The movie Scarface (1983) is an American Blu-ray 4K cover
In the early 1980s, although the clock was already dripping through midnight, filmmaker Martin Bregman (1925-2018) tossed and turned, unable to sleep.
Simply sit up and turn on the TV, the last movie of the day, Scarface (1932), a classic 1932 film by Howard Hawks (1896-1977) that tells the rise and fall of "villain" Tony Caymont, based on the legendary Chicago gang leader Al Capone.
Film Scarface (1932) German Blu-ray edition cover
By this time, Caymont, played by Paul Muni (1895-1967), had reached a state of insanity saturation, ignorant, cruel, and a slave driven by desire.
Martin Brightman clearly remembers that Howard Hawkes, for directing such a "fearless" violent film, had to add a subtitle to the film when he was forced to do so— "Shame of the Nation," even though the film had clearly shown itself to be an indictment of the gangster lifestyle.
Group photo of the creators during the filming of Scarface (1983), from left: Brian de Palma, Steven Bauer, Al Pacino, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Martin Brigman
But these were a long time ago, and Martin Brightman seems to have realized that perhaps it is really time to remake the controversial film.
He pored over every suitable actor in his mind and found that only one person had enough leadership charisma to reinvent the gang leader.
Image of Al Pacino in the film Scarface (1983).
Al Pacino played a major role in the first two films of the Godfather series, interspersed with two other films produced by Martin Brightman, Conflict/Shepico Serpico (1973) and Hot Day Afternoon (1975).
After watching the original film, he was shocked by the bloody violence embodied in the film, and was also impressed by Paul Mooney's excellent interpretation of the character.
So he took on the challenging job, and the addition of Al Pacino also ensured that Brian de Palma, who had been reluctant and had a lot of work, "pressed the handprint" on the contract.
But when Brian de Palma and David Rabe submitted their first co-authored manuscript, Scarface (1983), no one, including Al Pacino, liked it.
Set of the film Scarface (1983), Brian de Palma (left) and Al Pacino
Martin Brightman reacted to the situation by firing Brian de Palma and hiring director Sidney Lumet (1924-2011), a director he had worked with.
When the filming of Clash and Hot Day Afternoon was completed, Sidney Lumet began insisting that the film began to be changed to a completely new version rather than simply reshooted.
Set of the film Clash/Shepico Serpico (1973), directed by Sidney Lumet (right) and Al Pacino
Martin Brightman relayed what Sidney Lumet thought at the time: "He said: Why not put the film in a cocaine world? We can make a character similar to the original, but he accumulates wealth and builds his kingdom in a different way than the original. My reaction was: 'Just do it!' ’”
Martin Brightman and Al Pacino put everything at hand and immediately went to work.
In 1987, Oliver Stone won the Best Director Award at the 59th Academy Awards for his film Field Platoon Platoon (1986).
The first step, of course, was to hire then-screenwriter Oliver Stone to rework the original script and rewrite it to describe a story about modern refugees.
Oliver Stone took over the job: "I'm not interested in remakes, I'd say I haven't seen the original and I don't care about it. I was willing to write this because Sidney Lumet told me that the film would be set in the context of refugees who had come to the United States by boat from Cuba to 'visit their relatives', which aroused my great interest. ”
Images of Al Pacino and Steven Ball in the film Scarface (1983).
Beach location for the film Scarface (1983), Al Pacino (left) and Steven Ball
Oliver Stone's "Scarface Man" is tonic Montana (Al Pacino), a Brazilian refugee who came to the United States by boat from port Mariel, and in a miami refugee concentration, Tony kills an old Castro subordinate, and as a reward for the killing, he and his accomplices are the first to obtain a "green card" to settle in the United States.
Out of the refugee zone, Tony and his good friend Manny Ray (Steven Bauer) wash the dishes in a food truck, but he is not content with this life, and when a gangster named Miami gang boss Frank Lopez (Robert Laurgia Robert Loggia) finds him, he immediately fires the food truck owner's squid.
Images of Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer in the film Scarface (1983).
During an underground drug deal, Tony kills a drug dealer from Colombia, taking cash and drugs... Frank praises Tony for his fierceness and absorbs him into his own organization.
But Tony is obviously not willing to be someone else's minions, his blood always seems to have something constantly rushing and jumping, Tony is interested in frank's hands of the whole "kingdom" and his wife (Michelle Pfeiffer), in the end, he gets everything he wants.
Image of Michelle Pfeiffer in the film Scarface (1983).
As his power grew, Tony also began to become more and more greedy, and due to his arrogant and willful nature, the FBI set his sights on Tony's money laundering and stole others in one fell swoop in a transaction.
While on bail, Tony still clumsily fought the beast and even killed his old friend Manny.
In the final scene, Tony is besieged by a vengeful army in his manor-like mansion, and he even picks up a bazooka for self-defense, shouting without fear: "Come and say hello to my little friend!" ”
The film ends with Tony's tragic death, marked with a pause in blood and tears.
Sidney Lumet called Oliver Stone's script a "comic strip," in other words, hated the blueprint because it was it that caused Sidney Lumet to lose his job, a situation that every director is reluctant to face.
Instead, Brian de Palma regained his grip on the tube, formally connecting with the unpainted but ups and downs of the story.
Location of the film Scarface (1983), Brian de Palma (left) and Al Pacino
When Scarface was in pre-production, Brian de Palma and Al Pacino spent almost all of their time in Miami.
Brian de Palma said: "We have seen a lot of police officers, lawyers in drug trafficking here, and interviewed some of them, of course, this statement only represents a personal opinion. ”
Image from the film Scarface (1983).
At the same time, as an actor, Al Pacino instinctively perceived that more specific styles of performances should be added to Thetony's character, of course, based on authenticity: "I think Tony should have some quirks', and I want to exaggerate and expose them to the audience. ”
In order to create the film's classic experiential performance style and resonate with the characters he plays, Al Pacino tries to engage with Steven Baldo, who plays Tony's closest friend, Manny, in the film, and avoids any connection with characters who are hostile to Tony.
During this period, Michelle Pfeiffer, who was relatively unknown, showed a surprising tension during the audition.
Filming was scheduled to begin in Southern Florida in October 1982, but city commissioner Demitrio Pariz Jr., a Cuban immigrant, strongly opposed the film's casting.
Because he believed scarface had a negative attitude toward Cuban-Americans, he even hoped that Al Pacino's role should be a communist spy secretly sent by Castro to the United States.
Producer Martin Brightman scoffed at this claim, but under pressure he had to use a compromise: after the film was completed, it was submitted to the Cuban American Committee for review, and they had the right to label the film as "really fictional".
Although the matter was eventually resolved, the episode still made Martin Brightman extremely nervous.
Usually, the film was filmed in an atmosphere of harmony and goodwill, but sometimes the staff felt burned out like never before due to Al Pacino's insistence on reshooting certain scenes.
The film Scarface (1983) is an American Blu-ray edition of the cover
Moreover, director Brian de Palma was eager to learn something from actors like Al Pacino, who had a very high reputation in the film industry, so most of the time he would follow Al Pacino's request.
To alleviate the onset of tension, director assistant Jerry Zelsmow deliberately arranged a gamble: the dialogue "TMD" will appear several times during the shooting of the day (the last time is as many as 206 times, making Scarface the most swearing mantra film). “
There will be many alternating scenes of rushing, screaming, and jumping," Brian de Palma added, "we did this just so much to say to the audience: This film is too fake!" ”
Even though Brian de Palma's timely addition made Scarface nearly perfect, there was still a hidden "mystery" that was not humane: with the extremely rare cold snap in California, a raging storm swept across the area, repeatedly delaying the filming of the wedding series scene in the film, and the crew lost millions of dollars.
To make matters worse, Al Pacino, who was filming the film's climax of the shootout, clutching the barrel of an M-14 machine gun.
Although the gun did not contain any bullets at all, but kept the gun empty, the high temperature generated by the intense friction of the barrel was enough to burn Al Pacino twice.
The film had to be discontinued for 14 days, and the main conflict in the film was filmed under this unreliable resource.
Promotional photo for the movie Scarface (1983), Michelle Pfeiffer
Scarface is Universal Pictures' unstried "heavy shell" and is scheduled to be released nationwide on December 9, 1983.
But when the film was sent to the MPAA for review, there was a hint that it might be rated "X" — a no doubt a "commercial ban" on the distribution company.
Universal's administrative manager has intervened several times, but MPAA Chairman Richard Haefner has taken a tough stance, declaring that "X" will be the inevitable destination of the film, because its accumulated thematic violence has completely exceeded the scope represented by "R", in richard Hefner's words, "there is as much violence in the film as dialogue".
Here, the most controversial and intractable scenario is the confrontation with the deceptive behavior of Colombian drug dealers, where Tony's friend Angie's arms and legs are cut alive by a chainsaw, an unabashed act of brutal killing.
But Brian de Palma didn't want to make a pointless argument: "My intention was to build a genre of violence that people had never seen before, and what I wanted the film to illustrate was that it was a completely different, alternative world." In fact, the camera has already shaken away from him, and all you see is blood. ”
In this way, Scarface was submitted three times, and each time Brian de Palma had to cut out some controversial parts of the film, but the next time, MPAA would dismiss the film on the pretext of "a problem in another scene".
Brian de Palmer and Martin Brygman come to sense that Richard Hefner's true intentions seem to have gone beyond the level of debate—Brian de Palmer has publicly criticized Richard Hefner for his criticality of Razor's Edge Dressed to Kill (1980) that undermined the quality of the film.
As a result, Brian de Palma refused to make any more meaningless cuts to the film a month before the release of Scarface, and Martin Blaigman held a hearing with the National Association of Theater Owners and some distributors.
On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the release of the movie Scarface, Martin Brightman and Al Pacino reunited
In the end, Martin Brightman managed to kick the film into the "R" with a 17:3 advantage.
Despite the overwhelming criticism and condemnation that followed the release of the film, Scarface slowly ignited the fire at the box office with its solid stamina.
Al Pacino's performance, while slightly brutal, profoundly illustrates the character of Tony in the film.
The hollow genre of violence characteristic of the 1980s, perfectly echoing the pomp of Giorgio Moroder's glitzy synthesis of electronic instruments, allows Tony's naked lust for power to invade the so-called business ethics at once.
Who could have imagined that the idea of a business layman like Tony, abandoned by fate, building his own kingdom of wealth in the heart of capitalism had such an irresistible charm.
Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer pose on set in the film Scarface (1983).
Oliver Stone said proudly, "I found that when the film was released, many young businessmen unconsciously quoted the dialogue in the film when they spoke. When I ask them why they can remember these dialogues so clearly, they always reply: 'They speak just right about the state of our business.' ‘”
Filled with critical ridicule and ridicule, after nearly 40 years of washing, Scarface, a film directed by Brian de Palma, still exudes an unbelievably bloody glow.
Poster for the Japanese version of the movie Scarface (1983).
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