Cinematic Compromise: Scorsese’s Casino and Cape Fear
Having a newborn at home severely limits my ability to stop by the local cineplex to see a current release. However, we have the good fortune of living in the age of cord cutting and there are plenty of avenues for media consumption that are more conducive to my current infant-based lifestyle. So from the comfort of my own couch, where no one judged me for having some baby spit-up on my shirt, I caught up with two films by Martin Scorsese that were new to me: Cape Fear and Casino.
Of the two, Casino holds the slightly better reputation despite also being considered to be Goodfellas Lite, but neither is held in especially high regard. While many directors would kill to be able to count either among his/her credits, Marty is one of the greatest directors of all time and anything less than spectacular is a huge disappointment. He has talent that engenders plenty of envy from his fellow filmmakers. Legend has it that after seeing a rough cut of Goodfellas, Brian De Palma (Scarface, The Untouchables) remarked, “You made the best movie of the eighties” — Raging Bull — “and, God damn it, we’re barely into the nineties and you’ve already made the best movie of this decade, too!” Scorsese’s resume is stocked with masterpieces and a new release from him is worth the price of admission regardless of the subject matter.
On the surface, Cape Fear, a psychological thriller, and Casino, a sprawling crime drama, share little in common beyond Robert De Niro. However, both were also part of a two-picture deal with Universal that Marty struck to fund the release of his passion project, The Last Temptation of Christ. It’s commonplace now for directors to make a couple of “commercially viable” pictures to fund something that they are passionate about but does not have a clear path to turning a profit. Cape Fear and Casino netted $147 million and $62 million, respectively, and Last Temptation was able to make back its budget. That’s quite the sweet deal. Marty got to make a film that he loved and the studio made enough money to justify the headache of all the protesters for the controversial Last Temptation. Win-win. The quid pro quo nature of the Universal deal provides an interesting lens of obligation to view Cape Fear and Casino through.
Cape Fear (1991)
Steven Spielberg was attached to direct Cape Fear, but was eager to move on (smart move given how wrong his sensibilities are for something this dark), and he reached out to Marty to convince him to take over the project. Supposedly, Spielberg’s pitch centered on the film’s potential for becoming a hit and the increased freedom that a huge financial success could offer for future films. Well, it was, and he moved straight from Cape Fear to The Age of Innocence and it is hard to imagine anyone giving Marty $34 million to make a period costume drama without having first paid the bills here. While Marty’s reasons for making Cape Fear might not have come from a place of passion, but his pragmatism certainly paid off.
Rather than get in and out as fast as possible, Scorsese takes the opportunity to experiment. He brings in a trio of tremendous actors to play the leads (Robert De Niro, Nick Nolte, Jessica Lange) and surrounds them with engaging bit players (the spectacularly awful / awfully spectacular Joe Don Baker and the always great Illeana Douglas). He tries on special effects for the first time here (with mixed results) and is inventive behind the camera as per usual. His memorable camera work here involves crafting hyperreal compositions by using disorienting split diopter shots of Nolte and Lange to show that all is not well in the household. With both leads in focus yet clearly not sharing the same space, Scorsese communicates that the couple are out of sync with one another yet each has clarity of one another’s viewpoint.
A large draw for audiences in 1991, was the star-making work of a promising young actress named Juliette Lewis. I’m generally not a fan of hers but she does great work here as the teenage daughter whose burgeoning sexuality leads her to some dangerous places with De Niro. Their scene together on the stage of an empty high school auditorium crackles with real energy and is the only one moment with any real tension. The two actors improvised their scene together and it goes to some extremely uncomfortable places as De Niro pops his thumb into Lewis’s mouth. Not yet 18, Lewis impressively holds her own with the veteran DeNiro and the scene feels every bit as creepy as the corruption of a minor should.
Cape Fear is considered to be a thriller but there is no real tension here to “thrill.” None of the scenes, aside from the aforementioned auditorium scene, come close to creating suspense, even ones featuring the usual indicators of the genre. Marty is more interested in layering on existential sources of terror (laws powerless to protect, the oppression of religious guilt, institutional misogyny, etc.) than creating plausible horror from the setup of a crazed convict looking for revenge. De Niro’s scenery-chewing performance may not be the reason for the lack of tension but it sure as hell draws attention to itself. Not that the role of a convicted rapist intent upon exacting revenge screams subdued, but his work is in your face. De Niro’s Cady is such an omnipresent force of menace that he might as well be wearing a Michael Myers mask. His performance is over the top but given how many times he has sleepwalked through performances for the last 20 years, it was refreshing to see him do something, even it that something wasn’t particularly good.
It is far from a classic, but even when Scorsese is working to keep the lights on, he finds ways to do something interesting. He hat tips to the 1962 Gregory Peck/Robert Mitchum original through the casting of several cast members from the original (Gregory Peck’s Southern lawyer also serves as a nice inversion of Atticus Finch) without venturing into cringe territory. Scorsese makes several effective allusions to Hitchcock (De Niro’s channeling of Norma/Norman Bates being the clearest nod to Hitch). Because of his interesting experimentations and themes, the daring auditorium scene, and De Niro’s ridiculous Southern accent, Cape Fear is an enjoyable watch. It just happens to also be cuckoo-for-cocoa-puffs-crazy.
Casino (1995)
After the success of Goodfellas, it is not difficult to picture a studio saying yes to another three hour film based on a Pileggi script about criminals. Unfortunately, no one put enough energy into questioning whether reheating a classic was enough. Casino is frustrating for what it could have been, as there is a rich, interesting story to be made of the transition from gangsters’ paradise to Disney in the desert. Scorsese just gets lost in the weeds on this one.
It is a fine picture, it doesn’t come close to standing up to his best works. The first 60 minutes are a wasteland as absolutely nothing clicks. It just slides along joylessly from narrator to narrator, dispassionate voice-over to dispassionate voice-over until it finds its groove somewhere around the head-in-a-vice scene (in spite of it, not because of it). Once it does eventually pick up, there are some technically brilliant scenes that prove that Marty can sleepwalk his way through a compelling composition. The one element that never clicks into place is the treatment of Sharon Stone’s character, which should be Exhibit A in the case against Scorsese’s treatment of female characters.
However, the reputation as Goodfellas Lite is incredibly apt. There is absolutely nothing that Casino does better than Goodfellas. Rewatching that classic for the millionth time is a more rewarding experience than watching De Niro and Stone play dress up for 180 minutes.
Roll the Credits
Neither Cape Fear nor Casino come close to Marty’s best. Both were borne out of a deal that allowed him to deliver a film that he was extremely passionate about. The Last Temptation of Christ is a phenomenal picture. The world of film is much richer for its existence. In discussing the concept of making a tit-for-tat deal with a studio, Marty asked, “How do you survive the constant tug of war between personal expression and commercial imperatives? What is the price you pay to work in Hollywood? Do you end up with a split personality? Do you make one movie for them, one for yourself?”
Compromises that ensure films like Last Temptation can get made are well worth it, provided that those compromises are spaces for experimentation one can learn from and not pale impressions of past glory.
