As the 1920’s came to a close and America was in the midst of the Great Depression, a new genre of film was becoming popular. With 1928’s Lights of New York the “gangster” film genre as we know it today was born. Little Caesar and The Public Enemy (1931) were also highly influential and set the scene for the modern gangster film. The culmination of the gangster genre came about a year later. Howard Hawks’ Scarface (1932), is one of the boldest and most political gangster films ever made. Many changes were made by industry censor boards due to the diabolical nature of the film. Most notably, all scenes that contained shots of blood were removed and a subtitle was tacked onto the film denoting it as Scarface: The Shame of the Nation. Considered …show more content…
to be one of the most violent films released at the time, it was banned in several states and screenings were delayed for over a year in Chicago where the film is set. The gangsters in the film are portrayed as ignorant and remorseless criminals who don’t understand the gravity of their actions. Tony Camonte (Paul Muni), the main character of Hawks’ Scarface, is by no means an exception. By the late 1930s, the public’s interest in the gangster genre began to decline. It didn’t resurface until the 1970s when The Godfather (1972) and the sequel The Godfather II (1974) were released. The Godfather films were a departure from the gangster films of the 30’s.
The characters in these films were savvy, secretive and wealthy unlike the gangsters seen in Little Caesar and Scarface: The Shame of the Nation. Brian De Palma’s Scarface (1983) payed homage to the original, and although they follow roughly the same storyline, De Palma’s remake is more reminiscent of The Godfather films than its predecessor. Tony Montana (Al Pacino), the film’s main character, worked his way up from poverty by selling drugs and committing horrifying acts of violence in order to attain the power, wealth and woman he so desired. In his 1983 review of Scarface, Pulitzer prize winner, Roger Ebert states “Al Pacino does not make Montana into a sympathetic character, but he does make him into somebody we can identify with, in a horrified way, if only because of his perfectly understandable motivations” (RogerEbert.com). More than fifty years later, Ebert expresses similar thoughts to those of Robert Warshow, esteemed film critic and author of “The Gangster as a Tragic Hero.” “…We [the audience] gain the double satisfaction of participating vicariously in the gangster’s sadism and then seeing it turned against the gangster himself.” (Warshow) These sentiments are exactly what the censorship of the 1932 version intended to prevent, yet Scarface (1983) did not receive the same scrutiny. Despite the mixed reviews that Howard Hawk’s original Scarface: Shame of the Nation and Brian De Palma’s …show more content…
remake Scarface received upon release, decades of reflection and analysis have immortalized these films as masterpieces that challenged the American dream and the people of American society. Howard Hawks’ Scarface is prefaced with a written statement to indict gang rule in America and the public’s and government’s indifference toward it. The American public is blamed for the manifestation of gangs, rather than the police force, then challenged: “Every incident in this picture is the reproduction of an actual occurrence, and the purpose of this picture is to demand… What are YOU going to do about it?” The script for Scarface, loosely based on the 1930 novel Scarface by Armitage Trail, was inspired by the deeds of underworld vice lord Al “Scarface” Capone. Many similarities exist between the film’s characters and organized crime figures that made headlines during the times of Prohibition, making it a socially relevant and political film. De Palma’s remake in 1983 was redesigned in order to tackle the problems facing American society fifty years after the debut of the original. In order to escape Communism in Cuba, nearly 125,000 Cubans sought refuge in the US creating a frenzy of crime and violence that would reshape Southern Florida. The remake also begins with a disclaimer stating that Cuba used the refugees to dispose of the dregs from their prisons and that nearly a fifth of the refugees were convicted criminals. In both films, the main character Tony is an immigrant from the gutter that comes to America in hopes of achieving the American dream. In Tony Camonte’s case, he begins his career as an alcohol bootlegger to Johnny Lovo by taking out local crime figure and enemy “Big Louis” Costillo. Tony, along with his quiet but deadly companion Guino, spearhead Lovo’s empire by extorting bars already buying from competitors, thereby bullying his way to fame and fortune. After taking over the South side of Chicago, ambitious Tony begins to make moves on his own to take the North side which drives a competing gang and his former boss Lovo to come after him. Tony responds by launching an all-out war against his enemies destroying bars and taking people out left and right. After taking control of Lovo’s organization, seducing Lovo’s girl Poppy and defeating his enemies to the North, Tony appears to have it all. As he looks out of his apartment window, he sees a neon sign that reads “THE WORLD IS YOURS” symbolizing the power he has obtained. However, Tony’s tragic flaw is that he obsesses over his little sister Cesca’s fascination with other men since in his eyes, he’s the only one who deserves her affection. This point is hammered in through multiple family scenes where Tony’s mother warns Cesca not to be bad like her “no-good” brother. When Tony finds that Cesca has moved into her own place with a man, he rushes to her apartment to find his dutiful sidekick Guino, to whom she had been secretly married. With little hesitation, Tony kills him in cold blood and rushes back to his apartment. This proves to be Tony’s downfall as police officers get a warrant for his arrest, rush his apartment and gun him down in front of “THE WORLD IS YOURS” sign as it flickers until it shuts off completely. This is an important comment the author is making on the mid-depression American dream. My impression is that for an immigrant to find success in America, they must resort to deceitful and violent means. And while this may lead to fleeting success, it will always end in despair. Like Camonte, Tony Montana comes to America in search of a better life yet he is denied access almost immediately and thrown into a holding encampment with other immigrants. In order to escape the chaotic refugee camp, Tony and his friend Manny are tasked with the assassination of a former aide to Fidel Castro, communist leader of Cuba. Tony happily complies gaining a green card and a position as dishwasher at a Cuban restaurant, but he is clearly unhappy. Tony wants more. “They oughta be picking gold from the streets” says Tony as he watches Americans drunkenly stumble out of a night club. These comments represent the outward perspective that foreign countries had of the American dream at this time. The prospect of making serious money compels Tony to start working for Frank Lopez, pushing cocaine into the streets of South Miami. Tony’s illegal exploits are often gruesomely violent and sinister but they begin to pay handsomely. Despite this, he is still not content. Tony uses his street knowledge and charm to seduce Frank’s mistress Elvira and murder Frank along with the crooked cops on his payroll thereby usurping his business. Looking out of Frank’s Miami estate, Tony watches a blimp pass by with the words “THE WORLD IS YOURS’ displayed on the side. Along with Alejandro Sosa, a supplier in Colombia, he floods the streets of Miami with cocaine resulting in a very profitable business. Having finally fulfilled his ambitions, Tony begins to get sloppy. With all the cash he was bringing in, Tony is able to live a life of luxury with a large estate, fancy clothes and nice cars. But much like Camonte, his success is fleeting and he is eventually set up by the IRS for tax evasion. When Tony backs out of the assassination of a journalist that would have meant his freedom from jail, Sosa, who commissioned the request, sends hit men to his house. With a snort from a mountain of cocaine, Tony heroically takes out countless hitmen but inevitably he’s riddled with bullets and flung from his balcony into a fountain adorned with a globe that reads “THE WORLD IS YOURS.” This sequence parallels the original Scarface in highlighting the irony of those words. Despite being set over fifty years in the future De Palma’s Scarface acknowledges the futility of the American dream. “This is our intolerable dilemma: that failure is a kind of death and success is evil and dangerous." (Warshow). Both the original and remake of Scarface tell the story of an ambitious young immigrant who, denied other opportunities, finds fleeting success in organized crime and in an effort to define himself, loses his life and everything he once loved.
However, there are a number of discrepancies between the films that reflect the time period in which they were made. Most notably, the depiction of law enforcement is radically different. In the original, the police are glorified heroes that correctly predict the downfall of Tony Camonte and organized crime as a whole. This was partially due to the major censorship imposed by the industry to dehumanize the gangster character. Conversely, the law enforcement in De Palma’s remake are deceitful and corrupt individuals who use a hidden camera and undercover agents to bust Tony Montana. Relative to the police, his deeds are almost justified. Thus, the audience is compelled to root for the “villain” since he is just an immigrant trying to make it a corrupt society. In the original, I find Tony to have little to no redeeming qualities. He is portrayed as a madman who thinks only of violence and power. There are various scenes where he is seen diabolically smiling and plotting his next move that paint him as a typical villain. Montana, on the other hand, has at least a semblance of values and a suave sense of humor that make him very likable. He even has a moment of compassion where he stops the assassination of the journalist since it would
have taken the lives of his target’s wife and two small children as well. For these reasons, Tony Montana has been widely accepted as a modern-day idol of sorts. De Palma’s remake of Scarface is widely regarded as a classic among gangster and mafia films which just goes to show the impact these films had on society.
This point is illustrated by the heated controversy surrounding the director’s Lifetime Achievement Award, which was presented to him at the 1999 Academy Awards. Kazan’s importance to the world of cinema is undisputed, but Hollywood remains divided by a single political affair that took place over half a century ago. The Academy Award was therefore protested by some and supported by others. But should Elia Kazan still be regarded with such contempt by his peers and contemporary members of the Hollywood community? Should his legacy be based on this one transgression, rather than his long history of cinematic achievement? And has Kazan already put the entire subject to rest in On the Waterfront, perhaps the best work of his entire career? I hope to answer these questions in an essay that will discuss the t...
In The Public Enemy, it is different. There were not that many scenes with law enforcement, this shown that the law can stop the gangs unlike other gangster films of the time. One other major difference was that The Public Enemy showed most of the society was middle class unlike Modern Times in which almost all of society was trying to get by. The Great Depression is where the film industry boomed with new types of movies like gangster films and musicals. It was a hard time for people in this era to get by.
An obvious difference in these films is that the 1931 version played to a Depression audience and that the Coppola version played to a modern audience. (I am being extremely careful because, obviously, the 1931 audience was modern in 1931; however, we like to think of ourselves as being more modern than past generations. There are differences in the audiences which viewed the respective versions in their time, and I hope to prove this point as the paper unfolds.)
The movie “Scarface” is the story of one these immigrants who came to the United States seeking money and power but ended up with much more than he ever excepted. Al Pacino plays the main
When one thinks of a gangster they may think of speakeasies and classy cars or maybe drive-bys, but they will always imagine a man who is not afraid to get his hands dirty to grasp for a higher place on the social ladder. They will think of a man portrayed in a genre of cinema more American than any other, the gangster film. This genre began in the early thirties and has been re-adapted each decade to fit a new time. Although gangster films may mold themselves to fit into a certain cultural era, they still stay deeply tied to the foundations of the genre and its historical relevance to the american dream. This is apparent when comparing the differences and similarities between The Public Enemy and American Gangster. To better understand this comparison one needs to understand the origination of some of the classic conventions of the gangster film genre.
In film, many times the auteur often uses the medium to convey a moral or make a social commentary. In the case of Howard Hawkes’s original version of Scarface, there is more being portrayed through the characters then merely the story. Hawkes makes a statement about the façade of organized crime, and the farce of the American Dream.
Like most things captured on film for the purpose of being marketed, the richness of gangster life, with sex, money, and power in surplus, is glorified, and thus embraced by the audience. And as a rule, if something works Hollywood repeats it, ala a genre. What Scarface and Little Caesar did was ultimately create a genre assigning powerful qualities to criminals. Such sensationalism started with the newspapers who maybe added a little more color here and there to sell a few more copies, which is portrayed in Scarface’s two newspaper office scenes. Leo Braudy denounces genres as offending “our most common definition of artistic excellence” by simply following a predetermined equation of repetition of character and plot. However, Thomas Schatz argues that many variations of plot can exist within the “arena” that the rules of the genre provide.
Aside from its acting, the other major influence which Mean Streets had upon American film-makers was through it's use of a rock n' roll soundtrack (almost perfectly integrated with the images), and in its depiction of a new kind of screen violence. Unexpected, volatile, explosive and wholly senseless, yet, for all that, undeniably cinematic violence. The way in which Scorsese blends these two - the rock and roll and the violence - shows that he understood instinctively, better than anyone else until then, that cinema (or at least this kind of cinema, the kinetic, visceral kind) and rock n' roll are both expressions of revolutionary instincts, and that they are as inherently destructive as they are creative. This simple device - brutal outbreaks of violence combined with an upbeat soundtrack - has been taken up by both the mainstream cinema at large and by many individual `auteurs', all of whom are in Scorsese's debt - Stone and Tarantino coming at once to mind.
Classic film noir originated after World War II. This is the time where post World War II pessimism, anxiety, and suspicion was taking the world by storm. Many films that were released in the U.S. Between 1939s and 1940s were considered propaganda films that were designed for entertainment during the Depression and World War II. During the 1930s many German and Europeans immigrated to the U.S. and helped the American film industry with powerf...
The gangster genre within films in America has accomplished numerous positive criticisms and constant willing audiences due to containing outstanding spectacles and mind-blowing action. The Godfather, being second on the IMDb Top 250 Movies, has set a new popular concept to life within the Mafia from their point of view. Doing so, creating a positive association. Yet within Italy, the same topic contains a complete different view. Movies such as I Cento Passi demonstrate unenthusiastic view by those whom are outside yet negatively affected by those members. Unlike American films, the gangsters are not as often viewed at the protagonist and are the main causes for the problematic events. But how different is Italian Mafia and American Mafia in cinema?
Loyalty, the root of any mob family, something that Francis Coppola’s, The Godfather so strongly believes in, whereas Martin Scorsese’s, Goodfellas is more of a fend for yourself type of atmosphere. The Corleone family sets up loyalty as if it was a commandment. Whether it is staying loyal to one’s commitment or to the family.
The Godfather is the “dark-side of the American dream story” (Turan, pp2). The film follows the practices of a fictional Italian mafia family, the Corleone’s. Though most Americans do not condone the practices of the Italian mafia, they cannot deny that Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather is a cinematic masterpiece. This film gave insight to a mysterious way of life that the average person does not have knowledge of. As the audience is educated about the mafia they also are introduced to many stereotypes.
Connelly, Marie. "The films of Martin Scorsese: A critical study." Diss. Case Western Reserve University, 1991. Web. 07 Apr 2014.
Film Noir, a term coined by the French to describe a style of film characterized by dark themes, storylines, and visuals, has been influencing cinematic industries since the 1940’s. With roots in German expressionistic films and Italian postwar documentaries, film noir has made its way into American film as well, particularly identified in mob and crime pictures. However, such settings are not exclusive to American film noir. One noteworthy example is Billy Wilder’s film Sunset Boulevard, which follows the foreboding tale of Joe Gillis, the desperate-for-success protagonist, who finds himself in the fatal grips of the disillusioned femme fatale Norma Desmond. Not only does the storyline’s heavy subject matter and typical character structure suggest the film noir style, but also Wilder’s techniques of photography and empty, worn-down settings make for a perfect backdrop for this dark approach at filmmaking.
The Godfather is most notably one of the most prolific films of its time. This "gangster" film displayed many transformations of permeating color to give the viewer observable cues in its mise en scene that drew one right into the movie. The dramatic acting set the tone of the film with a score that lifted the viewer right out of their seat in many scenes. The directing and cinematography made The Godfather ahead of its time. The nostalgic feel of family importance and the danger of revenge lets us into the life of the Mafia. Even though no other techniques would have given the viewer a feeling of inside the mob like the mise en scene of the power the godfather held, the characters are reinforced literally and figuratively because the story views the Mafia from the inside out, and the cinematography of the film gives it a dangerous and nostalgic feel.