Hi, while I'm not a 'Scarface' fan and NEVER visit this forum, I saw something neat in the newspaper that I've been meaning to post for several days.
The article (in our local 'Bergen Record') outlines certain movies that were far from hits when first released but have now become iconic classics.
One of the films mentioned was Al Pacino's 'Scarface' (which earned 1 and a half stars from critic Leonard Maltin).
While I certainly won't re-type the whole thing here, below is what was written about your 1983 favorite:
PLEASE NOT THAT WHILE I'M TYPING HERE FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT/BENEFIT, I DON'T NECESSARILY AGREE WITH ALL THAT IS SAID...ESPECIALLY BY PARTICULAR JOURNALISTS WHO ARE QUOTED THROUGHOUT THE ARTICLE.
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'..Any critic in 1983 could've told you that 'Scarface' was a middling "Godfather " knockoff, a much-inferior remake of a classic 1931 gangster film, a three-hour showcase for Al Pacino at his sceneery-chewing worst.
How could they have knwn that the snarling Pacino, machine gun in hand ('Say hello to my little friend!') would be available at Spencer Gifts as a mounted poster, with real bullets embedded in the frame? Or that rappers ranging from Biggie Smalls to Ice Cube would reference the movie in their lyrics? Or that the drug lord (Wesley Snipes) in 1991's "New Jack City" would model himself on Pacino's Tony Montana and be shown in his penthouse apartment obsessively watching "Scarface"? Or that a prominent rapper would simply call himself 'Scarface'?
Or that the original Paul Muni version, once considered the greatest of all 1930s gangster films, has now become a footnote to the Pacino movie rather than the other way around?
There are 'hit' movies; there are cult movies. And there are cult movies that most people don't know are cult movies. "Scarface" is one of these. And it's not the only improbably example that has pop culture experts scratching their heads.
"It's a mystery why some things hit a nerve and take off," says Michael Stern, who wrote "The Encyclopedia of Pop Culture" with his wife, Jane. "I guess each of these movies resonates in its own particular way."....
....It was gangster rappers...that turned "Scarface" into a cultural phenomenon. The question remains, Why THIS gangster movie?
Why not "The Godfather", "Goodfellas", "Donnie Brasco"?
Chalk it up, says Vibe magazine's Serena Kim, to several things "Scarface" doesn't have in common with other mob movies. For one thing, it's really not a mob movie.
"The movie is about one ruthless individual," says Kim. "The Godfather" is more like a family epic, it has the subtext of [family] honor. With "Scarface" there's this individualism thing. It's about cold-blooded ambition. There's alot of connection between the values of the movie and the values of hip-hop."
For another thing, drug trafficking, a subtext in other gangster movies - is front and center in "Scarface", as it is in much of gangster rap. "There's a Biggie lyric, 'Never Get High on Your Own Supply' (from 'Ten Crack Commandments) that comes right from the movie!", Kim says.
Finally, director Brian DePalma and screenwriter Oliver Stone made a fateful decision when they transformed the Tony Camonte character of 1931's "Scarface" - based on Al Capone - to Tony Montana, a Cuban refugee who climbs to the top of the 1970s Miami drug rackett.
To many black viewers, Kim says, there's all the difference in the world between an Italian and a Cuban. Even if he is played by Al Pacino. "Italian's at the end of the day are Europeans", Kim says. "This Cuban guy is a person of color and a political refugee."
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For the record, other movies outlined in this article are:
Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
The Night Before Christmas (1993)
The Warriors (1979)
A Christmas Story (1983)
Apple
