"Surveillance didn't start with Nixon." – De Palma
Brian De Palma's "Raising Cain" typically gets compared to Hitchcock's "Psycho", but its got more in common with Kubrick's "The Shining". Here, like Kubrick's film, a seemingly nurturing father, Carter Nix, regresses into a unhinged, murderous male. Both films' "daddies" represent unchecked patriarchal rage, but whilst Kubrick's Jack Torrance is haunted by the ghosts of patriarchy, Carter Nix is literally possessed by his authoritarian father, whose abusive hands led to Carter developing multiple personalities.
Beneath its trashy exterior, "Raising Cain" is chiefly concerned with Nix's compulsion for control. Though he feigns compassion, Nix is emblematic of a breed of masculinist technocracy, obsessed with surveillance, cameras, discipline and actively engaged in a scheme to kidnap kids
Early scenes highlight this: television monitors show Nix comforting his young daughter, and then, shortly afterwards, telling a woman that "controlling early childhood development is essential in the creation of a wholesome personality". But while Nix hopes to traumatise kids in order to induce multiple personalities, he himself is fragmented (or displaced) because of his father's abuse. One of his many personalities is Cain, whom De Palma differentiates from Nix's other personalities by using canted noir angles. Cain marks the horrific return of the repressed id, which emerges as a ghost of a murderous past to unleash vengeance specifically on women and children.
Significantly, Cain's appearances are triggered when Nix is confronted with repressed fears and anxieties, not unlike the psychiatrist in De Palma's "Dressed to Kill". When Nix sees his wife having sex with Jack, her former boyfriend, Cain emerges and concocts a diabolical plot to murder Nix's wife. In typical De Palma fashion, however, the woman is magically resurrected. She then begins her mission to rescue her daughter from the hands of her deranged husband and his equally insane father.
Things get more complex when another one of Nix's multiple personalities, a figure called Margo, begins to take over Nix's personality. In a reversal of the transvestite role in De Palma's "Dressed to Kill", Margo becomes the maternal protector of Nix's multiple personalities.
In a slow motion sequences filled with phallic symbols, Margo then kills Nix's father as Nix's daughter falls into the arms of surrogate father Jack. Margo thus becomes at once the castrating female, the maternal id of Carter's multiple personalities, and the alter ego of Carter. In order for Carter to free himself of his father's tyranny and rescue his own childhood, as well as become the instrument in rescuing his daughter, he must become the maternal (m)Other. Though, as is often the case with De Palma's climaxes, there is some ambiguity about the final triumphant personality of Carter. Whether Margo is ultimately malevolent or benevolent is left up to the audience.
Like most horror films, whilst "Cain" opens up the possibility of a post-patriarchal future, it remains submerged in the patriarchal rage to which it calls attention. De Palma is doomed to be caught between his own critique of patriarchy and his inability either stylistically or ideologically to embrace a post-patriarchal future. He knows that only the release of monstrosities can destroy the forces that engendered them, but trapped in our historical moment, cannot concretize any prospect of change.
This has led to many feminist writers (for all the hate De Palma gets, feminists love him) leaping upon "Caine" as a symbol of post-Vietnam America and its patriarchal crisis. Nixon, wiretapping, government conspiracies and paranoia are common "themes" in the director's filmography, but with "Caine" it seems possible that the diabolical Dr. Carter Nix (two successive American presidents, Carter and Nixon?) is a cinematic analogue to the nefarious wiretapper Richard Nixon. Like Nix, Nixon traumatised a generation of young people in his perpetuation of war and the attendant repression at home against political dissidents. Moreover, Nixon's resignation after the disgrace of Watergate, like Nix Senior's exile after being charged with kidnapping children, represents an indictment of a patriarchal order that used its sons as sacrificial lambs in their mad designs. The reappearance of Nix Senior and the right-wing repressive patriarchal politics represented by Nixon in the figures of Reagan/Bush Senior suggest, for many feminist writers, a need to expose patriarchy's past.
Contrast De Palma's approach to these themes with that of his buddy Spielberg. With Spielberg, the castrated (loveable) father always retreats to a fantasy-scape of the past where he is restored and where there can exist no social fallout from his recuperation. Writing of this, Lynda Boose says: "America's post-Vietnam narrative is stamped with the intensity of a generation stuck in its own boyhood and now playing out, with increasing violence, an unconscious cultural myth that attempts to recover the father. The quest for the father - which might seem to be a reparative ideal - is dangerously regressive and invariably futile because what was required at the time of transition to adulthood cannot, by very definition, be incorporated twenty years later."
De Palma's cinema, however, exhibits the opposite trend. In his universe, the paternal super-ego, before its many De Palman castrations, is responsible for all manners of blood opera and baroque violence, women always the first to suffer, be it at the hands of the military, Hollywood, porn, capitalist exchange, organised crime and the various gender pressures delineated in "Sisters", "Carrie" and "The Fury".
Incidentally, "Caine" initially sported a very non-linear, radically different narrative structure. De Palma, however, reworked his scenes into something more conventional late in post-production.
7.9/10 – De Palma once said: "I spend a lot of time picking these architectural places precisely because they will take root in your subconscious. But the critics sort of dismiss it as nice camera work." By De Palma's standards, "Caine" features poor architecture.
Brian De Palma's "Raising Cain" typically gets compared to Hitchcock's "Psycho", but its got more in common with Kubrick's "The Shining". Here, like Kubrick's film, a seemingly nurturing father, Carter Nix, regresses into a unhinged, murderous male. Both films' "daddies" represent unchecked patriarchal rage, but whilst Kubrick's Jack Torrance is haunted by the ghosts of patriarchy, Carter Nix is literally possessed by his authoritarian father, whose abusive hands led to Carter developing multiple personalities.
Beneath its trashy exterior, "Raising Cain" is chiefly concerned with Nix's compulsion for control. Though he feigns compassion, Nix is emblematic of a breed of masculinist technocracy, obsessed with surveillance, cameras, discipline and actively engaged in a scheme to kidnap kids
Early scenes highlight this: television monitors show Nix comforting his young daughter, and then, shortly afterwards, telling a woman that "controlling early childhood development is essential in the creation of a wholesome personality". But while Nix hopes to traumatise kids in order to induce multiple personalities, he himself is fragmented (or displaced) because of his father's abuse. One of his many personalities is Cain, whom De Palma differentiates from Nix's other personalities by using canted noir angles. Cain marks the horrific return of the repressed id, which emerges as a ghost of a murderous past to unleash vengeance specifically on women and children.
Significantly, Cain's appearances are triggered when Nix is confronted with repressed fears and anxieties, not unlike the psychiatrist in De Palma's "Dressed to Kill". When Nix sees his wife having sex with Jack, her former boyfriend, Cain emerges and concocts a diabolical plot to murder Nix's wife. In typical De Palma fashion, however, the woman is magically resurrected. She then begins her mission to rescue her daughter from the hands of her deranged husband and his equally insane father.
Things get more complex when another one of Nix's multiple personalities, a figure called Margo, begins to take over Nix's personality. In a reversal of the transvestite role in De Palma's "Dressed to Kill", Margo becomes the maternal protector of Nix's multiple personalities.
In a slow motion sequences filled with phallic symbols, Margo then kills Nix's father as Nix's daughter falls into the arms of surrogate father Jack. Margo thus becomes at once the castrating female, the maternal id of Carter's multiple personalities, and the alter ego of Carter. In order for Carter to free himself of his father's tyranny and rescue his own childhood, as well as become the instrument in rescuing his daughter, he must become the maternal (m)Other. Though, as is often the case with De Palma's climaxes, there is some ambiguity about the final triumphant personality of Carter. Whether Margo is ultimately malevolent or benevolent is left up to the audience.
Like most horror films, whilst "Cain" opens up the possibility of a post-patriarchal future, it remains submerged in the patriarchal rage to which it calls attention. De Palma is doomed to be caught between his own critique of patriarchy and his inability either stylistically or ideologically to embrace a post-patriarchal future. He knows that only the release of monstrosities can destroy the forces that engendered them, but trapped in our historical moment, cannot concretize any prospect of change.
This has led to many feminist writers (for all the hate De Palma gets, feminists love him) leaping upon "Caine" as a symbol of post-Vietnam America and its patriarchal crisis. Nixon, wiretapping, government conspiracies and paranoia are common "themes" in the director's filmography, but with "Caine" it seems possible that the diabolical Dr. Carter Nix (two successive American presidents, Carter and Nixon?) is a cinematic analogue to the nefarious wiretapper Richard Nixon. Like Nix, Nixon traumatised a generation of young people in his perpetuation of war and the attendant repression at home against political dissidents. Moreover, Nixon's resignation after the disgrace of Watergate, like Nix Senior's exile after being charged with kidnapping children, represents an indictment of a patriarchal order that used its sons as sacrificial lambs in their mad designs. The reappearance of Nix Senior and the right-wing repressive patriarchal politics represented by Nixon in the figures of Reagan/Bush Senior suggest, for many feminist writers, a need to expose patriarchy's past.
Contrast De Palma's approach to these themes with that of his buddy Spielberg. With Spielberg, the castrated (loveable) father always retreats to a fantasy-scape of the past where he is restored and where there can exist no social fallout from his recuperation. Writing of this, Lynda Boose says: "America's post-Vietnam narrative is stamped with the intensity of a generation stuck in its own boyhood and now playing out, with increasing violence, an unconscious cultural myth that attempts to recover the father. The quest for the father - which might seem to be a reparative ideal - is dangerously regressive and invariably futile because what was required at the time of transition to adulthood cannot, by very definition, be incorporated twenty years later."
De Palma's cinema, however, exhibits the opposite trend. In his universe, the paternal super-ego, before its many De Palman castrations, is responsible for all manners of blood opera and baroque violence, women always the first to suffer, be it at the hands of the military, Hollywood, porn, capitalist exchange, organised crime and the various gender pressures delineated in "Sisters", "Carrie" and "The Fury".
Incidentally, "Caine" initially sported a very non-linear, radically different narrative structure. De Palma, however, reworked his scenes into something more conventional late in post-production.
7.9/10 – De Palma once said: "I spend a lot of time picking these architectural places precisely because they will take root in your subconscious. But the critics sort of dismiss it as nice camera work." By De Palma's standards, "Caine" features poor architecture.