Study Questions: Week Twelve

Popular Postmodernism: Movies About Movies (and TV)

The King of Comedy (1983) and Cape Fear (1991)

These very different films are good examples of Scorsese's versatility as a filmmaker, the influence of earlier films on his work, and his interest in the ways in which media-fed fantasies of fame and fortune blur the distinctions between illusion and reality.

The King of Comedy: Better To Be King for a Night Than a Schmuck for a Lifetime.

1. The film opens with an encounter between the film's protagonist Rupert Pupkin (Robert Di Niro) and his celebrity idol Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis). In the drive to Jerry's apartment, both Rupert and Jerry speak in the cliched language of celebrity news magazines. Listen carefully to the tired philosophizing, the empty language and explain why you think Scorsese and his screenwriter selected it. How might it be connected to the fantasy sequences in the first half of the film? What does Rupert mean when ha says that he has "had this conversation in my head." How does the fantasy sequence reveal just how much of Rupert's reality is "in his head" and was put there by TV, and how does his comment prepare us for it?

2. For Rupert the borderline between dreams and reality dissolves in the course of the film. How does casting Jerry Lewis as Jerry and the introduction of Lisa Minelli, Tony Randall, and Dr. Joyce Brothers as themselves serve blur a similar borderline within the narrative itself?

3. How does the sequence in which Jerry watches Sam Fuller's Pickup on South Street emphasize King of Comedy's being a film about film?

4. What is the purpose of including Rita (Diahnne Abbott) in the film? What does she reveal about Rupert's conception of love and happiness? What is the real irony in Rupert's philosophizing in the bar where she is introduced (remember he mentions "the final irony of life")? He also discusses Marilyn Monroe, whom he describes as "not a great actress, but she did have a gift for comedy" and concludes by remarking that she, like many famous people, died tragically and alone? Does Rupert's repeating comments made many, many times about the actress suggest that he doesn't understanding the meaning of the words? In what ways is he inadvertently describing himself and calling into question the world of celebrity which he longs for? How does the scene of Jerry at home make the same point?

5. Is the scene where Rupert interviews the photos of Jerry and Lisa Minelli humorous or frightening? What is its thematic significance? What is the significance of the voice of Rupert's mother (Scorsese's own mother)? How does it serve as the intrusion of reality into his fantasies, and what does it reveal about Rupert's real-life circumstances? Why can't he understand that he is being brushed off?

6. How does Rupert's encounter with the staff of Langford's headquarters mark a radical change in the way his fantasies play themselves out? In what ways might this contact with the actual world of TV comedy have triggered this change?

7. What is the difference between what Rupert means and in what we understand when he tells Masha (Sandra Bernhard) that he and Jerry "have a real relationship, no fantasy worlds"?

8. How do the social backgrounds of Rupert and Masha suggest that the obsession with celebrity has influenced all strata of American society? How does her behavior in the seduction scene make the phrase "I love you" so frightening?

9. Why does the FBI agent want to arrest not only Rupert, but also the person who wrote his routine? Is the routine funny? In what ways does it expose the barren isolation of his life just as Masha's confessions to Jerry reveal hers?

10. In the end is a viewer able to identify and/or sympathize with Rupert? Or does the concluding sequence (in which he fulfills his desire for fame) present him as beyond human feelings (much like Norman in Psycho)? Are we to believe this sequence is real or another of Rupert's fantasies. Why? Why not?

Cape Fear: The Wages of Sin.

1. Cape Fear is Scorsese's remake of J. Lee Thompson's well-known 1962 thriller with the same title. While the basic plots of the two films are the same, Scorsese's version is different in two respects which are of interest to us. The original Cape Fear (which you should check out at this web site) was far less complicated thematically. In it Cady (Robert Mitchum) wants to take revenge because his lawyer, Sam Bowden (Gregory Peck) allowed him to be convicted by withholding information about the victim. For this ethical breach, Bowden suffers Cady's invasion of his stable, happy family. In the end, Cady goes back to prison, Bowden is redeemed through suffering Cady's vengeance, and the family is once again reunited. In what ways does Scorsese expand the theme of guilt and redemption by focussing on the troubled (not to say dysfunctional) Bowden family?

2. Why, in your opinion, is the film presented as being narrated by Dani (Juliette Lewis)? How does this device tend to focus the film on family life? Later, as her parents fight, she watches a parody of a John Waters film on television. For those of you who are familiar with Waters families (in -- for example -- Desperate Living, 1977; Hairspray, 1988; Serial Mom, 1994; or Pecker, 1998), imply about the Bowdens?

3. What does the opening sequence in the prison tell us about Cady (Robert DI Niro)? From the messages written on his body, his cell walls, and his references to religion and philosophy what do you know about his state of mind, his capacity for self-discipline, his social background?

4. What does the first scene with Dani and her mother (Jessica Lange) reveal about their relationship? How is that relationship reflected in the film they watch at the theater? What is the significance to the reference to The Shining? What might comparisons might be drawn between the Bowdens and the Torrance family? Why does Cady find the film so funny? And what about Cady's cigar? Do we need the obscene lighter to grasp its meaning?

5. From the very beginning of the film, Cady compares himself to Bowden, saying that they are both lawyers, colleagues, etc. What is the thematic significance of the parallel? In what ways might he be seen as Bowden's dark twin? How does the fact that he is a convicted rapist take on new meanings in Scorsese's version of Cape Fear?

6. Several sequences, like the one in the movie theater were not in the original film, and many of them emphasize Scorsese's concern with family betrayals and sexual transgressions. The character of Lori Davis (Illeana Douglas ) does not appear in Thompson's film. How does her fate dramatize Scorsese's concerns? Remember her question: "Is marriage synonymous with deception?"

7. Robert Mitchum, Gregory Peck, and Martin Balsam from the original version of Cape Fear have parts in Scorsese's film. How do they serve to announce that Scorsese is making a movie about movies? There are many other references to film classic. The bandaged Cady with the expression of aggrieved innocence recalls Alex at the end of A Clockwork Orange. Who is Cady dressed as the dead maid but Norman Bates in the climax of Psycho? Finally, Cady's flaming body and fire-scarred face seem to be an homage to James Whale's Frankenstein (1931). What parallels can you draw between Cady and Alex, Norman, and the monster?

8. Why does Bowden's decision to have Cady beaten drive him beyond the safety of society and into Cape Fear River?

9. Cape Fear has been criticized for the spectacular excesses of the boat sequence, especially Cady's apparently superhuman (and very unrealistic) capacity for survival. Would you say this is a weakness in the film, or that Cady should not be seen as a realistic character from the beginning? Why? How might his ability to survive be linked to Sam Bowden's desire to suppress his past?

10. The film concludes with the camera on Dani who says we "never spoke of what happened again" to keep Cady out of their dreams. Then she reveals that he still torments her dreams. What is the significance of this contradiction, which also appears in her optimistic words about choosing to escape the past and live as opposed to the haunted expression in her eyes. How do you read this ambiguous ending (similar to the endings of Taxi Driver and King of Comedy?