original vs. new

Rating: 10/10 (27 October 2005)

When you watch the two Scarface movies, you are looking through windows into two very different time periods. The original Scarface, directed by Howard Hawks, we are looking into a time of lack of money and alcohol. When alcohol was made illegal to purchase or sell in the 1920s, so people started dealing it. They would drive up to Canada or down to Mexico and stock up their cars with as much alcohol as they could manage. In the remake, directed by Brian DePalma, we are shown a different kind of dealing to match the era in which it was made. Instead of alcohol, this time it's cocaine. In the early 80s, coke was known as a power drug and was thought not to be harmful or addicting because of the lack of withdrawal symptoms. Through the 70s and early 80s, selling coke was a good business to get into and that is what our protagonist, Tony Montana does.
In the 1983 remake of Scarface, we watch Tony Montana through his first and last days in the States. When he arrives in America, he is an immigrant from Cuba hoping to make it big here. His first job to kill Rebenga, while staying in "Little Havana", gets him known and is soon recruited to work for Frank Lopez. But as he starts getting bigger and bigger the power starts to get to him and he starts breaking rule number two: "Don't get high on your own supply." He learns this in the Babylon club. In the Bible it says this about Babylon: "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a habitation of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird" (Rev 18.2-3). What that passage is saying is that Babylon is a place for all the bad to go. Where sins are committed and for those who commit them to be caged. The club is called Babylon because it is the Babylon of Miami. It's a place for all the evil people of the city to go. The ways we can see this are because of the events that take place over the length of the movie. One of which being the two people, who are working for Frank, try to murder Tony. Also that it is where they all hang out in general and do their dealings.
Though the two movies have a lot of differences, one of the similarities is the use of the phrase "The World is Yours". This phrase is what seems to push Tony to succeed. The world is at his fingertips and he just needs to grab it. But whatever he does, it doesn't fill his need for power and respect. And that is what kills Tony Montana. When he does die though, your heart drops. You wanted to see him pull through this and come up on top but in a different way. After seeing what he did in the scene with the kids in the car is when you first discover this feeling of emotion towards Tony even though you've watched him ruin so many lives throughout the film. In the original film, you do not have the same emotions for the original Tony because there is never a scene when we see that he is not a complete animal.
Even though both films were amazing, the remake is something that attracts people of this time period because it is reflecting a society that we know and can relate to. When you watch the original Scareface you cannot really connect because the ban on alcohol has been lifted. We connect more when it comes to drugs because it is something that is always around us.