HOWARD Hawks’ Scarface (1932) presents gangsters with style and swagger, giving the men in the audience something to strive for. With the Great Depression in full swing, there was great disillusionment with The American Dream. The horrid economic conditions crushed the hopes and lives of millions. Through heavily stylized cinematic shots, Scarface hides its gangsters’ atrocities and instead highlights their opulent lifestyles. Even the final shot of a fading “The World is Yours” seems to enforce the anger with a lack of upward mobility, rather than act as the stern warning it was meant to be.
The following essay contains spoilers for Scarface (1932).
To truly kick off the violence, Hawks employs a shot of a firing Tommy gun laid overtop a flipping calendar. The shots are at half opacity, allowing both to be visible at once. They imply a rampage of violence across time in the most stylish of ways. This brutality culminates in the execution of the lineup of rival gangsters. Facing the wall with their hands above their heads, Tony’s (Paul Muni) gang swiftly guns them down from behind. Again, the audience only sees the men’s shadows, distancing us from the savagery. And to show us the rewards of such actions, Scarface gives us the shot of Tony leaving the theater. Once he decides to rise at intermission, the camera begins to pan to follow his exit, and a staggering number of his men stand in unison to follow. Through this shot the audience understands the immense power Tony now wields. For those affected most by the Great Depression, this represented everything they could not have.
With heavily stylized shots and techniques, Scarface became an outlet of escapism for those stuck in the Great Depression. Even though its titular character meets his demise in the end, unable to escape his wrongdoings forever, the grandiose life he managed to live prior to his death seemed worth it to those with no success of their own.
