![]() Later in the film, Johnny Lovo will make the same mistake, not from contentment, but from fear. And with contentment assisting digestion at the end of his self-congratulatory party, Big Louis ceases to move, up or forward. But not before Big Louis philosophises to his friends, “I got all I wanta,” and “A man allaways a gotta know whenna he’s gotta enough!” With the south side under his belt, and no desire to control the north, Big Louis scoffs at other gangsters who aren’t content with their lot. ![]() At the start of the film, in a truly stunning long tracking shot, Tony sets himself on his path by whacking his boss Big Louis Costillo. Why would he? But it’s not his desire to be the king that proves his undoing, or even that he wants too much. Tony is certain from the start that the world will be his, but has no idea what he intends to do with it, or even how he’s going to keep it. And all without pause to reflect on what he intends to do when he gets to the top. He is invulnerable whilst he is on the rise, a locomotive of irrepressible vitality, dancing on the skulls of those that occupied the steps on the ladder to success. He is a rolling stone, gathering no moss. The gangster is always on the move, always in motion, propelled by his insane desire to get to the top. This allusion to a vertical flight might best be served by an augmentation along the horizontal axis, in which the gangster must keep running until he can run no further. The gangster is a part of the city, and can never transcend his spatial trajectory, because it is as metaphorical as he is fictional. Even though he raises himself above the rabble, the world is never his, because the gangster can never rise above his symbiotic relationship with his symbolic environment. ![]() In Scarface, Tony looks to the Cook’s Tours neon sign, “The World is Yours”, for his existential motivation, and makes the mistake of literalising its metaphorical content. Such is the allusion to the imagined vertical axis described in all understandings of this genre – the rise and fall of the gangster. But is it possible that Tony’s surrender was genuine until a narrative imperative forcibly shoved him out the door? What goes up must come down, even if it has to be shot down. Once through it, he’s met with a hail of bullets that completes the narrative trajectory so integral to the gangster genre. ![]() Yet at the very moment that Guarino, the cop who has dogged him for the entire film, attempts to put the bracelets on him, he makes a mad dash for the door. Like a snivelling, whining dog, Tony pleads for his life. Tony Camonte (Paul Muni) goes down in a hail of bullets, just as you know he will. William O’Connell Ed: Edward Curtiss Art Dir: Harry Olivier Mus: Adolph Tandler, Gustav ArnheimĬast: Paul Muni, Ann Dvorak, Karen Morley, Osgood Perkins, Boris Karloff, C. Burnett, Fred Pasley, from the novel by Armitage Trail Ph: Lee Garmes, L. Source: CAC/NLA Prod Co: United Artists/Atlantic Prod: Howard Hughes, Howard Hawks Dir: Howard Hawks Scr: Ben Hecht, Seton I. ![]()
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