YOU'RE GETTING OLDER, DEAR: "Scarface" is 40 Years Old This Month!

"Scarface" is now 40 years old, and if you saw it in a movie theatre during its original 1983 run, then, oh, my, you're getting up there, aren't you? Me? I wasn't even a stye in my mother's eye yet (just go with me on this) (because you know it's true). As you're likely aware, "Scarface" was a remake of the 1932 original directed by Howard Hawks and headlined by Paul Muni. But this wasn't just any remake. Though it was released in 1983, having been kicked around in development in the late 1970s, I've always looked upon it as a late-1970s movie which predicted the 1980s-era of unshackled greed, or the coke-snorting, bloody reality of Reaganomics. 

This isn't a stretch on my part. Though the script was written by Oliver Stone, there was a reason De Palma famously kicked Stone off the set once shooting commenced, since De Palma, though excited by Stone's dialogue - which is gloriously obscene - was far more interested in creating a dizzying visual canvas of capitalism run amok. Not for nothing does "Scarface" follow his 1981 movie, "Blow Out," the last word on bleak, 1970s-era political corruption. "Scarface" heralded a new era in which the Id of Free Enterprise, or Pacino's Tony Montana, acts out every lurid fantasy lurking beneath the era's biggest capitalist criminals to come, like Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken. It was a time when the law was ignored if the profits were high, and the uber-wealthy were regarded not as villains, as they are today, but as fantastical heroes to aspire to. 

The movie barely broke even upon its release. Most critics and audiences were appalled by De Palma's florid, operatic violence, though some, like Vincent Canby in The New York Times, hailed its "boldly original design" and its "vicious, relentlessly bitter" tone that "contains not an ounce of anything that could pass for sentimentality, which the film ridicules without mercy," while also labeling it a "parable of American business methods." Some looked at Tony as the ultimate Hollywood movie executive, though I think this view is too narrow-focused, and certainly not foremost for De Palma.

Time would be kind to the movie's bottom-line. When it was released on VHS, it  became a runaway best-seller (at $79.00 a pop!), later continuing to sell and beating out VHS sales for E.T., while on cable, it was played seemingly without end to spellbound audiences. Suddam Hussein was a huge fan, naming his family trust fund, Montana Management. It also became a major touchstone for rap and hip-hop culture - it was referenced in countless rap songs and videos, while figures such as Notorious B.I.G. lavished it with praise - though for all the wrong reasons. Rap culture absolutely loves Tony Montana's up from the bottom success and excess, completely buying into the movie's reckless allure, yet completely ignoring its scalding anti-establishment, anti-capitalist message. Years later, De Palma turned down one of the biggest paydays of his career when he refused to allow the movie's Giorgio Moroder score to be replaced with rap and hip-hop tunes for a new theatrical release. 

But then even modern audiences don't seem to "get it." At a 2018 film festival screening of the movie, Michelle Pfeiffer was asked by the moderator about her character's weight, and if she was "concerned" about sending the wrong message to girls with body-weight images. To which Michelle understandably snapped, "But I was playing a coke addict." Nor do modern audiences seem to realize that we are now living in the final, perverted moments of "Scarface's" gory conclusion, since Trump, a significant figure from the 1980s, is arguably the embodiment of Reaganomics come home to roost (and amusingly, an example of unconsummated incest, just like Tony's unconsummated desire to bed his sister). "Scarface's" end is now ours. 

Photo Credits: Universal Pictures