Ich bin immer noch benommen

Stan-Kowa

Leide an Islamintoleranz
Was ein großartiges Spiel. :frown:

"Keine Abwehr" spielte gegen "Keinen Sturm".
Wenn es nach mir ginge dürften beide nicht zur WM.
Wenn ich mir vorstelle das womöglich Tschechien oder Frankreich zuhause bleiben muß und diese Schwindsüchtigen dabei sind.......... :suspekt:
 
D

downie

Guest
Stan-Kowa schrieb:
Was ein großartiges Spiel. :frown:

"Keine Abwehr" spielte gegen "Keinen Sturm".
Wenn es nach mir ginge dürften beide nicht zur WM.
Wenn ich mir vorstelle das womöglich Tschechien oder Frankreich zuhause bleiben muß und diese Schwindsüchtigen dabei sind.......... :suspekt:


Es wäre auch für dich mal an der Zeit, dir Spiele von Frankreich oder Tschechien anzusehen, dann hättest du diese Beispiele sicher nicht gewählt. :fress:
 
Stan-Kowa schrieb:
Was ein großartiges Spiel. :frown:

"Keine Abwehr" spielte gegen "Keinen Sturm".
Wenn es nach mir ginge dürften beide nicht zur WM.
Wenn ich mir vorstelle das womöglich Tschechien oder Frankreich zuhause bleiben muß und diese Schwindsüchtigen dabei sind.......... :suspekt:



Quark, fast scho Mega-Quark :mahnen:

Türkei spielte 2 Gänge niedriger als sonst - Grund klar Albanien am Mittwoch.
Zudem beide nominellen Stammstürmer net im Kader gewesen :mahnen:

Deutschland hat eben deshalb nicht nur schwach, sondern unglaublich schwach gespielt! Gegen türkische Spieler die Fit gegen Albanien ran wollen und mit den Köpfen sowieso bei Dän-Gre sind, hättete es (locker) reichen müssen! :mahnen:

:fress:
 

Stan-Kowa

Leide an Islamintoleranz
LatinloverAusB schrieb:
Quark, fast scho Mega-Quark :mahnen:

Türkei spielte 2 Gänge niedriger als sonst - Grund klar Albanien am Mittwoch.
Zudem beide nominellen Stammstürmer net im Kader gewesen :mahnen:

Deutschland hat eben deshalb nicht nur schwach, sondern unglaublich schwach gespielt! Gegen türkische Spieler die Fit gegen Albanien ran wollen und mit den Köpfen sowieso bei Dän-Gre sind, hättete es (locker) reichen müssen! :mahnen:

:fress:


Und mit einer Einstellung wie die der Deutschen beim Konfetti-Cup,wäre es auch für eine türkische A-Mannschaft ohne Albanien-Spiel im Kopp schwer geworden.
Machen wir uns nix vor. Die weniger schwache,zweier schwacher Mannschaften hat knapp gewonnen.
Wieviele der hochkarätigen Chancen waren den herausgespielt,und resultierten nicht aus Fernschüssen oder katastrophalen Abwehrfehlern???!!!!
 

Kerpinho

FL-Pate
Teammitglied
Im Grunde genommen war DAS, was die deutsche Mannschaft gestern gezeigt haben muss (ich habe ja nur 5 Minuten verfolgt) wohl allenfalls Regionalliganiveau. Die WM 2006 kann kommen...

MFG!
 

Fresh Prince

Sportdirektor der FFL NM
Teammitglied
Kerpinho schrieb:
Im Grunde genommen war DAS, was die deutsche Mannschaft gestern gezeigt haben muss (ich habe ja nur 5 Minuten verfolgt) wohl allenfalls Regionalliganiveau. Die WM 2006 kann kommen...

MFG!
dann haben die Türken aber nur 2. Liga-Niveau gehabt
ansonsten hätte sie die Deutschen ja abgeschlachtet :zwinker3:
 

GuybrushThreepwood

Du bist des Todes!
Fresh Prince schrieb:
dann haben die Türken aber nur 2. Liga-Niveau gehabt
ansonsten hätte sie die Deutschen ja abgeschlachtet :zwinker3:

Genauso ist es imgrundegenommen, wobei das 2. Liga-Niveau der Türken eben auch an den bereits angeführten Gründen liegt. Die Gründe für das schwache Auftreten der Deutschen sind mir hingegen absolut schleierhaft.
 
Man sollte nicht zu hart mit dem Team sein. Man hat einfach viel zu wenig Qualität, da man viel zuwenige Topspieler hat. Aber das ist ja kaum die Schuld des Trainerteams. Die Jahrgänge der in den 70ern geborenen Spieler sind eben sehr schwach, insgesamt vielleicht die schlechteste Fußballergeneration, die D je hatte. Die Auswirkungen hat man ja auch schon bei den Turnieren 98 bis 04 bemerken müssen. Wieso ist Ballack denn hierzulande der Megastar? Weil er der einzige dieser Generation ist, der international gehobenen Ansprüchen genügt. Noch vor 10 Jahren hatte man ca. ein Dutzend Spieler auf seinem Niveau (oder besser), da wäre er kaum aufgefallen.

Die WM im eigenen Land kommt für D einfach zu früh, die nachfolgende Generation ist ja gar nicht schlecht, aber mit einer U23 kann man bei einer WM einfach nix gewinnen.
 
M

MagicoMilan

Guest
Fresh Prince schrieb:
dann haben die Türken aber nur 2. Liga-Niveau gehabt
ansonsten hätte sie die Deutschen ja abgeschlachtet :zwinker3:

War wirklich peinlich für D.gestern..Trappatoni und sein Catenaccio wäre eine gute Lösung für das D.team dann hätte das deutsche team eine gute Abwehr bis zur WM oder amici :zwinker3: :floet:
Saluti Magico :fress:
 

GuybrushThreepwood

Du bist des Todes!
Libuda schrieb:
Man sollte nicht zu hart mit dem Team sein. Man hat einfach viel zu wenig Qualität, da man viel zuwenige Topspieler hat. Aber das ist ja kaum die Schuld des Trainerteams. Die Jahrgänge der in den 70ern geborenen Spieler sind eben sehr schwach, insgesamt vielleicht die schlechteste Fußballergeneration, die D je hatte. Die Auswirkungen hat man ja auch schon bei den Turnieren 98 bis 04 bemerken müssen. Wieso ist Ballack denn hierzulande der Megastar? Weil er der einzige dieser Generation ist, der international gehobenen Ansprüchen genügt. Noch vor 10 Jahren hatte man ca. ein Dutzend Spieler auf seinem Niveau (oder besser), da wäre er kaum aufgefallen.

Die WM im eigenen Land kommt für D einfach zu früh, die nachfolgende Generation ist ja gar nicht schlecht, aber mit einer U23 kann man bei einer WM einfach nix gewinnen.

Das erklärt aber nicht die mangelnde Leidenschaft, die die Mannschaft bei den wenigen noch verbleibenden Freundschaftsspielen zeigt.
 

Scholli

Fußballgott
GuybrushThreepwood schrieb:
Das erklärt aber nicht die mangelnde Leidenschaft, die die Mannschaft bei den wenigen noch verbleibenden Freundschaftsspielen zeigt.
Du hast vollkommen Recht! Auch wenn es spielerisch nicht reicht, muss man wenigstens kämpfen! Eigentlich ja eine dt. Tugend... :suspekt:

Aber was soll`s: Ziel ist und bleibt es, We(a)lt(d)meister zu werden... :eek:
 

SchalkeFalke

Die Pottwurst
Leute mal im Ernst: Die Mannschaft wird sich rechtzeitig zur WM wieder fangen!

Thomas Doll hat heute beim Doppelpass so etwas gesagt wie "Nach dem Confed-Cup war alles toll und nun soll auf einmal alles schlecht sein?". Wahre Worte in meinen Augen. Immer diese schwarz-weiß-Malerei!

Die Mannschaft hat im Moment einen absoluten Hänger. Das liegt aber vor allem daran, dass derzeit kaum ein Nationalspieler in der Bundesliga schon Normalniveau erreicht hat - fast alle hinken ihrer Leistung meilenweit hinterher. Dazu zählen leider auch Leistungsträger wie Podolski, Ballack und Kuranyi...da ist es doch fast schon klar, dass auch die Nationalelf darunter leidet!

Ich bin überzeugt davon, dass sich die deutsche Elf wieder bis zur WM steigert und wir ein gutes Turnier spielen werden (und damit meine ich nicht, dass wir Weltmeister werden...das packen wir unter Garantie noch nicht!)

Und in der Defensive liegt es jetzt an Klinsmann, sich auf eine Stammformation festzulegen. Und ich denke er wird jetzt allmählich auch die Notwendigkeit dieser Maßnahme eingesehen haben. Dass er gestern gesagt hat, ihm sei in der Kabine mal kurz der Kragen geplatz, hat mir sehr gut gefallen! Die Zeit, in der er seine Spieler in Schutz nehmen musste (was nach der verpatzten EM ja von Nöten war) sind endgültig vorbei!

Gegen China wird erst mal weitergerumpelt - mehr als ein Pflichtsieg wird dabei nicht herauskommen. Und dann werden wir ja sehen wie es weiter geht!
 

RealSyria

***axis of evil***
Stan-Kowa schrieb:
Was ein großartiges Spiel. :frown:

"Keine Abwehr" spielte gegen "Keinen Sturm".
Wenn es nach mir ginge dürften beide nicht zur WM.
Wenn ich mir vorstelle das womöglich Tschechien oder Frankreich zuhause bleiben muß und diese Schwindsüchtigen dabei sind.......... :suspekt:

From the time it first came his way, SCARFACE showed all the signs of a film that could be both a boost to De Palma's career and one of the toughest jobs he'd ever tackled.

Producer Martin Bregman, hoping to continue his successful history with Al Pacino, had planned to cast him in a remake of Howard Hawks' landmark mob drama, to be done as a period piece in its original setting of early thirties Chicago. Though still in the midst of finishing BLOW OUT, De Palma was approached and agreed to work on an adaptation with playwright David Rabe, his partner on the recently rejected version of PRINCE OF THE CITY. But it soon became clear that the script wasn't developing to everyone's satisfaction, and the director, exhausted from years of nonstop work, decided to pass.

Ironically, the project moved to Sidney Lumet, De Palma's replacement on PRINCE and already the veteran of Bregman's two previous Pacino hits, SERPICO and DOG DAY AFTERNOON. A new writer was hired as well -- Oliver Stone, whose Oscar-winning work on MIDNIGHT EXPRESS had placed him in demand. Not a big fan of the Hawks film, Stone wasn't quite sold on the idea, but soon changed his mind after hearing Lumet's new concept: to transplant the thirties premise to modern day Miami, with the Capone-inspired lead character now a Cuban immigrant who rises through the ranks of the cocaine industry. Finding this change entirely plausible, Stone could also see a means of ending his own growing addiction to coke, which was taking both a personal and professional toll.

"I got excited by the subject," he said. "I got a fire in my belly. This was something I really wanted to do; but I knew my writing wasn't going to be there unless I stopped doing coke.... I was becoming more one-dimensional, fueled by the need for the drug.... I wrote SCARFACE basically as an adieu to cocaine. It had beaten the hell out of me, but I got my revenge by writing about it."



In December 1981, having quit cold turkey, Stone would rent an apartment in Paris and spend six months working on the screenplay. But his redemptive journey began with researching the crime scene in South Florida, then tracing the drug's export route back to Latin America. "In 1980," he later recalled, "you could draw a parallel between Miami, El Salvador and Nicaragua. In each place, it heated up. There was more killing, more violence, an orgy of blood. I didn't understand it at first, but years later the threads came together because of the connection between coke and the contra trade."

One sobering incident took place during an expedition to Bimini, a Caribbean island that was one of several links in the drug chain. Seeking out a group of drug dealers, he spent some time gleaning information from them and -- still absorbed in his own addiction -- joined them in snorting cocaine. "After a lot of tooting," said Stone, "these guys started to get paranoid, and then I made a real mistake. I dropped the name of a guy I knew who was a defense lawyer, but it turned out he used to be a prosecutor who nailed one of these guys at one time. The guy went white. He thought I was setting him up to get busted again. The whole conversation shifted gears and he and this other dangerous-looking character went into the john to talk it over. I figured this was it; they were going to come out and blow me away. The next three minutes were tense. Well, they came out and said there would be no more talking about drugs. I figured they planned on getting me later in my room, so I made my utmost effort to convince them I really was a screenwriter and talked my way out of trouble. But it was very scary for a while. It reminded me what real fear was -- I'd kind of forgotten that. Later, I tried to put that into the chainsaw scene I wrote for the movie."

Once finished, a draft was shown to Sidney Lumet, and problems began to set in. As it stood, Lumet felt the script was little more than a "comic strip," and had strong doubts as to whether Tony's incestuous fixation with sister Gina would translate well to the screen. He also suggested major revisions that would have charged CIA involvement in the drug trade as part of a covert anti-Communist drive. "I thought that not only wouldn't work, it wasn't true," said Martin Bregman. "He wanted to make one kind of movie and I wanted to make another." The result was that Bregman backed down and again offered the film to De Palma.





As luck would have it, De Palma was very intrigued by the change in concept that had taken place since his early involvement. In fact, he had recently been considering a rough update of John Huston's TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, in which cocaine smuggling would have figured prominently. (Earlier drafts of the SCARFACE script also feature overt references to the Huston classic, with Tony insisting in early scenes that he'd never be as consumed with greed as Humphrey Bogart's Fred C. Dobbs.) "I liked the (new) material," De Palma explained, "specifically because to me it was sort of a modern metaphor for SIERRA MADRE, where cocaine becomes gold and it's the American Dream gone crazy. You have this product that you can turn into millions of dollars, but in the process you destroy your life."

The director saw a chance, via Stone's graphic portrait of a world Hollywood had till now avoided, to expand his own horizons beyond the suspense thrillers he'd mastered in the previous decade. Furthermore, the project seemed "more like a collaboration" than most of De Palma's seventies films -- one where he could stretch his skills in ways he hadn't yet attempted. "I knew nothing about the Cuban cocaine trade at all. I knew nothing about dealing in an epic dramatic movie with all kinds of elaborate, exotic character types. SCARFACE is basically about the relationship of a series of characters over a period of time, a saga, and I had never made a movie like that in my career."



During preproduction, both director and star spent time in Miami, with Pacino taking up residence and becoming immersed in local customs, values and speech patterns. To help, he'd later make a point of always communicating in Spanish with director of photography John A. Alonzo, a Hispanic American. "The word 'professional' is to me an overused term," said Alonzo, "but with Al you can't overuse it. When I first met him, we hadn't even started production, and he was using the accent. I spoke Spanish to him and asked if it was okay. His response was, 'Please! The more Spanish I hear, the better I'll feel.' That, to me, is a prepared actor."

This process of cultural absorption would be just as critical to Pacino's performance as his physical training, which included time spent with a night combat expert. He'd already decided that full authenticity wasn't his goal; the Cuban accent and mannerisms would be heightened to match De Palma's elaborate direction. Explaining this, the actor later said that because De Palma envisioned SCARFACE "as an opera in the Brechtian sense (and because we wanted to) to express the thing that goes with that world -- avarice, force and the craziness of the high -- Tony Montana was always perceived as two-dimensional. That was the style. It wasn't about why he does what he does. He wasn't meant to be reflective." With Tony, what you saw is what you'd get, with even the jagged facial scar evoking, in Pacino's words, "a kind of chaotic wildness in this guy."




The supporting cast would feature many Latin Americans, including 27-year-old Steven Bauer, a Cuban-born actor who had debuted under the name "Rocky" Echevarria in a Florida-based PBS series, QUE PASA, U.S.A., and was then married to upcoming De Palma star Melanie Griffith. As Tony's friend and partner, Manny Rivera, Bauer developed a rapport with Pacino on the set, which contrasted sharply with the distance the star maintained from those whose characters Tony didn't fully trust. Other crucial roles were filled by both veteran actors (Robert Loggia, Harris Yulin, F. Murray Abraham) and newcomers like Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and Michelle Pfeiffer.

Despite doubts by even Pacino, Pfeiffer won the breakthrough role of the beautiful but socially trapped Elvira, with an audition that assistant director Jerry Ziesmer remembers as being marked at first by extreme nervousness. Once she moved into a confrontation scene with Pacino, according to Ziesmer, she displayed the confidence of "a pit bull who held her own in the exchanges and was tantalizingly attractive." For Bregman, there was no question she could carry the part and he soon convinced Pacino. "When she got up on stage," Bregman said, "she brought Al to life -- he was magnificent. It's interesting because I don't think even he was aware of it. But it happened -- the relationship happened. It was right then and there."

In the early summer of 1982, the crew began setting up in South Florida for an October start date. Before long, a small but prominent segment of Miami's Cuban community, led by city commissioner Demetrio Perez Jr. (himself a Cuban émigré), spoke out against what they felt would be a film reflecting the worst possible image for Cuban Americans and especially, for the majority of Mariel refugees who were in fact law-abiding citizens. Without having read the script, Perez threatened to introduce a bill that could ban the fimmakers from shooting in Miami, unless they agreed to turn Pacino's character into a communist spy sent by Fidel Castro to undermine American society. Bregman, of course, protested that this was absurd, leading to a bitter standoff that dominated local media reports for several weeks.

In the end an agreement was reached that the finished film would be screened for a six person committee of Cuban American leaders who could (and ultimately did) decide to tag it with a disclaimer. But the uneasiness of the whole affair left both the filmmakers and Universal president Ned Tannen wary of a months long Miami shoot. In early September, the choice was made to move most of the production to Los Angeles (at an extra cost of $5 million). Cast and crew would later return to Florida for two weeks of shooting the following April, for scenes that couldn't be recreated on the west coast. Reflecting on the decision to pull out, De Palma later said, "It's difficult enough to make a movie without adding more complications. Afterward, the governor and the mayor were upset, realizing that the company would have provided a lot of jobs in Florida. When we went back (in the spring), there were no problems." There had been threats of violence, he added, but at the time "the company was careful not to let Al and me know about this."




As it happened, most of the location footage could be easily staged in California. The Miami internment camp seen early in the film was reconstructed under the Santa Monica and Harbor freeways, then destroyed for the riot sequence. This required 40 stuntmen and some 600 extras, many of whom spoke only Spanish -- making careful translation a requirement for safety. The proper setting for Tony and Manny's brief stint at a Little Havana sidewalk cafeteria was found in downtown L.A.'s Little Tokyo, with added Spanish storefronts and billboards. Unfortunately, an out-of-season cold front made this scene a little hard on the actors. In Bauer's words: "On the radio, they were talking about the threat to the orange crop. Meanwhile, we were shooting dressed for the tropics." (This explains the heavy coats worn in publicity shots from this set.)

Weather also brought trouble when the company moved to Montecito near Santa Barbara for exterior shots of Tony's Coral Gables mansion, which was actually a 35-acre estate once owned by writer Thomas Mann. Filming of the wordless montage in which Tony and Elvira are married was delayed when the California coast was hit by record-breaking storms. During this time, daily reports were phoned in to L.A., assuring De Palma that the villa and amenities designed by visual consultant Ferdinando Scarfiotti were still intact. Another Montecito home, this one a 32-room Spanish hacienda, stood in for the Bolivian villa of drug lord Alejandro Sosa (Paul Shenar).

In the weeks leading up to the shoot, many meetings were held with all department heads to ensure uniformity of design. Explaining the decision to give SCARFACE a stark, sunlit appearance that distinguished it from previous gangster epics, Alonzo (who'd worked with De Palma a decade earlier on his ill-fated studio debut, GET TO KNOW YOUR RABBIT) recalled the director telling him at the outset, "'Look, if it reads dark, it reads 'film noir,' it's going to be that way. We're going to contradict it, and let the action happen within the frame. If a violent act is going to occur, the surroundings should be bright, not dark.'

"That was a big image for me," said Alonzo. "I immediately started thinking that if there's a murder, if a gun fires, there should be bright lights with great color in the background." Commenting on this, De Palma would later tell author and documentarian Laurent Bouzereau, "I wanted to go in completely the opposite direction (from other such films). I wanted to do kind of a high tech, neon, acrylic, vibrant pastel, instead of your usual dark 'film noir.' Because you looked at South Florida and this was what it was all about -- these guys dressed in white, not black.... It's not all grim death and murder. It's fun. The clubs should be fun, the girls should be fun. You know there's a price to pay for all this, but you've got to show why they're there."

For Scarfiotti (whose already rich career included Bernardo Bertolucci's THE CONFORMIST and LAST TANGO IN PARIS), De Palma's vision made the film's production design easy to determine. As Tony moved up the criminal hierarchy, he said, "there should be a sense of insane wealth. We are among people who amass such incredible sums of cash that they have to keep finding new ways to spend it. It goes on their walls, on the backs of their women and into the playgrounds where they spend their time." Nowhere was this concept more evident than with the set for the Babylon Club, built on one of Hollywood's largest soundstages, with black lacquered tables, an onyx dance floor, ankle deep purple carpeting, erotic Greek statuary, fountains, pink and blue neon lighting, and most memorably -- walls lined by 52 eight-inch by six-foot mirrors.





Alonzo remembers that upon walking onto this set, his first thought was, "Oh my God! Where am I going to put the camera? I'll be seeing myself!" To make the situation even more challenging, he discovered that De Palma would be shooting each take with 2-3 cameras. "I had to check each camera to make sure a mirror was not reflecting itself or the other camera, and that when they were to be destroyed with gunshot, that we weren't going to get an accidental reflection of Brian, myself or anything else." (This, of course, did happen -- as shown in the adjacent photo.)

Fortunately, Scarfiotti had designed the mirrors with gimbals that could be turned or twisted to help avoid such problems; and despite the extra planning, the mirrors allowed for some of the film's most arresting visual imagery. "I could set the mirrors," explained Alonzo, "so you could see five reflections of Al Pacino, and simultaneously see him in the foreground, or hold him in the foreground and introduce reflections of the other actors in the background. This introduced reflections of the characters in the story. Sometimes an actor would sit in one of the booths, and not even the back of his head would be reflected. On purpose, we would reflect dancers or extras walking around the club, as if to say, 'There's nobody here.'"

Glass on the Babylon set also accounted for a tense moment during Tony's attempted assassination, when Pacino emerged from under a table with blood apparently streaming from his nose. Fearing the squibs planted under his armpits had exploded and lacerated his face with broken glass, the crew looked on in relief as he tasted the "blood" and recognized it as a sweetened prop mixture. This sequence required coating the mirrors with clear plastic and mounting the panels on soft, pliable "solitex" boards, so that when plastic pellets were fired into them, the glass would explode without flying out around the principal actors and 300 extras. (However, a real injury did take Pacino off the set for more than a week. While filming the final shootout, the actor grabbed the blazing hot barrel of an M-14 machine gun and was rushed to the hospital with second-degree burns on his left hand.)



Effects work throughout the production was accomplished with a consistent eye toward safety and efficiency, always maintaining authenticity and realism, said Alonzo. Using multiple cameras made it possible to achieve many of the shots in the elaborate action sequences with one take. Another tremendous boost came with the introduction of a "gun synchronizer" developed by effects men Ken Pepiot and Stan Parks. Alonzo explained: "The problem we were having all through the picture is that when we were using the weapons, we'd have an act of fire and the operator would say, 'I'm sorry -- the camera didn't capture the flash. We have to do it again.' And you can see there's a little wear and tear on actors when that happens, because they feel they were performing perfectly, and now they have to do it again because the damn flash didn't show.... The synchronizer prevents the gun from firing unless the camera shutter is open. It's a little cumbersome, because now the actor has another wire coming down his leg, and he can't necessarily fire as fast as he'd like to. It becomes something of a technical problem for the actor, because he has to perform and act in sync with the weapon. But for those shots where it was essential to get the flash, to see the gun fire, it was invaluable."

Patience alone would solve another frustration faced on the set: Pacino's frequent insistence on repeated takes. (Assistant director Ziesmer recalled that as one way to keep the crew occupied during these times, a popular betting pool was started on how often the 'F word' would appear in each day's rushes.) Shouting matches over "creative differences" were said to be erupting throughout the shoot. De Palma would later explain: "A lot of fighting and screaming and jumping up and down did go on, but only because you're trying to say, 'This is the way it's supposed to be.' In the end, that urge makes you do things you didn't think you were capable of."




Conflict rose again after the first cut of the film was screened for Oliver Stone, who'd spent considerable time on the set observing De Palma and, he'd later say, learning much that would help in his own early days as a director. Disappointed by the film as it stood, he drafted a 15-page letter to De Palma and Bregman detailing his objections. This in itself wasn't half as upsetting as the fact that he also shared these concerns with Pacino (despite assurances he wouldn't do so), thus stirring new doubts in the star's mind about the film's success. It would be years before the resulting rift between writer and producer had healed. Stone recalled, "Marty and Brian got really upset because I told Al this stuff. They were afraid he would go crazy on them.... But you have to deal with actors on the cut. You can't run away from them. They figured the less said, the better."

One scene Pacino insisted be retained was the famous "say goodnight to the bad guy" speech before an audience of stunned patrons at a posh restaurant. "I thought the scene was over when his wife left," said De Palma. "The last line in the scene should be 'If she takes a Quaalude, she'll love me again.' Goodbye. Out. Gone. But Al said, 'No, no, no. This is an important scene!' and I said, 'Al! This movie is getting to be four hours long, we've got to cut something out!' But he said, 'No, this is very important to the character.' He just wouldn't let it go." In the end, De Palma conceded it was a good scene and should stay. "Pacino has all sorts of ideas about how things should be done. So do I. We worked it out that he was right about some things and so was I. Collectively we were always right."

What Pacino never questioned was De Palma's mastery of visual storytelling, which would be integral to giving SCARFACE a sense of foreboding drive. "Al's very unaware of the camera when we're shooting," said the director. "When he was watching the rushes, he began to realize that I was doing interesting things with the camera movement, and suddenly said, 'Wow, something's going on there!'"



Tony Montana would be introduced to audiences in just such a way -- through a remarkable 360-degree turn around his anxious face as he's being interrogated by immigration officials, a shot at once visually striking yet perfect in its simple aptness for the moment. "Instead of having a very complicated cinematic opening," De Palma explained, "I wanted to hit the audience with the strongest visual image of the movie. Pacino is one of the few actors who can be photographed from the chin up and totally dominate the screen. I think it's very important to start with a strong image. It sets the formula for the movie right from the beginning. With the erotic shower scene in DRESSED TO KILL, you know you're in for something. It's the same thing with this movie, but now you're dealing with a forceful, violent, totally captivating character."

Another sequence noted for its cinematic virtuosity would of course be the notorious chainsaw murder in which Tony's friend, Angel (Pepe Serna), is tied to a shower curtain rod while his limbs are systematically removed by ruthless Colombian drug dealers -- an act based on the research Stone had conducted into South Florida crime records. "I wanted to establish a level of violence like nobody had ever seen before," said De Palma, "because this is a whole different level of mob interaction, and I wanted to get it over with early in the movie to say, 'This is what it is -- we're in a whole different world here.... But ultimately it was all done with suggestion. I always sort of get penalized because I do this stuff very well and though people think there's a lot of graphic violence, there really isn't. The fact is that we always panned off the saw as it was about to cut into Angel ... and then you saw the blood hitting Tony's face."

But this approach proved to no avail when SCARFACE was presented to its first (and most critical) public audience. Planned for release on December 9 (as Universal's big year-end release for 1983), it was given a preliminary screening by the Motion Picture Association of America's Classification and Ratings Administration (CARA) in late October. The studio was then told that the film veered into "X"-rated territory, and this warning was confirmed the following week when CARA did indeed decide on an "X" for what it termed "cumulative violence." CARA Chairman Richard Heffner claimed that "on the invisible scale that we carry in our heads, we felt SCARFACE deserved something stronger than just an 'R.' The accumulation of violence and language was just too much. We consider ourselves responsible to parents, and we didn't think many parents would cheer us for giving this film an 'R' rating." De Palma and Bregman objected, believing that the real issue at stake was a dislike Heffner held for them both over past rating disputes. In particular, De Palma felt he'd been targeted after a 1980 interview in which he called Heffner a censor for his actions in forcing cuts on DRESSED TO KILL. Heffner himself denied any such vendetta, saying he knew neither Bregman nor De Palma well enough to harbor ill will.



Nevertheless, the impasse persisted over the next week as the film was submitted three more times, each version still receiving the "X," though De Palma had made numerous deletions, including a half-second shot of a severed arm in the chainsaw sequence. "We would fix one part," he said, "and then they would suddenly raise questions about another part they'd never mentioned before. After the fourth submission, I said to Universal, this is crazy. It's hurting the movie aesthetically and commercially. I'm not doing any more cutting."

At this point, Bregman arranged for a November 8 New York appeals hearing before a board of 20 people -- all representing either the National Association of Theater Owners or major and independent distributors. The print screened before the board was to be De Palma's original cut -- which meant that depending on the outcome this version would either be released with an "X" (which Universal flatly refused to do) or recut by someone else to appease CARA. Among those representing the film at the hearing were De Palma, Bregman, Universal distribution chief Bob Rehme and Nick Navarro, a law enforcement official from Broward County, Fla., who had served as a technical advisor before and during the shoot. The final vote, 17-3 in favor of an 'R' rating, ended the process and cleared the way for the film's wide release.

In the end, the experience left De Palma embittered and declaring his intent to continue the fight with his next production, BODY DOUBLE. "Just who are these eight people who watch movies and decide what's right and wrong? What gives them the right?" he wondered in the Philadelphia Inquirer. He was just as fed up, he said, with the studio's general lack of support. "You know what their response always is? 'What's the big deal?' That's exactly what they say, word for word. 'What's the big deal? They want you to cut a scene, so go ahead and cut it.' Can you imagine?"

De Palma would later say that the whole situation, widely covered by the press, brought mainly negative attention to the film, creating an impression that it was unbearably violent. Reports from the New York premiere, where writers Kurt Vonnegut and John Irving were among the early walk-outs, did little to help. The controversy would become very public in the first few weeks of release, as Pacino was confronted about the film's violence during a rare television interview on Good Morning, America and De Palma appeared on shows as varied as Nightline and Entertainment Tonight to debate the subject.

Even some of the director's staunchest supporters in the critical community (including The New Yorker's Pauline Kael) had few kind words, although their objections centered more on the film's character dynamics than its depiction of brutality. It was also claimed that Tony's extravagant cocaine use seemed more cartoonish than tragic -- an accusation De Palma insisted was unfounded. "I've read those reviews," he said, "and I don't think those people know anything about cocaine. A lot of people I know in Hollywood are ex-cocaine addicts. They've come up to me and told me, yeah, it's exactly like that. They've got the piles of cocaine on the tables at parties that are every bit as big as the one Pacino had. The seventies was the era of cocaine; it was an insider's drug. Nobody was into dreaming anymore. They were into moving faster, making more phone calls. It's the perfect capitalist drug."



Ironically, and possibly for reasons quite unexpected by the filmmakers, SCARFACE soon developed an enormous cult following. During the theatrical release, news emerged of young urban audiences coming back for repeat viewings and cheering Tony's hungry rise to fame. This helped make the film a moderate box office hit and -- after it entered the home video market -- one of the most revered pictures of its kind. Commenting on this enduring popularity, Oliver Stone later said: "A lot of young businessmen quote me the dialogue, and when I ask them why they remember it, they say, 'It's exactly like my business.' Apparently, the gangster ethic hit on some of the business ethics going on in this country. SCARFACE has probably got me more free champagne than any film I've ever worked on. I've bumped into Spanish and Jamaican gangsters throughout the Caribbean and South America and gay gangsters in Paris, who bought me champagne all night long. I've even read reports in newspapers where gangsters have modeled themselves on Tony Montana."

In recent years, the film's legacy has seen further growth, most visibly in hip-hop culture. Scenes and dialogue from Stone's script are often liberally referenced in "gangsta rap" songs, a trend that led one artist, Brad Jordan of the Geto Boys, to take on the name Scarface and choose "The World Is Yours" as the title of his second solo album. Cinematic influence has also been significant, with noted directors the Hughes Brothers claiming SCARFACE as a major inspiration. And as De Palma himself points out, Pacino's performance (one of the actor's favorites among his film work), has lived on through imitation by a number of subsequent stars. It may not be a film that everyone has warmed to -- with some De Palma fans remaining among the holdouts. But it's also been said, to quote provincial British critic Alasdair Marshall, that "in fifty years time, when they assess the best fifty movies of the twentieth century, SCARFACE will be on the list." If the staying power shown thus far is any indication, it's clearly on the right track.
 

WestfalenFCB

Aktives Mitglied
Stan-Kowa schrieb:
Was ein großartiges Spiel. :frown:

"Keine Abwehr" spielte gegen "Keinen Sturm".
Wenn es nach mir ginge dürften beide nicht zur WM.
Wenn ich mir vorstelle das womöglich Tschechien oder Frankreich zuhause bleiben muß und diese Schwindsüchtigen dabei sind.......... :suspekt:
Wären wir überhaupt bei der WM dabei, wenn wir uns qualifizieren müssten?

Aber England hat ja gestern gegen Österreich auch kaum was zusammengebracht... hatten sogar Glück. Wenns 1:1 ausgegangen wäre, wärs sogar gerecht gewesen.
 
WestfalenFCB schrieb:
Wären wir überhaupt bei der WM dabei, wenn wir uns qualifizieren müssten?

Aber England hat ja gestern gegen Österreich auch kaum was zusammengebracht... hatten sogar Glück. Wenns 1:1 ausgegangen wäre, wärs sogar gerecht gewesen.


Nee England hat nicht gut gespielt aber 1-1 waere auch nicht gerecht gewesen. England hatte vor allem in der ersten Halbzeit einige Torchancen und dann noch diese "rote" Karte. :lachtot:

Aber egal, sind dabei und alles andere zaehlt ja bekanntlich nicht.


mfg Werdna
 

WestfalenFCB

Aktives Mitglied
Werdna schrieb:
Nee England hat nicht gut gespielt aber 1-1 waere auch nicht gerecht gewesen. England hatte vor allem in der ersten Halbzeit einige Torchancen und dann noch diese "rote" Karte. :lachtot:

Aber egal, sind dabei und alles andere zaehlt ja bekanntlich nicht.


mfg Werdna
Aber nach dem Platzverweis hatten die Österreicher einige gute Chancen die auch hätten drin sein können. Der Lattentreffer z.B.! :zwinker3:
 

Scholli

Fußballgott
Die Engländer spielen z.Z. auch absolut unter Form! Bin am Mittwoch mal gespannt, was sie gegen Polen zustande bringen... :zwinker3:

PS: Übrigens, gleich "zaubert" der Weltmeister! Unbedingt anschauen...
 

WestfalenFCB

Aktives Mitglied
Scholli schrieb:
Die Engländer spielen z.Z. auch absolut unter Form! Bin am Mittwoch mal gespannt, was sie gegen Polen zustande bringen... :zwinker3:

PS: Übrigens, gleich "zaubert" der Weltmeister! Unbedingt anschauen...
Ist schon lange her, dass England unter Smöre-Göran tollen Fussball gespielt hat! :fress:
Polen ist noch eine Nummer stärker als Österreich, da wirds bestimmt nicht leicht sein... :hammer:
 

Vatreni

Hrvatska u srcu!
WestfalenFCB schrieb:
Ist schon lange her, dass England unter Smöre-Göran tollen Fussball gespielt hat! :fress:
Polen ist noch eine Nummer stärker als Österreich, da wirds bestimmt nicht leicht sein... :hammer:
Bloß wird das Spiel inzwischen sowohl den Engländern als auch den Polen scheißegal sein. :floet: Aber stimmt schon, England war in den letzten Spielen alles andere als überzeugend.
 
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