Cape Fear - Textual Analysis

An extreme close up of a mouth and an eye is then seen which refers to the senses. We then see a close up of a man’s face reflecting in the water, before dissolving into a mid shot of the same mans reflection in the water. The water then turns to red, which lets the viewer know that it is a thriller and portrays danger, blood and death. The water splits whilst staying the colour red; the moment resembles that of a heart monitor which suggests someone will be hurt. The water then changes colour to green which suggests jealousy whilst showing a shot of the man’s body, hands and legs. The colour green suggests jealously which in turn allows the viewer to think that it may be jealously that is behind the attacks in the film

Immediately we see a close up of a negative imaged face, her eyes turn red to the negative coloured image. This colour red symbolises fear, blood and suggests the evilness could have been witnessed through the eyes of the girl. This could suggest that she was a victim. The dialogue reinforces ideas about what could have happened to the girl, as she talks about the last evening. The rain water/ water in the background is a suggestive link to a spooky vision. It could relate to her death in the way she died, could have drowned? The camera slowly zooms out and slowly reveals the fall girls body.

Continuity editing links her to the next cut as we see pictures of dictators on a wall, which suggests they could be idols to who they belong to. As the camera moves round them, it slowly zooms out and we see a man working out and it suggests he is bowing down in front of the pictures. As the camera zooms further out to a mid shot of the man, we see tattoos of the American Scales of Justice which links to the fact that this man is searching for justice.
We see law books in his prison cell and the Bible which shows he is powerful and this links to the justice again. This also gives the impression that he could be quite smart. And the old books suggest he’s been there for a long time. A mid shot of the man shows off his tattoos of lightening bolts which reflects his power even more.
The camera pans as it follows him through the prison, no one says anything to him, he had a cell on his own, he wasn’t hand cuffed as he was walking through and the guard was walking behind him. These all suggest that even in prison he was very powerful. The long take of him walking exaggerates his long stay in prison. There’s a match cut of doors unlocking as he’s being set free. There’s diegetic dialogue as he says, “already read them” which links to the amount of time he’s been in prison, this also makes the audience start thinking that he could be dangerous.
Continuity editing is used as in the next mid shot of him he’s in different clothes, and as these clothes are old fashion it shows that he’s been in there for a long time. There’s non diegetic contrapuntal music as it’s quite calming. The man walks towards the camera until it becomes a close up of him, which relates back to the face which appeared in the water during the opening credits. The non diegetic music gets more dramatic and it connects to the diegetic sound of a storm, which represents him being let out of prison.

Tom Payne, Leila Robertson and Mollie Duncan