“Scarface”: an ill-fated remake
Guadagnino was recently a guest at the Mumbai Film Festival. During a meeting with journalists, the Italian director said briefly: I no longer work on Scarface. Unfortunately, he did not provide the reason for this situation.
Thus, Guadagnino joined a large group of successful directors who participated in the production of another film entitled “Scarface” in the past. The project was worked on by, among others: the Coen Brothers, Pablo Larraín, Antoine Fuqua, David Yates, and David Ayer.
“Scarface”: Gangster Classics
The first “Scarface” movie appeared in 1932. The title character was an Italian immigrant trying to achieve his American dream in a world engulfed in the chaos of the global economic crisis. He does it the only way he thinks possible – with violence and crime. However, viewers will best remember the 1983 film, in which Al Pacino played an ambitious Cuban who takes over the Miami underworld. The remake was scheduled to take place in Los Angeles.
Howard Hawks’ first “Scarface” movie was about the Prohibition era. 50 years later, Oliver Stone and Brian De Palma directed their own very different version of Hawks’ film. Both films can be shelved side by side as masterpieces – Guadagnino said when he still wanted to make a new version – I hope that our version, produced more than 40 years later, is another valuable portrait of a character who embodies our compulsive appetites and ambition. I think my version will be very modern. People say I’m just remaking, but the truth is that cinema is constantly remaking itself. Not out of laziness, and not because it’s an easy way to find a story. It’s about seeing what a particular story can say about our times.
Shortcuts: Why do we love the “scarface”?
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