Scarface. 1983. USA. Directed by Brian De Palma. Screenplay by Oliver Stone. With Al Pacino, Michelle Pfeiffer, Steven Bauer. Music by Giorgio Moroder. 35mm. 165 min.
Hybridizing the Prohibition-era gangster picture with the verve and brio of an epic Technicolor musical, Brian De Palma’s remake of Howard Hawks’s 1932 masterpiece relocates the action from 1920s Chicago to 1980s Miami. There, Cuban refugee Tony Montana (Al Pacino, whose fascination with the original Scarface initiated the project) climbs the ranks of the expatriate mafia, working his way from line cook to hired assassin to drug kingpin. Tony’s unhinged temper is matched only by his obsessive protectiveness of his younger sister Gina (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio). While De Palma and screenwriter Oliver Stone tamp down the incestuous subtext of the original Scarface via Tony’s relationship with his boss’ wife Elvira (Michelle Pfeiffer), Tony’s insatiable appetite for power, violence, and cocaine eventually overrides everything in a classic rise-and-fall mafioso narrative. No less notorious than the original, De Palma’s Scarface is made iconic by Pacino’s operatic performance and Giorgio Moroder’s opulent synthesizer score.