Scarface

Shot types used. 

In Scarface there are many different camera shots. The camera shots are used for many different reasons.

During the film we see many close up's of Tony Montana's face to see many emotions. The close up's are done delibaretly to allow the viewer to get a closer look at him.. Another reason the close up could be used in this film is to allow us to get closer to the character, not just physically but emotionally too.

Another type of shot used a lot in scarface is the medium shot. This type of shot could be used for various reason's. In this image we see that the medium shot is used to not only show Tony Montana but to show what is around him. In this frame we can see he has a glass of some sort of whisky or brandy & he has cocaine around him, this show us what his lifestyle's about.



Narrative

The scarface story line has ambigious meaning, personally I think that the story's message is your opinion, the way you (the viewer) understands the film. The film is about a Cuban refugee in the USA. He's overly motivated by money and decides he's going to be very rich. Through out the story we see Tony Montana (Al Pacino) happy, said, drunk, high and more.

One of the message's the storyline represents is that all Cuban's are drug dealers. This could be interpreted in that way as the film was set in 1980, roughly during the time a lot of Cubam's are moving to America. Another reason is that many of the people that Tony Montana is affiliated with are Cuban's, for example his best friend Manolo (Manny).

Another interpretation of the film could be that crime pays. There's a lot of evidence for this to be the main message of the story as we see Tony Monana go from being from a poor humble family to a very wealthy and powerful man, in the United States. From the beggining we're shown that crime pays as he is rewarded with a green card in exchange for killing an former Cuban government official.


Another possible represntation of the film could most certainly be that crime (drugs) doesn't take you anywhere and it certainly can not buy happyness. Once again there're many reasons for why this could be true as we see his down fall during the film. During the movie we see him loosing his mum as she is not content of his dirty businesses, we see his sister being addicted to cocaine and at the end, the most important one, we see him being killed by Sosa 'The Skull'. All of this means that having a lot of money doesn't assure you happyness.