Scarface (1983) An In-Depth Discussion & Analysis

okay do you want to play with okay shout out to my new friend do you want to play with us okay okay god you like that come on hey everyone it's jim and it's time for another in-depth discussion and analysis and it's on another gangster movie it's just where i go off and talk about the themes and ideas and everything about a movie that i want to talk about kind of just in depth so it's gonna be scarface from 1983 which i have recently rewatched and you know you forget you know you forget movies like this and it's shame that you do because you take them for granted this is an absolutely unbelievable film it really is you know brian de palma is is such a fantastic director you know he's got so many brilliant films to his name blowout dressed to kill kaleo's way with pacino as well which is wonderful but i think this is the pinnacle you know obviously you've got carrie as well what a director he is this is the pinnacle though for me brian de palma this is almost the pinnacle guy i don't know what i prefer you know there's so many gangs movies i really really love goodfellas once more time in america donnie brasco it's you know they're all kind of up in the operational and it'd be so difficult to rank them but scarface is just an absolute masterpiece it really really is tell the story of tony montana played by al pacino who arrives in 1980s miami he is a cuban refugee and obviously he arrives penniless and goes on to become a powerful drug lord i think the pacino performance is where you should start you know you can't really get past the performance it's one of the greatest performances of all time it's one of the most memorable performances of all time it's so authentic it's so savage is such a performance for the spy and entitlement i really really think that this could be done more you know i know they did it with joker but even then like it was really pushed with a sympathy could you do this today could you make a film about a bad person i know um tom hardy did capone which i haven't seen so i guess that's it but we just don't see it as much and it's brave it's ambitious filmmaking and it gives you a different take on the world to not always have a truly likable character in the lead it gives this kind of dimension of looking at another side of the world that we maybe hide from if we're always going to see something good you know always al pacino is tony montana it's as close to believing a character exists as you can get you know this is al pacino's best performance and that's saying a lot because al pacino is one of the greatest actors of all time i love alpacino but there are performances that you can kind of see similarities to there's nothing like tony montana in his catalogue i mean he puts his life and soul into this performance it is an intense performance there's no effort to compromise the character as i said there are moments of sympathy for tony but they don't try and do it that that much at all and he's got an inferiority complex there's a film about that it's a feel about entitlement it's a feel about ego it's a film about living in your ego which tony does you know he is obsessed with success and it is a film all about the kind of success smith where it doesn't really equal happiness you go through life with the blinders on trying to achieve achieve achieve and you get there and it's hang on what am i really doing you know i'm not even happier in this film there's a rise of capitalism whilst tony's doing his stuff on the side and there's a discussion of tony basically says i do all my crime but i don't hide who i am whereas the crime that goes on in capitalism the corruption that goes on is like these people go through life and just lie to the public they pretend to be somewhere else they hide their shady deals and it's an interesting idea you know because if crime is going on if corruption is going on why do we accept the people who do it behind closed doors and in like a cushy way they're just as bad as tony really and that's an interesting discussion here there's a presentation of the world as this corrupt place in scarface everyone is doing shady deals everyone is pretty much a bad person in this film really it's a film about grabbing at success everyone's in their own delusion in scarface these are self-destructed people and i've just really noticed a trend when i watch gangster films all the people all the characters are self-destructive because they're just obsessed they just can't deal with living a regular life but they eventually realized that they would have been happier doing that and they just become this kind of not even a person just just this walking desire for success that's what tony becomes and he realizes it doesn't satisfy he doesn't understand why it doesn't satisfy and it's such an interesting film because it's like what made him like this was it entitlement because he's come over to yes you know as a cuban refugee is it society not giving him opportunities is it he's just a bad is it he's just a bad seed naturally is it just being overcome with ego because he's just such so arrogant he's unbelievably arrogant he's unbelievably hungry for success he's unbelievably immoral you know and we never really get that we get what things that it could have been you know he's done time and he's you know it's such a difficult time period as well and it's interesting to think what things can make of people what experiences can make people do the experiences make the person who is the real tony montana but eventually you have to strip all that away and tony has to take full responsibility because he goes so far of it it becomes his responsibility i've always found it fascinating in these films i wonder how much and in life when people make these mistakes when people go down these paths of autopilot focus on success or gain or corruption whatever it is there is a point i would say where they're not as responsible ultimately they're responsible for their actions but when they go into this kind of state and it's kind of a chance you know at what point do they become responsible is an interesting one for me it's a very interesting idea you know because they're eventually they're essentially living on autopilot and tony is living on autopilot in this film tony's relationship with gina his his sister gina she's the only good thing in his life you know there's moments of sympathy for tony where he is nice to her sister but the only way he knows how buying her things trying to control her you know he doesn't want her in the clubs he's at he doesn't want her to live the life he lives it's such an interesting idea with these gangsters in these films when they protect this one thing of purity it's like she represents the he knows essentially he's bad but she represents something good so he has to keep that pure he has to keep that pure he gets obsessed with it it's like a kind of like a shining diamond of something left that's good there's also a synthetic scene where tony doesn't want to kill this guy by car bomb when his wife and kids are in the car and he's really resistant to it it's a very powerful moment of humanity it's a very affecting one it really does make you go hang on you know this guy he has got something left in there but then next scene he kills his best friends he just can't you know he can't come back you know from where how far he's gone he'll have these little moments but it's like he essentially is bad you know this character leaves you is jarring so unpredictable the character so out of control obviously we have michelle pfeiffer as tony's wife in this film and it's such a memorable performance everyone remembers michelle wifer in scarface you know what a charismatic actress when you first see her what a beautiful actress back here what a a wonderful performance is but you know women in this film are trinkets they are prizes they are kind of little you know like gina just an a purity symbol you know not not people of their own they're not allowed to be people of their own tony doesn't allow gina her own life controls his wife and you know and his wife is already done like you meet michelle pfeiffer in this as soon as you meet her she's already done with this lifestyle but she's so far into it she's just a junkie this this lifestyle strips you of your humanity it strips you of your worth you know and it's always comes from a place of oh i don't you know i maybe i don't want to work a regular job so i'll just go down this path because this will give me it and it just ends up leaving you so lonely so broken so lacking in human connection none of these characters can connect with each other none of these characters can get through it's almost like it's just an invisible wall between all these characters and it's called ego there's a moment where tony just unleashes on his wife when he says that he says that she's become so much of a junkie he can't have a child with her and you know that just hits you hard that's devastating you the lack of care in tony's voice the menace in his voice when he's saying that and michelle pfeiffer's reaction just it breaks her you know and it breaks you as the viewer because it's like wow these people are so far gone you know they think they're above they think that they've achieved but they're essentially helpless they're essentially losers you know the moment where michelle pfeiffer says we've got all this but we're not winners we're losers staggering discussion very uncompromising very raw and intense discussion very nihilistic film very nihilistic film you know but again dressed up in the coolness of brian de palma and the music of the time period the disco the club scene the clothes the cars everything was really convincing and it's one of the most convincing depictions of that time period ever i would say it feels so authentic it feels so street level and believable brian de palma one of the finest directors he's the king of tension there's plenty of meticulously built scenes you know for example where tony is ambushed in the club tony has had a bad night he's just sitting there getting drunk and these two guys are sitting there there's music there's entertainment and de palma will cut back between tony and these guys and the entertainment and slowly but surely you realize there's something about these guys that they're just sitting there staring at tony menacing me it's so slow paced um you know it's constant back and forth zooms on tony's face as tony's slowly realizing zooms on their hands under the table as they're getting out their guns meanwhile we have the music we have the club you know the direction is absorbing you know and then these guys just rise up and start shooting at tony you know it's a short moment of build up but it's wonderful it's it's so well constructed you know so well constructed and then when tony confronts his boss one of my favorite scenes in the film it's edge of the sea it's meticulous not a shot is wasted in that scene the way that de palma shoots tony starts off by shooting him normally on the same level as his boss and then slowly but surely in the scene we start to start looking up at tony with the camera and he becomes more dominant in the scene department brings in more authority in the scene and eventually as he takes over from his boss his boss is on his knees in front of him it's expertly built up and it's the rise of tony it's so memorable and then after this scene there's operatic music and we see a plane with the word spelled out on it the world is yours wonderful establishment of tony's rise so epic feels like such a combination to the first half of the film and then after that scene what i talked about we get a montage of tony becoming the man and we get a song pushing to the limit and it's not usual for de palma to have a montage but it was good to see him engaging in an 80s trope so while this film is so de palma it's also de palma dipped in to this gangster attitude this um vibe this world of charisma this world of fast-moving charm and excess more more more i love that montage you know you don't expect it in a film like this but it really fits in because you know even though it's an epic serious film it has room for a kind of fun montage you know it's becoming very popular at the 80s that sort of thing marks like scorsese much like directors like sergio leone as well de palma is great at depicting time going by but not having things feel drawn out you really feel like you've seen tony start from the bottom and just go all the way you know to the top of the drug world we pretty much see all of that so you really feel like you've been on the journey with tony you really feel the mistakes i must mention stephen boer as manny ray who is tony's best friend in this um which is great performance you know it's not much to say about it but it really is a performance of of such conviction and he really feels like a man of the time he really feels like this young swagger field you know skirt chasing guy and it's a performance of great personality great chemistry with al pacino um great believability great likability you know he's probably the most likable character in the film um you know everyone else is pretty darn unlikeable i suppose gina is very likable but you know he's the one involved in the gangster world who has some humanity to him who kind of is along for the ride but never really goes as far as tony into drugs and this and that so he's kind of tony's best friend but tony takes him for granted obviously in this film there's the monumental ending scene where it's all crashing down around tony and he's under attack the shootout in the red mansion what a visually striking scene one of the most memorable you know that that moment that moment of say hello to my little friend just you know much like when he shot the gun al pacino shot himself into film history forever so unbelievably well done by obviously pacino obviously by de palma it's one of the best shootouts at the end in film history you know and you're on the end knife edge of al pacino's performance because he still holds on to that ego to the very end to the very end he holds on to that ego character who refused to change a character refused to go on any journey of morals or perspective he just refused to he was a bad person bride of palmer's best film in my opinion is an absolute masterpiece every scene you know it's nearly three hours to film nothing is wasted nothing should be taken out of this it's one of the most films that so long where everything is earned everything is earned you know what a film is what do you guys think of scarface let me know in the comments below i'm gonna do another in-depth discussion analysis very very soon want to make them much more frequent on this channel probably do it about another gangster film maybe de palma's cardio's way please subscribe to this channel if you like my content if you like this click on the screen now there'll be another discussion video on there so there's not much more i can say other than say goodnight to the bad guy

Channel: Jim The Movie Geek

Views: 12,562

Keywords: scarface, scarface movie review, scarface movie analysis, scarface movie discussion, al pacino scarface, scarface best gangster movie, scarface 1983 review, scarface review, tony montana, scarface 1983 analysis, best scarface scenes, best gangster movies

Id: jkjzmbPFR24

Length: 16min 39sec (999 seconds)

Published: Tue May 18 2021