Despite being a remake of a classic Prohibition-set pre-code film, Scarface was not a throwback to its ancestors of the gangster genre. Thanks to the dazzling imagery, cocaine-fueled paranoia, and white-knuckle intensity of director Brian De Palma, the Al Pacino-led crime epic was ahead of its time — perhaps too ahead of its time. Upon release, critics interpreted the film as a bloated and reductive exercise. Decades later, following a reappraisal in hip-hop culture, Scarface ascended to cult classic status. Today, it’s celebrated as a formative gangster film. Scarface, a convergence of ideas from the Alfred Hitchcock disciple in De Palma and the politically conscious screenwriter Oliver Stone, was a promising partnership. However, during production, Stone stepped out of line, causing De Palma to throw him off the set.
‘Scarface’ Was a Convergence of Brian De Palma & Oliver Stone’s Visions
In the early 1980s, Brian De Palma was on a hot streak. The era’s aesthetic and fashion trends complemented De Palma’s slick camera movements and stylized color palettes. However, to suggest he was all style and no substance would be an egregious fallacy, as his thrillers Carrie, Dressed to Kill, and Blow Out are blistering portraits of disturbed psychological desires and obsession. De Palma’s advancement of the cinematic conventions was marvelous. In hindsight, his formalism makes Hitchcock seem tame. Around this time, Oliver Stone was an Oscar-winning screenwriter trying to make a name for himself behind the camera. The Midnight Express writer returned home from serving the nation in the Vietnam War to tell his story and confront thorny subjects in American politics on the screen.
We’re trained to groan at the announcement of a beloved Hollywood classic being remade, and the response to De Palma and Stone reinterpreting Howard Hawks‘ Scarface as a Cuban drug cartel saga in Miami was a bold proposition. With legendary actor Al Pacino filling in Paul Muni‘s shoes as the ambitious gangster who rises from nothing to run a vast criminal empire that crumbles due to his own ambition, the ingredients were there to create an indelible recipe. The trickiest obstacle in the film’s way is the contrasting tendencies between its director and screenwriter.
If he wasn’t outright satirical, De Palma viewed his characters and settings with a pronounced degree of cynicism. He was indifferent towards improving humanity, but rather, he preferred to exploit humanity’s dark core for his own amusement. Stone’s critics would cite him as a preachy hand-wringer, whose didactic commentary on American politics stemmed from an earnest attempt to open the viewer’s eyes to the pressing issues facing them from a macro level. While incredibly dispirited, he had hope that America could escape the shadow of Vietnam or the John F. Kennedy assassination.
Oliver Stone Was Removed From ‘Scarface’s Set for Talking to the Actors
To best understand what motivates the director’s creative fascinations, watch De Palma, a documentary by Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow that chronicles the director’s life. The film, which keeps the camera on De Palma, is as exciting as one of his thrillers due to his abilities as a raconteur. When discussing Scarface, De Palma shares insightful background details on the film’s development, which began with Pacino’s interest in remaking the original Scarface. At the time, De Palma was developing the cop drama Prince of the City, while Sidney Lumet was hired to direct Scarface, who, along with Stone, opted to set the story in Miami rather than Chicago. Eventually, these two had a falling out with their films and ostensibly traded jobs. Because of the film’s brutal violence and controversial subject, which played into stereotypes about Cuban immigrants, De Palma was forced to move production to Los Angeles. Still, he sought to create the anti-Godfather. Instead of gangsters in black suits sitting in dark rooms, he presented charismatic gangsters wearing white suits on the beach and lavish nightclubs.
Upon filming Scarface, Oliver Stone had only directed two low-rate B-movies: Seizure and The Hand. De Palma, in the documentary, recalled, “He felt I wasn’t doing the movie the way he wanted to do it.” Describing himself as an “interpretive director,” De Palma could feel his vision being compromised by Stone’s artistic pressure. Once he discovered that he was talking to the actors and giving them notes on their performance, De Palma had Stone removed from the set. For a director, writers surreptitiously discussing one’s performance with the star is a major no-no. “You can’t have an actor getting two points of view from two different people,” De Palma explained. “It just confuses them. They need a single voice.” In his memoir, Chasing the Light, Stone wrote about his troubled experience viewing the rough cut of Scarface in Martin Bregman‘s screening room. Incredibly dissatisfied with the product, he wrote that the “sluggish pace” and “lack of cohesion” overwhelmed him.
How Did Oliver Stone Deal With His ‘Scarface’ Ban?
De Palma claimed Stone “almost got killed” researching the film. “They thought he was some kind of narc.” The director believed that the danger in the film’s development is reflected on the screen with its garish depiction of violence. For Stone, who struggled with substance abuse issues at the time, the intoxicating effect and extreme paranoia caused by cocaine were all too real. In an interview for GQ, Stone, reflecting on his experience on Scarface, said of its director, “I don’t understand Brian. He’s very obtuse. He doesn’t give his emotions away. He certainly had a sardonic sense of humor,” adding that he “didn’t seem to enjoy the process of people.” In retrospect, Stone ascribes his standoffish demeanor during filming to the stress of his ongoing divorce from his marriage with Nancy Allen. Stone confirms in the GQ that he was thrown off the set multiple times throughout the shoot. 40 years later, Stone is sympathetic to the pressure De Palma faced and recognizes that he was more privy to the shooting and editing processes than a writer arguably ought to have been.
An overly prying writer could theoretically kick themselves out of Hollywood due to their problematic nature, but Oliver Stone reached heights only a few directors could dream of. Not only did he emerge as a critically acclaimed, two-time Best Director-winning filmmaker behind Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July, Stone’s thematic and visual style became a household brand — the idea of an Oliver Stone film is unmistakable. For Al Pacino, the feeling of having a writer undermine a director’s vision did not sour him, as he eventually starred in Stone’s searing football drama, Any Given Sunday. Drama persisted throughout the set of Scarface between Brian De Palma and his screenwriter, but little did they know that all the stress would amount to the creation of a modern classic.
Scarface is available to watch on Prime Video in the U.S.
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