Scarface

Scarface
by Brian De Palma (1983)

THE AMERICAN DREAM.

“You want to take everything I have.”
“And what is it that you can take from me?”
“The world, man… And everything that’s in it!”
(Tony Montana & Manny Ribera)

ᴄᴜʙᴀ, 1980.

Thanks to the famous 𝘌𝘴𝘰𝘥𝘰 𝘥𝘪 𝘔𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘭, 125,000 Cubans embarked towards southern Florida. A high percentage of these exiles came from prisons and psychiatric hospitals.
Among them is 𝐀𝐧𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐨 𝐑𝐚𝐢𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐨 𝐌𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐚, known as Tony. A rough, vulgar, and “dirty” Cuban fleeing from dictatorship who lands in the land of opportunities. Tony the scarred, the disfigured, with that scar on his face making him even more menacing in appearance.
The his past is unclear but easily inferred. What leaves no doubt is that Tony wants to exploit this new and surprising opportunity to the fullest. In other words, he wants everything this new land can offer him. And he wants it immediately.
He is not interested in slaving away as a dishwasher inside a van parked in front of a venue where high society figures parade every night. He wants to enter that venue and be its master.
Women, money, and power are the only things that really interest him. More and more, by any means available, at any cost.
Because Tony is never satisfied, never enough.
𝐀𝐥 𝐏𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐨 delivered a legendary performance: a megalomaniac braggart who only wants to rise through the ranks by breaking every rule, with his 206 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬s pronounced between a sniff of cocaine and a puff of some expensive Cuban cigar, until the thunderous but inevitable decline.
Tony Montana is perhaps his most beloved, most recognized character. A true icon.
And he marked an era.
𝐒𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐅𝐀𝐂𝐄 𝐛𝐲 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐃𝐞 𝐏𝐚𝐥𝐦𝐚 (1983)

CURIOSITIES

The chainsaw scene in Scarface is inspired by a real event. Oliver Stone, while writing Scarface, spent several months in Miami with the local police for research purposes. Apparently, he was drawn to a particularly bloody case. In 1980, a major smuggling ring led by Mario Tabraue (who became the main inspiration for Tony’s character) dismembered a man named Larry Nash with a chainsaw after discovering that he was an informant for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Tabraue was later arrested by the FBI in 1987 during the so-called “Operation Cobra”: at the time, his smuggling ring was worth over 75 million dollars.