I saw this movie in a theater when it came out. Toward the end there’s a scene I think where he falls face down in a mound of cocaine and I said loudly “I hope he’s dead” and the entire audience burst out laughing. It was a debased vile movie then and I assume it still is since nothing has changed except I’m less tolerant than I used to be but I won’t watch again it to confirm my suspicions.
The French (go figure) have a saying that people like to roll around in the gutter. This is more of the elite rolling around in the gutter and calling it great art.
“This is more of the elite rolling around in the gutter and calling it great art.”
To be fair, I don’t think anyone’s calling it great art. It’s more a case of “the proof of the pudding is in the eating,” and if “Scarface” holds people’s (or vocal minority of people’s) attention 30 years after its release it must have done something right. This article seems to attribute to it actual worth, whereas I wouldn’t put it above “so bad it’s good” or a guilty pleasure (though not for me, as I still genuinely dislike it).
“Toward the end there’s a scene I think where he falls face down in a mound of cocaine and I said loudly ‘I hope he’s dead’ and the entire audience burst out laughing. It was a debased vile movie then and I assume it still is since nothing has changed”
You’re right, and he was more objectionable even than other cinematic mass-murdering drug kingpins, including Pacino’s own Michael Corleon, who at least valued his family in ways other than wanting to have sex with them. It would be unpleasant but nevertheless purposeful if “Scarface” were a morality tale. For instance “MacBeth,” in which we see how awful is wealth and power in the hands of the illegitimate and depraved. We don’t even get that, however, as Oliver Stone feels the need to add a scene where Scarface informs his fat, rich, lilly-white fellow restaurant patrons that he’s a bad guy because they need him to be one.
Know what, Tony? We don’t need you to be bad. We don’t want anyone to be bad. We wish you were dead, and that’s that.