Push It to the Limit!
* Warning: Long-winded post follows. Spoilers? I avoided them when possible. I think you are fine to proceed. After all, you wouldn’t want to miss my thoughts on shower scenes, phalluses, Method acting, and 1980s music…or would you?
First off, as a (formerly) diligent film student, I’ve taken it upon myself to catch up some some film classics that have thus far been inexplicably neglected in my viewing.
And I use the word “classics” loosely.
I just had a look at Brian De Palma’s Scarface (1983), which functions as an updated version of Howard Hawks’ 1932 classic of the same name. In De Palma’s version, the film’s protagonist, Tony Montana, flees his homeland of Cuba and sets off to make a life for himself in America: through the cocaine trade. The problem is, Tony’s too ambitious to play by the rules, and instead knocks out his competition by ruthlessly killing both friends and enemies, cheating his own colleagues, and coveting the lifestyle of Frank (Robert Loggia), the local cocaine kingpin who gave him his start, as well as Frank’s wife, Elvira (Michelle Pfeiffer).
As with any great 1980s film, De Palma and screenwriter Oliver Stone attempt to fashion a moral tale out of the drugs, sex, and violence depicted onscreen, warning against the hubris and gluttony that plagued a great number of characters in films of the “greed” decade.
As I write this, I’m realizing how difficult it is to review a film that has received such universal praise — and abhorrence — from its viewers; not to mention, attempting to objectively analyze a classic after so many years of not actually seeing the film — only witnessing the farces it’s inspired, marveling at the cult following it’s garnered, hearing the numerous favorite lines repeated — is such a daunting task that…I’m…clearly…stalling by writing this paragraph!
Back to the film; to begin, the violence. I found myself, for the most part, desensitized to the graphic violence onscreen, likely due to years of watching horror films — which is not necessarily a good thing — but the aspect of the violence that I did find disturbing is its haunting realism. I know what you’re thinking: When’s the last time I saw a drug kingpin gunned down, riddles with bullets and floating facedown in a pool? The answer is never.
The realistic “charm” of Scarface’s violence relies on Tony’s looks and demeanor: Though rich and powerful, Tony is inherently sloppy, both in physical appearance (his poor posture, his greasy hair) and the manner in which he carries out his crimes (his hot-headedness and spontaneity override a crucial aspect of successful criminality: good planning). The sloppiness is evocative of actual violence shown on the news: crimes gone awry, failed getaways. After all, the evening news is, in theory, something that we can accept as reality (unless, of course, you’re watching Fox News). Tony is neither a perfect villain nor a perfect hero; he’s as insecure personally as he is professionally. Elvira crushes Tony by telling him he’s not a good lover; Tony’s paranoid that his colleagues are out to get him; even his mother is skeptical when Tony announces his newfound riches, not because she questions the source of his income, but because she knows that her son is a natural failure on many levels, and she is shocked that he was even able to build any kind of career for himself, albeit an illegal one.
The only character who really believes in Tony is his naive younger sister, Gina (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), despite her knowledge that he’s a ruthless druglord. The relationship between the two, while oft-analyzed for its incestuous overtones, is perhaps one of the most fascinating aspects of the film; De Palma humanizes Tony only in the exchanges between Tony and Gina (excepting a scene in which Tony spontaneously kills a partner upon learning that the partner is preparing to detonate a car bomb which will inadvertently kill nearby children).
The very competent Steven Bauer plays Tony’s right-hand man, Manny, and he holds his own next to the over the top Pacino onscreen. His understated performance lends some humanity to the film; check out the scene in which Manny gently explains to Gina why Tony is such an overprotective brother to her: because she’s the only “pure” thing in Tony’s life. The relationship between Tony and Gina is not dissimilar to the relationships between Travis and Betsy/Iris (Cybill Shepherd/Jodie Foster) in Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, or Ethan (John Wayne) and Debby (Natalie Wood) in The Searchers — an obvious influence in Scorsese’s work — Tony wants to protect Gina so badly that it nearly kills him, similar to the conclusions of Taxi Driver and The Searchers.
Much has been said about the over-the-top art design of the film, and while some critics accuse the visual gaudiness of distracting from the plot, I found the garish set design completely necessary to mirror Tony’s desire for anything and everything glossy/excessive (the big, phallic guns he fires; the beautiful women with whom he keeps company; the millions he makes from his drug business). After all, one of the most valuable techniques a filmmaker can employ to evoke a certain place and time is to provide the appropriate visuals, and the spectacular set decoration speaks volumes about the excessive lifestyles led by the film’s characters.
As for the soundtrack? If you know me, you’re probably aware that Giorgio Moroder is one of my alltime favorite musicians, and his scores for films such as Neverending Story, American Gigolo, and Flashdance have, at times, brought tears to my eyes (come on, don’t tell me you can watch the scene in Flashdance when Nick (Michael Nouri) follows Alex (Jennifer Beals) home and the Moroder-composed instrumental “Love Theme from Flashdance” plays non-diegetically and NOT find yourself a little misty-eyed). As usual, Moroder delivers a stylish, sweeping synthesized soundtrack which, although a little jarring at times, is ultimately appropriate for a story of such decadence.
Pacino’s portrayal of Tony, which Pacino has repeatedly professed to be his favorite character to play, is as over the top as the film’s subject matter and style. Tony is, for the most part, ruthless, passionate, and hot-headed; but Pacino managed to surprise me a few times. For instance, Pacino’s reaction to the bathroom chainsaw murder. Let me first admit that one of the things I equally love and hate about De Palma is how, in his films, he unabashedly features either shower nudity or shower death — see Carrie, Dressed to Kill — which is, of course, a direct “homage” (or, rip-off of) Alfred Hitchcock’s shower attack in Psycho. De Palma-bashing aside, back to the bathroom chainsaw murder: As one of Tony’s friends faces impending death at the hand of a chainsaw-wielding druglord, we expect to see terror in Tony’s face. Not only do we not see terror, we see apathy, and almost amusement, in Tony’s eyes, a facial technique I feel few actors today could actually manage, and believably.
One of my favorite Hollywood anecdotes involves an exchange between Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall: Privately, Bogart cautions Bacall, who was still coming into her own as an actress, against overacting — or, employing the Stanislavsky method — and tells her something along the lines of, “When the villain points a gun in your face, you don’t need to scream, or even make faces; the audience KNOWS you’re afraid.” While Pacino does overact in Scarface, I feel that his performance sometimes lends evidence to Bogart’s Method style. For example, notably in the scene in which Tony and Elvira confront each other in the restaurant: Before the physical fighting begins, you can practically cut through the emotional tension with a knife. Of course, this could be due to the fact that both characters are supposed to be lethargic and strung out on drugs, but it’s still impressive how both Pacino and Pfeiffer manage to convey their disgust for each other using only minimal facial expressions. Body language is unnecessary, and unsupplied; as the audience, we’re ahead, we already understand the hate between the two.
WARNING: SPOILER AHEAD (depending upon your definition of spoiler). As I said earlier, any great 1980s film concludes with a lesson, or at least attempts a moralistic wrap-up. Predictably, Tony’s lifestyle catches up with him; his mansion is invaded by a Bolivian gang who slaughter everyone in sight before finally locating Tony, hidden away in his spectacular office with his face buried in a pile — a pile — of cocaine atop his desk. By this point, Tony is such a strung-out mess that he is oblivious to both the sounds of gunshots killing his entourage outside of his office doors, as well as the elaborate video surveillance system, just inches from the desk where he passes out, which reveals the numerous invaders on his property.
As with many gangster films, Tony’s hubris is ridiculed to the extent that, even while his body is riddled with bullets, he continues shooting at the dozens of invaders running amok below his balcony where he stands, Christ-like, proudly declaring “I’m still standing!” only to be snuck up on from behind by a sole assassin. With this final encounter, Tony collapses, falling off of the balcony face-first into the gaudy fountain installed in his foyer, dying in a pool of blood and chlorine; if this if isn’t a direct comment on the consequences of greed in the 1980s, then heck! I don’t know what is.
With the closing credits, we see the film is co-dedicated to Howard Hawks, who directed the original Scarface, which I might add De Palma publicly bashed at the time of the remake’s production. I was never good with conclusions, but if there’s one thing I learned from another violent film, American History X, it’s this: It’s always good to end a paper with a quote. With that, my favorite quote from Scarface:
What you lookin’ at? You all a bunch of fuckin’ assholes. You know why? You don’t have the guts to be what you wanna be? You need people like me. You need people like me so you can point your fuckin’ fingers and say, “That’s the bad guy.” So… what that make you? Good? You’re not good. You just know how to hide, how to lie. Me, I don’t have that problem. Me, I always tell the truth. Even when I lie. So say good night to the bad guy! Come on. The last time you gonna see a bad guy like this again, let me tell you. Come on. Make way for the bad guy. There’s a bad guy comin’ through! Better get outta his way!
December 8th, 2005 at 11:53 am
Scarface t-shirts were immensely popular with the uber-violence obsessed 12 years olds where I taught. I’ve never seen it though. Yeesh.