10 Things You Didn't Know About Cape Fear
Behind the scenes goodies for Scorsese's teeth-jangling thriller.
Martin Scorsese's 1991 psychological thriller Cape Fear came along when he was reliably hitting out fantastic movies, sitting on the previous success of Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and Goodfellas, to name only a handful of the firecrackers he's set off during his reign as one of cinemas best directors.
Famed for his attention to detail and intense cinematic eye, Cape Fear is definitively a Scorsese movie - bringing together electric performances and nuanced characterisations to cleverly humanised source material.
Telling the tale of convicted rapist Max Cady (Robert De Niro) who enacts calculated revenge on his lawyer Sam Bowden (Nick Nolte) for witholding evidence, the film centres around Cady's release from prison after 14 years of incarceration, where he's learnt the law and all its loopholes to be able to make Bowden and his wife (Jessica Lange) and daughter (Juliette Lewis) suffer for his bungled trial.
An interesting deviation from the norm for the director simply for its status as a remake, he tried out something new and commercial, taking a formerly great movie to transform it into something entirely his own. As such, Cape Fear has plenty of tricks up its sleeve which came together to create something intense and spectacular, both on screen and off, which may not have been easy to spot on first glance at the film...
10. De Niro Underwent A Full Transformation For The Role
Ever committed to his movie roles throughout the years, De Niro's stint as Max Cady saw him go into gym overload to get truly into the headspace of the creepy criminal, designing his body to better reflect the character's commitment to learning to read, write, and get really freaking buff in the 14 years he was imprisoned.
Spending up to three hours a day, six days a week training to define himself before filming and then five hours a day once they started, it's clear that his unstoppable #gymsesh paid off from the shots that made it to the film. Apparently, he got so pumped as Cady that the tattoos the artists applied had to be increased in size by 10% over the course of shooting to make up for his giant mass.
That's as well as paying a dentist $5,000 to grind down his teeth and $20,000 to fix them again. Do not test this man.