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'Scarface': Over-The-Top, But Ahead Of Its Time
NPR ^ | 8/26/11 | John Powers

Posted on 08/26/2011 11:11:00 AM PDT by Borges

Edited on 08/26/2011 11:32:12 AM PDT by Sidebar Moderator. [history]

Back in school, I was always amused to read about classics that were dismissed when they first came out — you know, how Moby Dick wrecked Herman Melville’s literary career or how The Wizard of Oz was considered a disappointment when it was first released. I naturally assumed that, had I been around back then, I wouldn’t have missed the boat like that.

But that was before I became a critic and discovered that, over the years, you wind up with a pocketful of unused tickets from all the boats you've missed.

Take, for instance, Scarface, the 1983 gangster picture directed by Brian De Palma, written by Oliver Stone, and starring Al Pacino who gives a performance the size of a Caribbean cruise ship. When it first came out, I panned it for taking Howard Hawks's great 1932 movie and remaking it as something trashy, shallow, and excessive to the point of Camp. I wasn't alone. The movie received lots of bad reviews, and even the public wasn't wild about it. It was only the sixteenth biggest box-office draw of 1983, behind such cinematic triumphs as Mr. Mom and Jaws 3-D.

But Scarface didn't vanish like they did. Instead, over the next quarter century, it became a phenomenon. The movie's now so iconic that it doesn't even seem silly that Universal should bring out a fancy, metal-encased Blu-ray version, the Scarface Limited Edition Steelbook, which captures the story in all its lurid glory.

By now, most everyone knows the plot. Pacino stars as Tony Montana, a small-time Cuban exile. Tony arrives in Miami along with his friend Manny Ribera — that's Steven Bauer — and sets about trying to grab the American Dream the only way he knows how: Crime. Over the course of nearly three hours, Tony rises from being a dishwasher to a drug lord complete with a gold-bedecked mansion, a gorgeous moll — played with sly asperity by Michelle Pfeiffer — and personal stashes of cocaine the size of the Matterhorn.

I tell the truth, too, and here's an abiding one: If there's any quality that makes a piece of pop culture last, it's energy. And like the chainsaw that dismembers Tony's friend early on, Scarface just roars. It's as indelible as a cartoon, from Pacino's dementedly hammy performance to the bevy of quotable lines, almost none of which are clean enough to be quoted here.

Yet the historical reason Scarface became a touchstone is that De Palma and Stone — especially Stone, the most plugged-in Hollywood filmmaker of the '80s — were actually ahead of their time. In Tony Montana's gaudy rise and fall, they predicted much of what we've seen in the last quarter century — the delirious consumerism, the Reality TV egomania, the sense of getting ahead as a life-or-death struggle. Most strikingly, Scarface anticipates the rise of hip-hop culture, with its celebration of the gangsta life in all its aspiration and tragic sense of doom.

Where a comfortable middle-class white guy like me found Tony's story a preposterous fantasy, rappers like Snoop Dog and Flavor Flav saw it as a mythic version of something real. It captured their sense of what it was like to be an outsider trying to fight your way to the top, grabbing all the women and bling you could because you know it could all quickly come to a violent end. They identified with Tony's braggadocio, his desire to live large, his willingness to fight to the end. And as with so much of hip-hop, this taste for Scarface entered the mainstream. These days, teens of all races quote Tony's lines at you and play the Scarface video game. For them it's a classic.

As for me, watching Scarface again the other night, I still found it comically over-the-top. But with the benefit of hindsight, I also saw that such an aesthetic judgment is only part of the story. You see, when it comes to pop culture, what finally matters is not whether something is "good," but whether it has the power to burn its way into the national psyche. And Scarface undeniably has that power. I never would've believed it, but in 2011, millions of Americans find Tony Montana a figure who's truer — and more resonant — than Captain Ahab or even The Wizard of Oz.


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: hollywood; moviereview; pacino; scarface
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I remain unconvinced. It's still a lousy film.
1 posted on 08/26/2011 11:11:05 AM PDT by Borges
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To: Sidebar Moderator

I left out the opening paragraph! Can you put this in please? Thanks!

“Back in school, I was always amused to read about classics that were dismissed when they first came out — you know, how Moby Dick wrecked Herman Melville’s literary career or how The Wizard of Oz was considered a disappointment when it was first released. I naturally assumed that, had I been around back then, I wouldn’t have missed the boat like that.”


2 posted on 08/26/2011 11:12:24 AM PDT by Borges
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To: Borges

What’s an “NPR”?


3 posted on 08/26/2011 11:12:24 AM PDT by Da Coyote
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To: Borges

“Say hello to my lil’ frien’”


4 posted on 08/26/2011 11:17:32 AM PDT by Pearls Before Swine
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To: Da Coyote

What’s an “NPR”?

I think it’s shorthand web lingo for Nauseating Pablum Radio.


5 posted on 08/26/2011 11:18:30 AM PDT by jessduntno (Obama shanks. America tanks.)
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To: Da Coyote

Like Radio Moscow, circa 1985, but slightly to its left, politically speaking.


6 posted on 08/26/2011 11:19:32 AM PDT by hc87
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To: Borges

Scarface was a remake of a 1932 movie!!!

7 posted on 08/26/2011 11:20:49 AM PDT by catman67
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To: Borges
I never would've believed it, but in 2011, millions of Americans find Tony Montana a figure who's truer — and more resonant — than Captain Ahab or even The Wizard of Oz.

John Powers is an idiot.
8 posted on 08/26/2011 11:21:37 AM PDT by Vision ("Did I not say to you that if you would believe, you would see the glory of God?" John 11:40)
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To: Borges

9 posted on 08/26/2011 11:22:14 AM PDT by al_c (http://www.blowoutcongress.com)
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To: catman67

The article states that.


10 posted on 08/26/2011 11:24:11 AM PDT by Borges
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To: Borges

I saw this movie in a theater when it came out. Toward the end there’s a scene I think where he falls face down in a mound of cocaine and I said loudly “I hope he’s dead” and the entire audience burst out laughing. It was a debased vile movie then and I assume it still is since nothing has changed except I’m less tolerant than I used to be but I won’t watch again it to confirm my suspicions.

The French (go figure) have a saying that people like to roll around in the gutter. This is more of the elite rolling around in the gutter and calling it great art.


11 posted on 08/26/2011 11:24:39 AM PDT by Rytas
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To: catman67

Al Capone was the original Scarface


12 posted on 08/26/2011 11:28:49 AM PDT by Jvette
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To: Rytas
I spent an afternoon with some friends and we watched Clockwork Orange, Scarface, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction all in a row. I left shaking.
13 posted on 08/26/2011 11:29:55 AM PDT by massgopguy (I owe everything to George Bailey)
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To: Borges

There’s a funny music video, called Jack Sparrow, put together between the rap group, The Lonely Island, and Michael Bolton, that has Michael Bolton singing about the movie Scarface and him looking like Tony Montana.
(warning: bad language)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI6CfKcMhjY


14 posted on 08/26/2011 11:33:45 AM PDT by Jack Hydrazine (It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine!)
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To: massgopguy

Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction aren’t all that violent. At least not onscreen.


15 posted on 08/26/2011 11:35:37 AM PDT by Borges
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To: Jack Hydrazine
There’s a funny music video, called Jack Sparrow

Captain Jack Sparrow...

Heh - I know, I know. Just a little tangent. :)

16 posted on 08/26/2011 11:38:45 AM PDT by grobdriver (Proud Member, Party Of No! No Socialism - No Fascism - Nobama - No Way!)
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To: Borges

“...remaking it as something trashy, shallow, and excessive to the point of Camp.”

Sounds like NPR’s coverage of the Tea Party.


17 posted on 08/26/2011 11:41:45 AM PDT by Huskrrrr
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To: Borges

“When it first came out, I panned it for taking Howard Hawks’s great 1932 movie and remaking it as something trashy, shallow, and excessive to the point of Camp”

Which is precisely why its popularity grew. Same reason “Rocky Horror” has the longest continuous run in movie history and “Saved By the Bell” has been on the air for 22, or whatever, years. People, especially cultists, like trash.


18 posted on 08/26/2011 11:46:44 AM PDT by Tublecane
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To: Borges

19 posted on 08/26/2011 11:48:12 AM PDT by Meet the New Boss
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To: Borges

“Back in school, I was always amused to read about classics that were dismissed when they first came out — you know, how Moby Dick wrecked Herman Melville’s literary career”

Sometimes first opinions are better. I tried and failed to get through “Moby Dick” and “Scarface” still sucks.


20 posted on 08/26/2011 11:48:21 AM PDT by Tublecane
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