Scarface, Brian De Palma’s nearly three-hour reach for epic-level greatness is seldom talked about as an actual film anymore. The movie (and particularly Al Pacino’s no-holds barred performance as gangster Tony Montana) have drifted so far into iconography that the quality of the film itself has become secondary to its legend. And it’s one hell of a legend at this point.
De Palma’s remake of Howard Hawks’ 1932 accepted classic starring Paul Muni has been adopted by hip-hop stars (see Scarface of the Geto Boys, Nas, Jay-Z, Biggy, the list is endless) and scores of athletes as a source of creative and capitalistic inspiration. Former NBA great Shaquille O’Neal’s clothing line is called TWisM (The World is Mine), a play on words from a zeppelin that Pacino’s Montana sees “The World is Yours” written in bright lights on the side of the airship. A slogan Montana later has inscribed on a statue overlooking an indoor fountain in his impossibly garish mansion.
I suppose the appeal is a simple one. As presented and performed, Scarface is a film about breaking all the rules, making your fortune on actual blood and sweat, and the losing of all of it due to a maniacal level of hubris. The film tells the classic “rise and fall” story of a man industrious enough to elevate himself to great heights, but too full of himself to maintain that elevation. What’s interesting about the film and its legacy is how infrequently the fall is discussed. Perhaps it’s because of the pure ‘80s flash and trash style of the film (Giorgio Moroder scores the film, and parts of the film seem like a seedier template for Miami Vice—the series), and the almost insane level of swagger that Pacino brings to the performance. I swear, his work here is almost like turning a “manspread” into a character. Tony Montana is, in so many ways, a vile and disgusting character. Every word from his mouth sounds profane even when it isn’t. There’s a real nastiness here that Pacino leans into with a fearlessness that has to be admired (at least to a degree) even by those who think it’s too much—even way too much. There is no lack of commitment on Pacino’s part in playing the central figure of a movie that Roger Ebert called “a wonderful portrait of a real louse” in his 1983 4-star review.
But again, what has been lost in all the t-shirts, posters, references in song, and oft-quoted lines, etc. is the film itself. A film that I think De Palma was trying to make a greater, more nuanced point through, even if his own Grand Guignol instincts got in the way of making it.
Howard Hawks’ version of Scarface centered around an Italian gangster during the prohibition era. De Palma’s film turns its protagonist into a Cuban, one of many released from Fidel Castro’s jails, in a disingenuous effort to reconnect families of those that sought refuge from his communist regime in Miami. Known as the “Mariel Boatlift” of 1980, Castro took the opportunity, under the guise of a humanitarian effort, to rid Cuba of what he considered the worst of the worst in his island country.
De Palma’s Scarface uses the boatlift as a jumping off point for his story of the growth of the drug trade in the United States, and particularly southern Florida. A title card at the beginning of the film sets the stage for what at first appears to be a film making a political statement about immigration, US/Cuban relations, and the unintended consequences of “cooperation” between those two nations. There’s probably a fascinating film to be made about the true human impact of the Mariel Boatlift and its impact on those that came over and what happened after they arrived. One could easily imagine a Soderbergh Traffic-like take on the subject.
Scarface is not that film. Yet still, it must be said, beyond its cultural impact and looking past its complete lack of subtlety, Scarface is still a pretty fascinating film—even if only viewed as a time capsule of early ‘80s filmmaking (style-wise, Paul Schrader’s American Gigolo comes to mind as a touchpoint, regardless of the difference in subject matter). In taking the story of an immigrant willing to go to any measure (including killing colleagues and friends) to get ahead, De Palma created a discomfiting view of what it takes for an outsider to gain traction in the United States. While that theme is largely explored at a surface level, as a portrait of one man’s obsession to better himself by any means necessary, Scarface certainly hits some sort of mark right on the head.
And when I say “discomfiting,” I mean it on multiple levels. It’s hard to imagine casting an Italian-American as a Cuban gangster (even a former “Godfather”) in today’s more culturally sensitive times. And Pacino’s exaggerated (if consistent) Cuban accent bumps up against the precipice of caricature—especially when compared to his co-star Steven Bauer (who plays Manny, Tony’s right hand), an actual Cuban-American. What the film leaves out entirely is the extraordinary contributions that law-abiding Cuban immigrants made to Miami and the greater South Florida region. The only slight hint of positivity can be found in the character of Tony Montana’s mother, who upon seeing her son for the first time in years, has no trouble sussing out that all of his gains are ill-gotten, and doesn’t mind letting him know. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (in her first film role) as Tony’s sister Gina, provides a bit of light in the darkness, if only to meet a grim destination. Otherwise, Scarface is populated with nothing but gangsters or, in the case of Michelle Pfeiffer (as Montana’s wife—carrying the unlikely name of “Elvira”), a gangster’s moll.
As a film, Scarface has largely one pounding note to play—one filled with extraordinary levels of violence and drug usage (including Pacino going facedown in a huge pile of coke, and taking more bullets to the chest and still standing than any human ever). And it plays that note relentlessly for the entirety of its extended running time. There is a boldness in the film’s extreme approach that can be both exhilarating (De Palma’s camera movement is exquisite) and exhausting. Scarface is all just so much much.
And yet there is an undeniable propulsion in the film, a ferocity that exists throughout that cannot be easily dismissed. It really says something that Pacino, who played the legendary film gangster Michael Corleone in two of the greatest films ever made (Godfather I & II), might have eclipsed that seminal character with Tony Montana in the eyes of crime-film lovers. As his reluctant paramour and later recalcitrant wife, Pfeiffer gives one of the great ice-queen performances in the history of cinema (I swear, her bangs and bob were cut with steel). Written by Oliver Stone, the film is chock-full of quotable lines and in all technical aspects, Scarface looks and sounds remarkable.
The question I suppose is to what end? What are we to take away from all of the sturm und drang displayed in Scarface? There’s a great scene late in the film, when an over-coked and over served Montana humiliates Elvira, makes a spectacle of himself in front a full house of a Michelin-starred restaurant, and turns to the milky-white patrons, dresses them down for their own largesse, and says, “Say good night to the bad guy.” In that moment, De Palma’s film asks some interesting questions about capitalism and who benefits from it. I wish the film would have delved deeper into that theme as opposed to settling for being a “wonderful portrait of a real louse.”
That being said, I cannot disagree with Roger Ebert’s assessment, even though it seems that many who have seen (and will see) Scarface will find what I would consider a strange and abiding love for that louse. Regardless of whether one is repulsed or invigorated by the film (or, maybe like me, both), what Scarface eventually reveals to us is less about what happens to the people on screen, and more about how its massive cult following has responded to it. Depending on your perspective, I suppose the film can be seen as “just a movie,” or a reflection of our large-scale societal affection for those who are unapologetically bad. De Palma’s Scarface prefaced the era of the TV anti-hero (see The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Ozark, and so on) but followed on the heels of films like The Hustler and Bonnie and Clyde—movies about the disreputable and our attachment to them.
Scarface wasn’t so much new or groundbreaking, as much as it was the most pitched variation on that theme. It’s hard to imagine films like Natural Born Killers or Fight Club without De Palma’s still troubling “classic” gangster epic. A distinction that one may have trouble wrestling with depending on how they feel about those aforementioned films.
One thing is clear though: The audience for “the bad guy” is in no way ready to “say good night.” Not on film. Not in real life.
Make of that what you will.
