Scarface — Say Goodbye to the Bad Guy

"Be bloody, bold and resolute..." Macbeth IV,1

We come to this discussion because a unique thing has happened: a great movie has been made, and nobody noticed. Oh certainly there were favorable reviews "riveting," "shattering," all of which are true, but even the most glowing of these failed to acknowledge (or did not recognize) how important “Scarface” really is. Part of the problem is that too many people did not even consider the question of importance. They were too busy arguing about violence, drugs, and profanity. These people miss the point entirely. Even those who do recognize the quality of the film seem not to recognize that it is great. And by great I do not mean simply great moviemaking, although certainly “Scarface” is that. I mean great in the most reverent sense of the word. “Scarface” is a milestone, landmark motion picture whose impact shall remain timeless and which shall become a standard by which other films are judged.

Of course, none of this may come to pass. The unfortunate thing is that so much attention has been lavished on elements within the picture, that comprise its essential framework. Yes the film is violent. Yes it is profane. Yes there are a lot of drugs in it. But to concentrate on these features as a measure of the picture is somewhat like evaluating a battleship by saying that it is gray. Such a view simply does not look beneath the surface. For that is what those elements are. They are surface features--rungs of the ladder on which we climb the moral viewpoint, the theme, essence, and soul of the picture. Even to credit “Scarface” as a powerful commentary on the destructive effects of power, drugs, or the American Dream gone awry is to shortchange it. Once again these are facets of the picture, but they are by no means the reference points around which the film revolves.

But let's talk about the violence. It does attract a lot of attention. It is bloody, brutal, and some would say offensive. It is flashy, showy, and headline grabbing. And it is incredibly well done by a man who knows no equal in such matters--Brian DePalma. The movie lives and breathes violence. Even when not onscreen, its air hangs over the picture like a shroud. Profanity has erupted from all quarters, culminating in a ratings battle which eventually forced DePalma to make cuts in order to win an "R" rating. After all, some said, is it really necessary to show the blood spurting into Tony Montana's face as his friend is chopped up by a chainsaw wielding Colombian? But that is not really the question. Violence is integral to this film, because it is about violent, bloody men engaged in a murderous enterprise. To deny the violence its place would be no less than an untruth. Violence is inherent in these men, and to show the acts they are capable of is to take full measure of them.

It is interesting to contrast the violence in “Scarface” with that in the Clint Eastwood film “Sudden Impact.” While the violence in “Scarface” may leave one stunned, the violence in Sudden Impact is more likely to leave one feeling sickened, vaguely unclean. The reasons are clear. “Sudden Impact” is about violence. It is nothing more than an excuse for Clint Eastwood to destroy villains in a dramatic fashion. Regardless of how one views the politics of the film, the fact remains that the violence exists for its own sake—a pornographic orgy of high velocity missile wounds—and as such lacks any substance whatever. As a hollow, self-consuming entity, violence must fail as a dramatic focus. “Scarface,” however, is never about violence, but about violent men. It uses violence as a technique, a tool for examining its subjects.

There is a moral perspective there, a thread on which hangs the necessity of showing it all. Under the circumstances, leaving the violence out, rather than putting it in, would have been the immoral act--a betrayal of the film's intentions. Once the moral decision has been made to include it as a vital necessity, then it becomes simply a question of how best to execute it--and nobody can deny that in “Scarface,” the execution is flawless. Violence in this film is as essential as lighting, dialogue, and photography, and every bit as extraordinary. Yes the film is violent, and a viewer who finds violence difficult to watch may yet be put off. But if he can get past that point and appreciate the awful beauty of its juxtapositions, it will be recognized that “Scarface” could not succeed without it.

Which brings us back to the question of the success of the picture, and what makes it great. It is, after all, a rather simple story, that of a small time Cuban immigrant thug who batters his way to the top of a criminal empire and is ultimately destroyed. Within this framework are the themes mentioned earlier, but the center of the picture is and must be Tony Montana himself. Tony (exquisitely portrayed by Al Pacino, who, by magic I do not even pretend to understand, seems to have actually become Cuban for this role) is not a complex figure. At one point, he is described by another character as "a peasant," and he is. Or, as Tony later tells the drug lord Sosa, "The only two things I got in this world are my word and my balls, and I don't break 'em for nobody." That is the simple credo by which Tony lives his life.

He is not without humor, and at times a certain charm, but there is no guile, no artifice, nothing but a brutal honesty. It is his unswerving dedication to that honesty which imparts to Tony his essential nobility; for Tony is noble, a noble man in an ignoble world. The beauty of “Scarface” is that it makes us recognize his nobility. It makes us accept him as our hero, despite his brutality. In his straightforward manner he states what he thinks, does what he says, takes what he wants. But he never deceives or misleads or betrays; it is not in his nature. We adopt Tony as our own. He lives out for us the unspoken wish that if only we were strong enough and honest enough we too could rise to the top of our world. Tony's virtues are as Puritan and conventional as any held by a corporate VP; they merely manifest themselves differently in the world in which Tony lives. We accept Tony as our hero, we must root for him, because he is really no different than we. It is only a question of context, methods, and goals.

The feat of turning the darkest villain into the hero we must admire is a marvelous device, but not one without precedent. Take Kubrick's “Clockwork Orange,” for instance, or “The Godfather.” Ah yes, “The Godfather.” One can only go so far in a discussion of “Scarface” before the subject of Coppola's masterpiece pops up. Considering one without the other is impossible, and not without reason. Both are gangster films. Both are classics. Both achieve the same effect of making ruthless criminals whole flawed characters and heroes. Naturally there are differences as well. Some might call “Scarface” the seamy underbelly of “The Godfather,” but that is not quite it. “The Godfather” needs no help in fully delineating its world. The sordid aspects of the criminal life are abundantly in evidence; we don't need “Scarface” to point them out. What “Scarface” really is, perhaps, is the flip side of “The Godfather.”

Ultimately, “The Godfather” is a film about tradition, the passing of a torch, and the nature of change in institutions. It is about the way tradition must evolve to keep up with a world in which time does not slow for men. “Scarface,” on the other hand, does not concern itself with evolution, but with explosion—the sheer instantaneous transformation of one thing into another, and the equally swift undoing of the force thus created. It too deals with change, but while The Godfather is the drift of a continent slowly—almost reluctantly—changing in response to currents greater than itself, “Scarface” is the volcano. One violent explosion which rocks the earth, but must, in as dramatic a fashion, fade from view. The two films do not antagonize one another. They complement one another, twist and rebound and color one another as they portray the two ways in which things change on earth. The two pictures together would seem to make any future pictures about gangsters redundant.

There is a scene about halfway through “Scarface” in which Tony's former boss, Frank Lopez, tries to have Tony assassinated. Tony has become a modest success by this point, but he also seems to have reached a plateau. He has broken with—but not betrayed—Lopez, and, being essentially a man of limited imagination, seems drained of ideas, of energy. He appears not to know where to go next. He does not know what step to take to expand his empire without betraying his former friend, something he will not do. Tony sits slumped in the plush Babylon club, distant, doleful, devoid of force and ready for the taking. In the instant the machine guns open fire upon him, he is transformed. His animal instincts leap to the fore, and he is alive again. The attempted execution makes everything clear to Tony. The path is well lighted and his direction unmistakable. Had Lopez not tried to kill him, Tony might never have risen beyond that point. By doing so, Lopez unveiled a clear and simple field, the kind in which Tony is at his best.

By the irrefutable logic of his world, Tony knows what he must do. It is no longer a betrayal, but a necessity, and Tony embarks upon the course which will lead him to the top. Shortly thereafter, in a scene which stretches tension almost to the breaking point, Tony has his showdown with Lopez. The sequence ends with one of the most stunningly beautiful shots in memory. Tony stands on the ground floor of Lopez's glass walled house, looking up at the sky. Above him, on the second floor, Elvira, the woman Tony has come to claim, is hurriedly making preparations to leave. The scene is a watershed, a natural breakpoint in the film, with Tony poised on the brink of greatness. It is a scene of two: two scenes, two figures, two directions, two courses in life, and is thus imbued with a subtle, almost mystical power. Tony feels it too, and he gazes up in dim recognition and wonder at the sky from which flashes his destiny: "The world is yours."

What then, is Tony's undoing? He has succeeded in everything he wanted by never swaying from his course or honesty. Nonetheless he is doomed, and why he is doomed is at the very crux of the film's greatness. For “Scarface” is a tragedy, in the most classical, Shakespearean sense of the word. It is a tragedy that has its roots back in ancient Greek drama, that has evolved continuously throughout the ages. “Scarface” is a story about a man of essential nobility who rises to great heights by strength of character but is ultimately brought low by a critical flaw in that character. In this way is “Scarface” as much a tragedy as Macbeth, Othello, King Lear.

DePalma himself might be the first to dispute this. He might say, "No, I just wanted to make the best damned shoot 'em up gangster picture ever." But he and the screenwriter Oliver Stone have wrought a beautifully evocative portrait of a man playing out his ordained destiny, following a path as straight as light, as clear as the stars. Tony Montana is a whole man, but one who is fatally flawed. Ironically, this flaw is precisely what gives Tony his greatest strength. It is his honesty, his arrogance, his unshakable faith that he is always right, and his unwillingness to ever compromise which propel him to the heights of glory; but they are also what destroy him in the end. For most of the picture, Tony is always right. In a world where treachery and deceit reign, his honest, animal instincts make him right. He is a natural man in this world, and it is only later, when wrestling with forces far greater than himself, that his arrogance proves to be his undoing.

Tragedy is always terrible to witness, and “Scarface” is no exception. We feel a creeping sense of dread which starts shortly after Tony has reached the peak of power, when we somehow sense, we know, that his doom is inevitable. We watch in helpless fascination as Tony, in his ever spreading megalomania, lurches down the path which will lead him to destroy himself and everything he loves. It is apparent in little signs: Tony's obsession with security, his staff's growing unease, his squabbling over 1500 dollars after counting millions. Tony himself has intimations of what is happening, but he can no more stop himself than he can halt the tide.

Like the time in the Babylon club, Tony is stopped; at the top, to be sure, but stopped nevertheless. He has no knowledge of where to go next, what to do next. He knows this, and says it all in the powerful restaurant scene, in which Tony delivers a soliloquy to an audience of elegant diners that is as classic as any soliloquy in Shakespeare, although couched in different terms. "Is this what it's all about?" he asks Manny, his best friend and ally. "Eating, drinking...?" He creates a scene, and the soliloquy becomes a diatribe against those values he fought so hard to achieve, against the values of the elegant diners, but which is really an outpouring of rage at his own impotence in the face of destiny. "Say goodbye to the bad guy," he says. "You ain't never gonna see another bad guy like this." He knows. He staggers out. "Say goodbye to the bad guy." Tony, at the height of his success, has sunk low. And this time, there is nothing so simple as an assassination attempt to point him in the right direction. This time he must bring ruin raining down upon himself. He must incur the wrath of Sosa.

Sosa. Who is Sosa? The all powerful drug overlord whose empire staggers the imagination. It is Tony's alliance with Sosa which gives him the means to succeed. It is his break with Sosa which spells his doom. For Sosa, in the context of this film, is nothing less than a god. White clad, cultivated, he moves through his private heaven as can only a man who is utterly secure in his own power. He is everything that Tony would like to be, and never can be. Sosa has the sophistication and insight to know how to live at the top and be content. It is this sophistication which Tony lacks. A true jungle creature, Tony is satisfied only when there are worlds to conquer. Sosa is that rarity--a man who can be satisfied when all the worlds are conquered.

Tony draws power from Sosa, as much as the ancients drew power from God or the Devil. And as always happens when a man attempts to leap into the vaunted realm of the gods, disaster must ensue. As Sosa gives, so Sosa takes away. When Tony defies Sosa, by interrupting the planned execution of a public figure (because Tony's sense of honor would not allow a mother and children to die needlessly) it is the step which seals his fate. Tony has aspired to the ranks of the gods. In his arrogance and certainty—what in classical drama is called hubris—Tony challenges a power that is orders of magnitude greater than his own. That same arrogance refuses to see his error. Asked by his staff what they are to do now, Tony replies "We're gonna eat that Sosa for breakfast." Poor, benighted soul, whose fatal flaw never lets him see that challenging the gods is a losing proposition.

Of the classics, perhaps it is Macbeth that “Scarface” resembles most closely. A noble man, driven by ambition, who murders his superior and is left in the end to battle forces far greater than he. As Macbeth withdraws to his Dunsinane, so too does Tony withdraw to his fortified mansion. Shakespeare wrote:

"Macbeth shall never vanquished be, until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill Shall come against him."

Without taking the ancient analogy too far, the trees which come against Macbeth are echoed in the dark forces of destruction which Sosa unleashes upon Tony. Out of the forest they come, silent, unnatural, strangling guards in the night as they mount the assault. Tony sits alone in his palace, surrounded by his closed-circuit TV—his attendant lords—which bring news of the battle. He has reached the nadir, turned out by cocaine, ready for the taking, devastated in the knowledge of what he has done, only now realizing that his actions, fatal to his sister and his best friend, are soon to be the cause of his own destruction. It is the end of the trail down which we had looked in dread.

It is also the point at which, when all hope seems to be lost, Tony reaches down deepest inside himself to find the animal ferocity which has been his greatest asset. It is the same natural power which saved him at the Babylon, which thrives only when challenged. Tony finds it and is resurrected. It is an awesome moment. Confronted with his own destruction, Tony is charged with the only thing that has ever given him strength—his instinctive ability to act when there are no longer choices to be made, only actions to take. His head clears. He takes his most fearsome weapon in hand. "You want to play games?" he shouts. "Say hello to my little friend!" With that, he looses a volley that, despite all that has come before, still inspires awe.

Tony unleashes his own thunderbolts, reclaimed from the gods. He comes to the landing reborn, sweeping away his attackers like so many insects. He rises like a Christ to destroy his enemies with a contemptuous power. His arrogance and certainty are once again in full sway, and he is right. He absorbs bullets with no effect; he is invincible. For a brief and terrible moment he lives up to his dream. He is pure power, the Tony Montana of old, and it is beautiful. In the end, in the midst of his rebirth, Tony is destroyed. It takes a dark power to do so, the mysterious, sunglass clad assassin of Sosa's, who swoops down like an angel of death bearing his sawed-off magic wand of a weapon. If any figure can be viewed as inhuman, it is this silent assassin. As Macbeth was destroyed by "none of woman born," so it takes something equally unnatural, a creature from the darkest corners of evil, clad in black from head to toe, to cut down Tony at his finest moment.

“Scarface” is a great film. It shows us something about man and his condition, as must all great films. The various elements mix and fuse and swirl about to give the picture what so many others lack—a soul. All of which is not to say that “Scarface” is flawless. There are times when certain threads do not pan out, when the audience is pointed just a little strongly in the right direction. There is the overused theme of gangster son rejected by mother. There is the psychosexual link between Tony and Gina. There is even a power pop theme song (with hopes for soundtrack album sales written all over it) in the middle of the picture (as if we need a song to explain the implication of Tony's success) which mars an otherwise beautiful and powerful score by Giorgio Moroder.

But these can be overlooked. If DePalma and Stone paint with brushstrokes that are at times a bit too broad, so be it. If it means movies like “Scarface,” it is worth the price. No film is flawless, and great films take risks. That “Scarface” makes its risks pay off so consistently is a measure of its greatness. It is a film that takes nothing for granted, that tries to encompass everything, and in sum, succeeds. As a fully realized tragedy, “Scarface” is, above all, an emotionally powerful film. It makes us stare into the stark face of human limitation, and that is never easy. Anyone who sees the film will, I think, be profoundly moved. When I first saw it, it was in a small theater with just a few other people. Behind me were a young couple, a boy and a girl. When the picture was over, as I sat there, utterly desolated, the girl was sobbing uncontrollably. I knew why.