Film Frontier the Making of "Scarface"

by David Taylor

Excellent Book

Genres: Nonfiction

Paperback

Published January 1, 2006

About the author

There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads data base.

For the veterinarian, please see David Taylor

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

The film in question is the Brian DePalma version (released in 1983), but the book scores points by providing a thorough history of the Scarface mythos before it gets anywhere near Martin Bregman deciding the remake was due. In a sprawling account, it takes in everything from Al Capoine, the original novel by Maurice Coons (though he’s later identified as Armitage Trail, which doesn’t make sense), the 1932 Howard Hawks film and beyond and highlights little nuggets (“The World Is Yours”) that are re-used in the Oliver Stone-written version. The remake is covered from the very beginning of the process, right through to the DVD release in 2004 (the book was published in 2005) and clearly has a lot of information behind the film, though it’s often used sparingly (ie, the editing process runs for six months but very little is discussed about it). Providing background to key decisions and putting the events of the film - both in front of and behind the camera - into historical context, this is a great read and runs at a good pace all the way through. Never boring - though I’d have preferred more detail in places - this is a great read for those interested in behind the scenes stories and features interesting codas - what happened to key cast and crew afterwards and general trivia. Highly recommended.

[David Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nothing spectacularly insightful, but a good companion to the film. Runs pretty chronological, starting with the original Hughes/Hawkes Scarface before introducing all the main players and where they were at that time in their career. Concept, production then distribution are covered, the negative reception that quickly turned to cult status. A unique story for a very unique picture.

[Tedi31 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Printed in France in 2005, The Making of Scarface is part of a Film Frontier series that focuses on a number of “classic” cinematic pieces: Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and The Great Rock n’ Roll Swindle (none of which, aside from Scarface (1983), that I have had the pleasure of watching, so I can’t really consider them to be classics. But if these books were somewhat written remotely close to Taylor’s work, then they must have been pretty good films).

The Making of Scarface (2005) is not readily available in the U.S. and Amazon.com third-party sellers are selling this book for a hefty $45.

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