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Scarface Film Analysis

Decent Essays

The Gangster film ‘Scarface’ (DePalma) is about the rise and eventual fall of Cuban immigrant, Tony Montana. Throughout the film the viewer witnesses how Tony Montana goes from a criminal in Cuba to a drug overlord in America. The average viewer cannot connect to the arc of Tony Montana. But, the average viewer can connect to what Tony Montana is working for, the American dream. Brain DePalma chooses purposefully to have a hyper-masculine, narcissistic, megalomaniac immigrant as the main character of a story of American dream. In ‘Scarface’, DePalma show the universality of the American dream. By utilizing various filming techniques, DePalma shows how the American dream is available for everyone. DePalma utilizes zooming and film cuts to show how the American dream is for everyone. Scarface, following the traditional film three act narrative structure, ends it second act with Tony Montana immediately after executing his old boss. The camera opens on a close up of Tony Montana. The camera then cuts to a shot of a moving blimp saying, ‘The World is Yours’. Before the blimp’s message can move to an advertisement, the camera then cuts back to Tony Montana, holds for a few seconds, the zooms out to a long shot encompassing the entire house. DePalma purposefully chooses to film this scene this way. Opening on a close up of Tony Montana show the audience that he is the focus of the scene. When the camera cuts to the slogan on the blimp the audience enters the eyes of Tony Montana for cut. They see the slogan the same way Tony Montana sees it. When the camera zooms out and shows the entire house and Tony Montana’s new wife, the audience understands that Tony Montana now has everything he could ever want. By keeping Tony Montana in the center of the frame, the audience can remember Tony Montana from the beginning of the film and see how far he has come. The audience can then see that Tony Montana has achieved the American dream. DePalma utilizes zooming and film cuts to show how the American dream is for everyone. In addition to panning and zooming, DePalma also utilizes long takes to show how the American dream is for everyone. The average shot length, or the average of the length of all the shots in a film, in

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