Love & Lust on Film: Scarface, Bridget Jones and Lessons Learned
Published May 27, 2004
Tony Montana has taken just so much shit his whole life. He's been oppressed and repressed and mocked and called a spic and turned on by his own country (Cuba) that he's just not going to take any shit anymore. He'll shoot someone just for pissing him off, which is almost admirable, or at the very least understandable. I'm not advocating violence; all I'm saying is that we all have our limits and if someone treated me the way Tony Montana had been treated his whole life - if they spit on me, and degraded me, and mocked me and doubted any power I might have, I might want to prove them wrong.
Of course, it's a movie, and we know it well; Scarface with Al Pacino as the Cuban immigrant turned drug lord with his mountains of coke and his beautiful but, basically dead, wife, Elvira, living what he believes is the American dream.
Elvira, Tony's wife, played perfectly by Michelle Pfieffer, is beautiful and so cool she's ice cold, whose only job is to be an ornament, and who comes from somewhere in Baltimore, we're told, and whose only goal, it seems, is to just be taken care of by all these rich and violent thugs. She doesn't seem phased by all the guns and underworld thugs that hang around the house, but then, her nose is so packed full of coke that this is not really a surprise. Most of the time, she's got this false cocaine-calm aloofness that lends itself to comparisons with a mannequin.
Her power and her trump is that ultimately, we get the sense that it's a role she's chosen - not one that was ever put upon her. That it's all within her control. Men like Tony Montana are brought to their knees by her cool beauty and icy aloofness. She's like coke they can't buy or trade or snort or get enough of, but surely as powerful . But ultimately, she's just some middle-class chick form Baltimore who was probably really bored and moved to Miami for some excitement. She's a bitch. As Tony says to her, "You got a look like you haven't been fucked in a year." And it's true. Maybe she knows her power is in the withholding, but this can only last for so long; a tease works because ultimately, there has to be something at the end of it. If it's all attitude and cock tease, after a while, that gets boring and the furthest thing from sexy. Something's gotta give.
Tony Montana wants, as he says, "what's coming to me," which is "the world and everything in it." Never satisfied, never settled, the immigrant with the chip on the shoulder who sees Miami as " a great big pussy just waiting to be fucked," and he's the guy to do it. I love that he sees himself so well endowed; it shows a moxie and an appealing verve that today's sensitive men lack (or more accurately, feel they must keep under wraps.) Tony's energy is violent, sexual, intense; he's all about conquest and triumph and most of all, proving himself. A guy who knows that in "this country, you gotta get the money first" That money is power and all flows from that.
- Love & Lust on Film: Scarface, Bridget Jones and Lessons Learned
- Published: May 27, 2004
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- Section: Video
- Writer: Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti
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----these are girls with giant blue vibrators tucked away in their Pier I night-tables----
Sadi, I did not want to know this!!!!
Nice work, and interesting to see things in your perspective - though you use the word "fuck" more than Tony Montana!....;-)
apologies for language, and i think you're right ... i hadn't realized it was so full of bad language. i promise to be better next time!
thanks all for reading... hope you found it interesting... very gratifying to know it's being read...
of course, it's just my opinion... and grateful for all feedback.
sadi
ahhh...i see the typos and i am so sorry. so now with the language and the typos, i hope i haven't totally lost anyone... though maybe for other reasons. I will be more careful in the future. thx. to all for reading... and please keep posting comments if the spirit moves you. i plan to write every week... so now Onward to next topic !~ Thx for being such a receptive audience; your comments mean everything.
sadi
S, if there are typos (I fixed a couple) please fell free to go back in and edit. I reedit my own posts all the time. That's why they are perfect.
Sade
I thought your colorful use of language was totally refreshing (you write in the way I talk)- and suited the topic perfectly!
I really enjoyed the article and your style. Bravo!
awww, shucks. glad to hear it, Anthony! Working on other stuff, so you'll have to check that out too... if the spirit moves ya. ;)
keep cool
sade
Sadie, just because you've had a few bad experiences in life doesn't mean true love doesn't exist..and NO I do not believe "the virginal bride" is a "silly charade." Love is hard though no doubt.
"true love" requires as much or more work than false love
Sadi sez: "...I feel most beautiful when I am alone in my garden, wearing that slightly see-through slip that I love and my Doc Marten gardening boots and no underwear and no make up and my high-lights have grown out and I'm covered in freckles and my breasts are loose in my shift and I feel full and ripe and full of life and that the world is mine for the taking."
Whoa.
Sadi, coupla things:
* got jpgs?
* Universal Law #33: ALL men are either gay or insensitive pricks; there are no exceptions.
* ie. You shoulda been a lesbian; women are great!
* "Masturbation: Sex with someone I love!" -- Woody Allen
* I've never been one to define myself relative to others' expectations, but man, thanks to age and wisdom, all that crap means even less. God rewards the patient survivors with enlightenment coupled with flaccidity.
* got jpgs?
hey Shark: excellent points all, and jpegs exist, but alas not for sharing.... ;)
the older i get, the more i wonder about this "true love" business. Yes, Eric is right; if it does exist (my issue), then it requires as much or more love than false love, no question. But i wonder how we define true love anyhow? One may know what is true for onesself, but what of the other and how they feel? How do you know whether or not their love is true?
Yes, without a doubt, i should have been and almost was a lesbian, and odd you mention since i was just saying this to my friend P. today, who was agreeing with me. I was deeply in love with a woman who is a lesbian many years ago, and we were and are good and dear friends but things did not progress for myriad reasons - too complicated to get into here, and i think though, to the point, much to the regret of both of us likely. It's too bad. Things would have been totally different for me and for her too, no doubt. Life would be nothing like what it is today.
Shark says All men are either gay or insensitive pricks, which i hate to believe, but experience is showing me that this may have more truth than initially believed and i do not WANT to believe that, so am happy to be proven wrong at any time. Please... show me that this is NOT the case.
That's all i have to say. Shark, my dear friend, i would send you jpegs, but we're not that close, are we, so how can i do that? sorry sweets...
love to all,
sade
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Whoa, that's something Sadi, thanks and welcome! Never has gardening sounded so appealing.