scorsese always depicts lunatics on the screen and his version of Max Cady, played by the typically-lunatic Robert DeNiro, takes the edge off of the character. In the original we are almost drawn to the charm and clean cut nature of Cady. In Scorsese’s version it is easy to dismiss him as a psychopath from the beginning. He is far from clean cut and his body reads like the apocryphal rantings of a David Koresh or Jim Jones. Because we are immediately turn...