Rob Kurzban
Subject: Can Evolution Explain Our Feelings?
Bio: Darren Schwartz: What Happens Next Culture Critic, Ethan Holland: State Prosecutor of 27 years
Transcript:
Larry Bernstein:
Welcome to What Happens Next. My name is Larry Bernstein. What Happens Next is a podcast that covers economics, politics, and culture. This episode is Cape Fear Won’t Die.
Our What Happens Next Culture Critic Darren Schwartz will be leading us in conversation. We also have a special guest my good friend Ethan Holland who has been a state prosecutor for the past 27 years.
This week’s episode is on Cape Fear. It started with John MacDonalds’ novel the Executioners that was written in the 1950s. The story was adapted into two movies and now a newly released Apple TV series.
The main character is Max Cady an ex-con who is pissed off at his defense attorney. Cady is played by Robert Mitchum in the original 1962 movie and Robert De Niro in the 1991 remake.
Ethan in your experience as a state prosecutor when an ex-con is threatening, can the law protect you?
Ethan Holland:
The law can protect you. What’s interesting about this movie is that Robert Mitchum and Robert De Niro go right up to that line. In the 1962 movie, Martin Balsam plays a police chief, and his great quote was either we have too many laws or not enough. Yes, the law can protect you, but you can’t arrest somebody for something they haven’t done yet. The movie is effective because Max Cady is so menacing without going over the line, without being able to charge him with specific crimes.
Larry Bernstein:
Max Cady kills the family dog. It turns out it’s a $150 fine.
Ethan Holland:
There’s no evidence. You’re led to believe that he poisoned the dog, but they can’t prove it.
Darren Schwartz:
He was sitting on their fence in full view that was a metaphor like, “If I go over, it’s a problem, but I know where I should be to not get in trouble.”
Larry Bernstein:
Max Cady before he goes to prison is illiterate. In prison, he achieves personal growth in mind, body, and soul. He reads law books, gets physically ripped, and becomes spiritual but in a bad way. He’s memorized parts of the Bible but has misinterpreted them in an evil way.
Ethan Holland:
In the 1991 movie, they do a pan of Max Cady’s cell. You have law books, Nietzsche, a picture of Stalin. It was bizarre. He is doing dips with a menacing tattoo on his back.
Larry Bernstein:
What would a parole board have done with Max Cady in the real world?
Ethan Holland:
As long as you don’t do anything in prison, you’re going to do 50% of your sentence. The only sentence that you do 100% in Illinois is for murder. Post-1999, with the truth in sentencing, you would get paroled early.
Larry Bernstein:
You’re in prison, you’re mad, you’re angry at the system, you’re angry at individuals. Is this common when an ex-con gets out to go after somebody for putting them in the can?
Ethan Holland:
You have 23 hours a day to think about it in your cell and one hour of exercise outside.
Larry Bernstein:
Who do ex-cons get mad at the prosecutor, the judge, your own defense attorney, witnesses, the victim? Who’s most exposed?
Ethan Holland:
You’re probably angry at the person testifying against you. If you feel like a prosecutor is not treating you fairly, you might start obsessing. If you feel like that judge has been making incorrect rulings that hurt your case, you could focus on the judge.
Ethan Holland:
In the first movie he focuses on the witness Gregory Peck. They’re having a conversation outside his car when Max Cady reaches in and pulls out his keys. I spent eight years in prison and Gregory Peck was like, “Well, yeah, you did it. You committed the crime.”
Larry Bernstein:
The story evolved and became more complicated with each new movie and TV series. In the ‘62 movie, our hero Gregory Peck was a witness who told the truth about Cady’s rape. In the 1991 film, Nick Nolte was now Cady’s defense attorney who refused to expose Cady’s rape victim’s sexual promiscuity. Then in the new Apple TV series, Amy Adams plays Cady’s defense attorney, who was aware from a leak that the jury was leaning towards acquittal, but she still encourages Cady to plea bargain. With each new Cape Fear rendition, Cady gets more justified in his anger and that improves the story because there are shades of gray.
Darren Schwartz:
Scorsese rewrote the script. He thought that the Bowden family was too nice. He infused moral complexity and made it much more interesting. You needed Nick Nolte to be dirty for Max Cady to seem justified. You’re thinking, “he’s really a maniac, but there’s a reason here.”
Larry Bernstein:
In the 1991 movie, Nick Nolte playing Sam Bowden is a man of the law. He recognizes that the criminal justice system won’t protect his family. He chooses illegal methods to protect himself. Why can’t the law help him?
Ethan Holland:
I’m a prosecutor. I don’t investigate crime, I prosecute it. There’s a tension between law enforcement and prosecutors because prosecutors want to have the strongest case, and law enforcement wants to charge the bad guy. This movie lays bare that sometimes you have to wait for there to be a crime. You can’t go with your gut and say, “This is a bad guy. We need to arrest him.”
Larry Bernstein:
In the 1991 movie Martin Scorsese directed it and changes the plot. Where previously the family unit acted in unison against Cady. Now the family structure is broken. Cady splits them. Jessica Lange plays Sam Bowden’s wife. She doesn’t trust her husband because of previous infidelities. And Bowden’s daughter is played by Juliette Lewis and has a sexual interest in Max Cady.
Darren Schwartz:
The marriage was undermined by Nick Nolte’s actions. You could see it in the wife’s relationship that filters down to the daughter.
Larry Bernstein:
Juliette Lewis plays the daughter and runs away with the movie. She is spectacular.
Darren Schwartz:
She was so good. She was 16 during shooting.
Larry Bernstein:
Robert De Niro as Max Cady persuades Juliette Lewis to meet him in the school auditorium where he makes a move on her.
Darren Schwartz:
How about a kiss?
Larry Bernstein:
Oh my God.
Darren Schwartz:
He was 50 and she was 16.
Ethan Holland:
How about the thumb in the mouth.
Darren Schwartz:
I tried to black that out.
Ethan Holland:
That was rough.
Larry Bernstein:
Darren and I saw the 1991 movie together.
Darren Schwartz:
There were shocking scenes.
Larry Bernstein:
I had a blanket over my head. I couldn’t watch.
Darren Schwartz:
Larry, I didn’t know you had emotions.
Larry Bernstein:
I was scared.
Darren Schwartz:
It really was one of the best psychological thrillers. You feel like violence was happening without showing it, which is kind of an art form which is maybe a little lost. And the end was truly magnificent. I don’t speak in tongues that often, and I don’t hear it a lot. To hear Robert De Niro speak in tongues was an amazing way to close out act three.
Larry Bernstein:
In 1962, when the first movie came out, there’s a scene where Robert Mitchum playing Max Cady leers at the daughter on the boat, and the British censors said, “We think that scene has to go.”
Darren Schwartz:
Just from leering?
Larry Bernstein:
Compare that with Juliette Lewis sucking on Robert De Niro’s thumb. That was a whole different kettle of fish.
It gets to the old social mores. In ‘62, it was enough to give a leering glance to set off the censors.
Ethan Holland:
By ’91, anything goes.
Larry Bernstein:
Sucking on that thumb? Would that be allowed in theaters today?
Darren Schwartz:
It would’ve gotten by the censors. The question is would the movie makers make it? The morals are low, but the ethics are high. No one’s ever said that.
Larry Bernstein:
We can look that up.
Darren Schwartz:
I also want to comment on old stuff. One of those lines I wrote down, Sam Bowden walks in
Larry Bernstein:
This is in the 1962 film.
Darren Schwartz:
His wife is all dressed up. She knows he’s going through some stress. He goes, “Why are you dressed up, woman? I hope there wasn’t a party I’ve forgotten.” She goes, “This is for morale. All the fancy magazine articles tell you to get dressed up for your husband.”
I’ve never experienced that.
Larry Bernstein:
Darren, in the new 10-part TV series, can you comment on how the family unit has broken down?
Darren Schwartz:
You’ve got the son who’s had issues, social media played a role. He shared pictures of a girl he shouldn’t have. You’ve got a daughter who knows that her father is not Sam Bowden.
Larry Bernstein:
What about Bowden’s wife, played by Amy Adams.
Darren Schwartz:
She’s an alcoholic. There’s a lot of strings for Max Cady to pull.
Larry Bernstein:
Max Cady has progressed through these films. Max Cady is smart, but by the time we get to the TV series, he borders on being a genius, so clever that the Bowden family is completely outmatched. Cady seems to have the law and the public on his side. He can split each of the family members with ease. They don’t know what to do.
Darren Schwartz:
When Cady gets out of prison, the people are behind him. They’ve got t-shirts as well as social media.
Larry Bernstein:
It’s like Hamas.
Darren Schwartz:
It reminded me of the Lacey Clancy case where you have people that are super vocal because there’s social media, they aren’t sure what the cause is, just, “Hey, someone got wronged. I want to align with them.” What is your experience Ethan with that as it relates to Lacey Clancy?
Ethan Holland:
I saw the crowds outside that courthouse. You also had that with Karen Reed, the other murder in Massachusetts who was acquitted of killing her boyfriend with a car. There’s a need to have a sense of belonging. Clancy has mental health issues. You don’t just strangle your three kids.
Larry Bernstein:
Ethan, in the series, Max Cady pleads, but in the first scene, Max Cady’s ex-girlfriend kills herself and leaves a suicide note admitting she did the crime. Immediately, Cady’s released. Is that how it works even with a plea when someone else comes forward and says, “I was the one that did it,” but Max Cady in his plea agreement said that he did it.
Ethan Holland:
If there’s new evidence that comes forward, it’s incumbent upon law enforcement to figure out whether it’s correct. People plea for different reasons: because they did it, they’re being offered a sentence that they can live with or think they may get a higher sentence if they go to trial.
A hundred percent you bring it forward. I couldn’t live with myself if I thought somebody was sitting in jail and hadn’t done it.
Larry Bernstein:
In the 1991 Scorsese movie, Nick Nolte plays Sam Bowden who is convinced that his client Max Cady raped the girl and refuses to disclose information that the victim has been sexually promiscuous.
Ethan Holland:
There are rape shield laws. You cannot bring in somebody’s past sexual history to dirty up the victim.
Larry Bernstein:
Max Cady held a grudge that his defense attorney decided not to pursue this.
Ethan Holland:
The role of a defense attorney is to zealously represent your client. It’s not to pass judgment on your client. Nick Nolte buried it. But there are plenty of reasons why a defense attorney may make strategic decisions not to dirty up a victim.
Maybe their trial strategy is that the state can’t prove their case. Dirtying up the victim may work against you. In this case, Nick Nolte found this information out and did not run out every ground ball. He didn’t make decisions that were in the best interest of his client, or at least that’s what Cady believed.
Larry Bernstein:
Everyone is morally compromised. The success of the movies and the series is that the film makes you incredibly uncomfortable.
Where is Max Cady? We’re constantly on the lookout for him. I’m screaming at the TV, “Just run!” And finally, they do run, and unfortunately, they run to Cape Fear, and he’s either under the car or on his way.
Discomfort works for a two-hour film, but for a 10-part series that’s nearly 10 hours long, it’s exhausting.
Darren Schwartz:
It was so long, they reused some devices. How many times can the police come to a house?
Ethan Holland:
You can have as many search warrants as they can get a judge to sign. Having said that, the interesting thing about both movies was that Sam Bowden has all the levers of power. He’s got the police chief and the investigators on his side. He’s the lawyer, an officer of the court, and it doesn’t matter. You see how they abuse the process. The police chief and Sam Bowden are trying to figure out a way to get this guy to leave town. They have no right to do it, but they are escalating the situation. They’re making him strip search. Dehumanizing him and letting him know he has absolutely no power.
Larry Bernstein:
Let’s give Max Cady credit. He keeps his cool. You want me to strip search me? Happy to get naked. I’ve been in prison for eight years. I’ve been dehumanized. This is JV.
Ethan Holland:
In the ’91 version, Cady gets sexually graphic about what had happened to him in prison. The point is they can’t scare him. He is doing all the scaring. They can’t touch him because he’s already been to prison and already lived through much worse.
Darren Schwartz:
My complaint about the series; it was too long. Within each episode you had the same arc where there’s this shock at the end, like biting the toe off or there was a woman living in the wall or we’re arresting someone again. But the scene where he was attacked in prison in the series with the kettle bells.
Larry Bernstein:
I use kettle bells.
Darren Schwartz
And he put a guy’s face through one of the bench press bars. Cady must get a metal plate in his head. There was shock value that was over the top.
Larry Bernstein:
Let’s defend the TV series.
Darren Schwartz:
I just did the opposite.
Larry Bernstein:
We were upset. We kept watching. Did you ever binge?
Darren Schwartz:
I did two, maybe three. And the reason I completed it is because Larry said, “Let’s do Cape Fear and we’ll do the book, two movies and a series.” I said, “Okay, fine. I got to finish.”
Larry Bernstein:
No, you were pumped up. To get back on the podcast, you grabbed Cape Fear by the neck.
Darren Schwartz:
I could have strayed. We all have TV shows where you’re five episodes in, you’re a little sideways on it, and maybe you come back to it later. I did that with The Wire. Phenomenal.
Larry Bernstein:
I agree. Will there be a second season of Cape Fear?
Darren Schwartz:
Maybe.
Larry Bernstein:
The prequel?
Darren Schwartz:
It was a nice run. It was the most work we’ve done for anything. We’ve watched three movies, a series and the Simpsons.
Larry Bernstein:
Ethan, in the series, Amy Adams plays the defense attorney, and soon after the conviction, she marries the prosecutor. Does that automatically result in a mistrial?
Ethan Holland:
I wasn’t dating her then.
Larry Bernstein:
I just fell in love with her.
Ethan Holland:
The facts and the timeline matter. There’s an appearance of a conflict.
Larry Bernstein:
They are married. That’s not in doubt.
Ethan Holland:
Did Max Cady get a fair trial? Questions can be raised if they’re a couple talking about the case. Is she really working in her client’s best interest? It certainly doesn’t pass the smell test
Larry Bernstein:
When you have a 10-part series, you’re turning it into a soap opera.
Darren Schwartz:
To show how Apple viewed the whole cannon of the story, they marketed it as “based on the novel and inspired by the 1991 film.”
Larry Bernstein:
Next topic is this a cash problem. When an ex-con calls you up after being released and says that you did me wrong. The first option is to offer cash. Tell me about Sam Bowden’s proposal to Max Cady in the 1962 film.
Ethan Holland:
Gregory Peck offers him 10 grand, which is like a hundred grand now. He said, “I’ll pay you 10 grand now and 10 grand later.” That’s real money.
Darren Schwartz:
Gregory Peck’s doing well financially. He’s got that kind of cash to throw.
Larry Bernstein:
One of the clever aspects of the two movies and the TV series is they bring back former actors from the previous film to be in the next film. Robert Mitchum, who played Max Cady in the original 1962 film, now plays the police chief in 1991. Gregory Peck, who had played Sam Bowden in the original now is the lawyer representing Max Cady in a court proceeding. Juliette Lewis in the ‘91 movie plays Bowden’s daughter and now in the Apple TV series plays Max Cady’s half-sister. Martin Balsam plays the police chief in ‘62 and then plays the judge in ‘91. Darren, how do you feel about bringing these actors back?
Darren Schwartz:
It’s a nice homage to the original and possibly hooks some people. It’s a gimmick that’s been used before. Ghostbusters was remade in 2016, Bill Murray played a ghost de-bunker, Dan Ackroyd was a cab driver, and Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver and Annie Potts all played new roles. Also, in 2005 Adam Sandler did a reboot of Burt Reynold’s The Longest Yard, and Reynolds played a different character in that as well.
Ethan Holland:
Gregory Peck in the 1962 movie, he’s as pure as a driven snow. For all intents and purposes, he’s Atticus Finch in the ‘62 version.
Larry Bernstein:
In the 1991 Scorsese movie, Gregory Peck returns as Cady’s lawyer reprimanding Nick Nolte.
Ethan Holland:
The first thing Nick Nolte does when he realizes that he’s in hot water, he calls Gregory Peck to have him represent him.
“Yeah, I got a conflict. Max Cady has already outflanked you and hired me as his attorney.”
Larry Bernstein:
There’s panic on his face.
Ethan Holland:
Max Cady’s playing chess even though Nick Nolte is the successful lawyer. Max Cady is outmaneuvering him at every turn.
Larry Bernstein:
Cape Fear is a Gregory Peck production. He acquired the script and invested $1 million of his own money to make Cape Fear.
He recognized that Max Cady was the more interesting character and that Robert Mitchum would be the real star of the movie.
Darren Schwartz:
Peck wanted to get Robert Mitchum in the film. They weren’t friends but they respected each other. Peck knew that Robert Mitchum could play that role. He could never do it; he was the clean-cut guy.
Larry Bernstein:
Robert Mitchum dresses like you Darren. He looks sharp. Darren, did you see yourself at the bar in Robert Mitchum’s character? You’re certainly not Gregory Peck’s character.
Darren Schwartz:
I don’t have the rap sheet, but given the two, I gravitate more towards Robert Mitchum, but on the good side of the law.
Ethan Holland:
In the 1962 version, Robert Mitchum spent eight years in prison. It was a scene in a restaurant where he is the only one wearing a hat. When he went into prison in the 40s, everybody wore a hat. And then he gets out and he’s still wearing a hat.
The only other people wearing hats are the detective and the police officers. Everybody else, all the civilians, nobody wore a hat. He went into prison; he was frozen in time.
Larry Bernstein:
And do you see that when you meet prisoners during the post-conviction process.
Ethan Holland:
People that have spent a lot of time in prison. You read accounts that they don’t know how to use a phone or social media. The theory is that you are frozen in time because the world is moving on and you’re stuck doing your sentence.
Darren Schwartz:
Robert Mitchum was in jail in real life. He was arrested at 14 for vagrancy hopping freight cars. He was able to call on real life experience to play this guy.
Larry Bernstein:
You hear stuff about beating up witnesses, paying off the jury, but we don’t hear that the mob goes after prosecutors and their families. Why is that?
Ethan Holland:
It’s not effective to go after a prosecutor because there’s a million prosecutors and somebody else can be handed the file. It’s a lot more effective to go after a witness who’s going to get up on the stand and point the finger at you because without that person, you have less evidence. As long as you’re just on the up and up, defendants recognize that you’re not the problem.
Larry Bernstein:
Originally for the 1962 film, Bernard Herrmann wrote the musical score that is omnipresent in the Cape Fear film, particularly during scary moments. Elmer Bernstein alters it slightly for the 1991 film.
Ethan Holland:
The music is very effective right from the beginning. It put me in an uncomfortable mood. You’re put on edge, its suspenseful, dark, foreboding, and foreshadowing all the bad things that are about to happen.
Larry Bernstein:
Bernard Herrmann, who did the original Cape Fear theme song also was the musical composer for several Hitchcock movies such as Psycho.
Ethan Holland:
That makes sense.
Larry Bernstein:
Darren, how did you see the music change between the different versions of Cape Fear
Darren Schwartz:
Well, for the book it never changed. For the movies and the series, they were all orchestral, but over time it got more intense.
1962 was kind of like planet of the apes or twilight zone.
The ’91 film score had the right amount of evil and terror, and is my favorite score
The 2026 series seemed designed to get as much cortisol running through your veins as possible, which I think was a fault of the series overall. There’s a very fast, almost indecipherable high pitch beep in there, which is now also in my nightmares.
Larry Bernstein:
And there’s a big Hitchcockian aspect to the original. It was done in black and white just like Psycho was. The cameraman had worked with Hitchcock. The director mentioned that he wanted to make it like a Hitchcock film. This was not true in the ‘91 Scorsese adaptation of the movie.
Ethan Holland:
It’s interesting that you say that because when I watched the 1962 version with my wife. The first thing she said was, “Is this Hitchcock?” “No, it’s a director named Jay Lee Thompson.” But it sounded, looked, felt like Hitchcock in the ‘62 version.
Larry Bernstein:
It was intentional. My wife, Julie, refuses to see old black and white films. How do you like watching the 1962 version?
Darren Schwartz:
It felt a little old. There are old movies that use a different style and language. There’s something called Northeast accent, which doesn’t really exist in America, but it’s how the actors talk like Katherine Hepburn. When you start getting something like that, it just doesn’t connect. It was dated.
Ethan Holland:
I don’t generally watch old movies, and having said that, watching this 1962 Cape Fear movie, I really enjoyed it and more than the ‘91 version. The old film made me want to revisit my reticence to watch old movies.
Larry Bernstein:
The Cape Fear movies include setting a trap to kill Cady. I was screaming at the TV, “Just run away!” And they’re doing the opposite. “Let’s set a trap and kill Max.”
Darren Schwartz:
But we’re the trap.
Larry Bernstein:
How about let’s use my daughter as a trap? How often do you see that, Ethan?
Ethan Holland:
People don’t use their own family members as traps. The next time I see it will be the first time. The reason why they did that is because there’s no where they can run to get away from Max Cady.
Larry Bernstein
I don’t think that’s true. Go to Cancun. There’s a lot of options.
Darren, of the 2 films and the TV series, which one did you most enjoy?
Darren Schwartz:
‘91 for me was by far the best.
Larry Bernstein:
I agree. Although I did like the ‘62 version. I hadn’t seen the ‘91 Scorsese film since it came out 35 years ago. I was blown away. I was hiding under my blanket. I was so uncomfortable. The Robert De Niro character was a scary, scary guy.
Ethan Holland:
He was more menacing. Robert Mitchum was suave and less dangerous.
Larry Bernstein:
Darren, tell us about Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese’s relationship with the 1991 Cape Fear film.
Darren Schwartz:
Scorsese was set to do Schindler’s List, and Spielberg was going to do Cape Fear. And Spielberg said, “It’s not really my brand.” They switched. It worked out for everybody.
Larry Bernstein:
What would have been different if Martin Scorsese had directed Schindler’s List?
Darren Schwartz:
The outcome would’ve probably remained the same.
Larry Bernstein:
How would Spielberg have changed Cape Fear?
Darren Schwartz:
Probably a shark in the river. You gravitate to what you do.
Larry Bernstein:
Darren, what is your favorite scene in the ’91 movie?
Darren Schwartz:
When Cady was chained to the remains of the boat, going down in the river, speaking in tongues. That’s one of the finest final scenes of a movie that I’ve ever seen. “What’s he saying?” And it was just a total unraveling of what he had used to fuel himself.
Larry Bernstein:
Nick Nolte comes over with a boulder to throw on Cady’s head.
Darren Schwartz:
You shrieked.
Larry Bernstein:
I was under the blanket, and when I peeked out, Cady was already out to sea. I guess he had missed with the rock.
Ethan Holland:
De Niro was speaking in tongues, which is a Pentecostal thing that people do. He’s not whining, he’s not crying. He is babbling to God and he’s drowning while he’s doing it.
De Niro has scripture written all over his body. He wants God to hold everybody accountable, apparently, except for himself because he keeps raping people.
Larry Bernstein:
Darren, if Robert De Niro had not played Max Cady who would you have selected in 1991 to play the bad guy?
Darren Schwartz:
Harrison Ford
Larry Bernstein:
When he cried in Presumed Innocent, it was painful. Great smirks in Raiders of the Lost Ark, but he is limited in his range.
Ethan Holland:
I don’t think he’s menacing enough. You need somebody that really frightens you, capable of being an absolute narcissistic psychopath.
Larry Bernstein:
Compare De Niro’s role in Taxi Driver versus Cape Fear, which was a better performance? “You talking to me?”
Darren Schwartz:
Taxi Driver because it was a slow build. He wasn’t a bad guy to start. There’s a voiceover at the beginning where he says he must clean out his cab, remove the blood, and other stuff. He’s working, trying to survive, and he develops an attraction to a girl that’s not returned, gets a mohawk and goes nuts. We’ve all been there. But his commitment to the craft is unparalleled. For Cape Fear, he paid a dentist five thousand dollars to jack up his teeth, and then twenty thousand after fixing them.
Ethan Holland:
Max Cady was bad from the start.
Larry Bernstein:
Darren, what do you know about the origin of the source material. John Macdonald wrote the novel The Executioners in 1957 – was this based on a true story?
Darren Schwartz:
No. A friend and fellow writer MacKinlay Kantor gave him shit about writing trashy novels and challenged him to write a real book.
Larry Bernstein:
Darren, you’ve recently finished writing a novel. How do you think about bringing thoughts or experiences into the world?
Darren Schwartz:
I think for a lot of people, having a creative outlet for their thoughts is essential. You and I both have very active minds, and that energy has to go somewhere to nourish ourselves. You’ve done book clubs and intellectual forums for years. For me, writing is an outlet I’ve always wanted to explore. This novel started with a singular thought – what would an advanced species think about our addiction to social media.
Larry Bernstein:
And what would they think?
Darren Schwartz:
They’d probably think we’re fucking nuts.
Larry Bernstein:
The three of us watched The Simpsons, season five, episode two, entitled “Cape Feare.”
Ethan Holland:
It was very funny. Sideshow Bob is one of the best villains in The Simpsons playing the Max Cady-like character obsessed with Bart because Bart is always foiling his evil plans. It was very clever and funny.
Darren Schwartz:
It’s hysterical how many different forms of this story we watched. It was a perfect capper to our assignment.
Larry Bernstein:
They had only 22 minutes in The Simpsons to capture the essence of it, and they did it with Sideshow Bob tied underneath the car.
Ethan Holland:
I am a huge Simpsons fan. Conan O’Brien produced this one. It was fresh. The Simpsons doesn’t get dated.
Darren Schwartz:
Cape Feare is ranked seventh all time for the Simpsons.
Larry Bernstein:
When Sideshow Bob is threatening Bart’s family, the Simpsons decide to hide with the witness relocation program. Ethan, tell us about Witness Relocation program in practice.
Ethan Holland:
In my line of work in state court, we don’t give people new identities. But if a witness is in danger or there has been a threat that we can confirm, we do help them move. If people don’t feel safe, they’re not going to testify.
When somebody’s relocated, we disclose to the defense how much money we have given them. We pay their rent, so they feel comfortable coming to court.
They move to a different location, usually not very far away. We’re moving them within the city they live in, but it’s to a neighborhood where they don’t have a target on their back.
Larry Bernstein:
Homer Simpson embraces the move.
Ethan Holland:
He’s wearing a t-shirt that says witness relocation, which kind of defeats the purpose.
Larry Bernstein:
And a cap that says WLP.
Ethan Holland:
Homer’s not the sharpest tool in the shed, but he’s certainly not that concerned about Bart getting these threatening letters that were penned in Sideshow Bob’s blood. There was one that had different writing and Homer fessed up that he had sent that threatening letter to Bart because he had tattooed wide load on his lower back.
Larry Bernstein:
When you ran the cold case division, how do you prioritize?
Ethan Holland:
I worked in the cold case division for 10 years. It’s organic. Police officers come to us and say, “We have this case and we need to develop evidence,” and we try to help look at what they have, see whether there is evidence that can get us over the finish line. These very old cases, witnesses die, memories fade, people move away, people get divorced, which is ironically sometimes very good for us.
Larry Bernstein:
Do you lose privilege after a divorce?
Ethan Holland:
The marital privilege is while they’re married. I only bring up divorce because people that were unwilling to come forward and tell what they knew, sometimes once that relationship is over maybe there’s some animosity.
Larry Bernstein:
20 years ago, for my book club I assigned 1599 about Shakespeare’s most productive year. I decided to watch the films of the four relevant Shakespeare plays. My wife came in and said, “What are you doing?” I said, “I’m watching Henry V for my book club.” And she said, “Turn that shit off. We’re watching Cold Case.”
Darren Schwartz:
There you go. It’s much more engaging.
Ethan Holland:
Cold Case was. They usually solve the case within an hour.
Larry Bernstein:
For sure.
Ethan Holland:
The last shot was the guy getting arrested, and then they would flashback to what he looked like when he committed the crime.
Larry Bernstein:
And then they would show the pretty girl, the leader of the cold case division giving a glance.
Ethan Holland:
That was a good show.
Larry Bernstein:
Darren, what happens next with Cape Fear?
Darren Schwartz:
The TV series was Juggernaut. Amy Adams always gets nominated. She’s very good. I’m good with Cape Fear for now, but I recommend that everybody should watch it again. And what happens next is maybe we should do something about cold cases.
Ethan Holland:
You could spin it maybe for another season of episodes because Max Cady isn’t dead. It could keep going infinitely and start menacing different people.
Larry Bernstein:
I would prefer a prequel.
Ethan Holland:
Find out why Max Cady became the prolific rapist that he was.
Larry Bernstein:
Let’s end on a note of optimism.
Ethan Holland:
I’m going to stop being opposed to watching old movies.
Larry Bernstein:
Thanks to Darren and Ethan for joining us. If you missed our previous podcast, it was Can Evolution Explain Our Feelings?
Our speaker was Rob Kurzban who is the author of a new book entitled All the Feels: The Evolved Function of Every Human Emotion and Sensation.
Rob explained how our basic sensations like hunger, pain, and sense of awe can be interpreted using Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.
Previous episodes and transcripts are available on our website as well as at Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
I am Larry Bernstein with the podcast What Happens Next.
Check out our previous episode, Can Evolution Explain Our Feelings?, here.
