He makes drunken scenes at his favorite nightclubs, and not only gets high on his own supply, but gets so nose deep in it he develops godlike delusions of superheroic grandeur. Sure, he has an occasional glass or red wine, and possibly some Sambuca with his espresso, but Michael always keeps a clear head. Michael is diabetic, and is usually seen drinking water in The Godfather films. Pacino remains on an even keel in the Godfather films, but gives a tour de force of violent expression in Scarface, which burns like white heat. Pacino’s two gangster icons approached their criminality differently, and Pacino gets to play in both yards. This is because Pacino is miles removed here from Bogart, who played Bergman’s lover in Casablanca. In The Godfather, Kay Adams (Diane Keaton) asks Michael if he’d prefer Ingrid Bergman. Montana comes from the Cagney tradition of broad gangster characterizations. He learned to speak English by watching James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart. It is a brilliant overplay, especially when compared to another scene that resembles The Godfather, with Tony killing a mid-level gangster and a crooked cop towards the end of Scarface.Ī major difference between the two roles is best summed up in a line Tony says in Scarface. Tony covers the sounds of his own attack with a chant he himself begins. Tony barely lets Rebenga get a whimper in during his first onscreen hit, which plays closer to an execution. When Michael is sitting at the dinner table with Sollozzo and Police Captain McCluskey (Sterling Hayden), he lets Sollozzo do all the talking, easing him into comfort before pulling the trigger. The two scenes are polar opposites in all ways but suspense. Scarface doesn’t give us many details of the crimes Tony was involved in while still in Cuba, so he makes his cinematic bones executing General Emilio Rebenga in the American detention camp for Cuban refugees. Castellano) before he goes out to enjoy the veal. Michael gets assassination training from his father’s most trusted capo, Pete Clemenza (Richard S. And every soldier has to go through basic training before they’re ready to earn their button. In mafia organizations, real and cinematic, the button men on the street are called soldiers. Pacino brings little of the wisdom of his Godfather role to Scarface’s title character. Tony Montana owns the screen from the moment it opens until his last splash in the fountain under the “World Is Yours” sign. Michael isn’t the focus of an entire film until The Godfather, Part III, and by then folks were only distracted by his daughter. While Michael inherits the position by The Godfather, Part II, he shares Godfather roles with Robert De Niro there, and people come away feeling a little sorry for Fredo. The Godfather is a mob movie, crowded with top rate talent in an ensemble case, but it belongs to Marlon Brando. The whole movie is about Tony Montana and his meteoric rise through money, power and women. Montana leaves a larger body count in the wake of his cocaine empire career. Gallo stand-in Virgil “The Turk” Sollozzo (Al Lettieri) did a lot of damage while he was trying to muscle in on Don Vito Corleone’s territory, selling white powder. Montana is a hungry, young, loose cannon, just like real-life’s “Crazy” Joe Gallo, who went up against the Profaci family in the street fight which Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola used as inspiration on The Godfather. Tony Montana doesn’t live to see the fruits of his labor, but his career in crime is littered with the successes of excess. The obvious answer would seem to be Michael Corleone because he turned a criminal empire into a multi-billion-dollar international business, and lived to a ripe old age to regret it. Both roles are smorgasbords of possibilities to an actor, especially one who chased Richard III to every imaginable outcome. Tony was a shooting star on the other hand, one on a collision course with an unyielding atmosphere. But in The Godfather, at least, he grows into the establishment. Possibly right before they rumble.Īl Pacino played both men in both movies, and in each film, he begins the story as a punk.
The Who’s anthem was a musical allegory about the rock scene, but the lyrics might as well be interpreted as a conversation between Michael Corleone and Tony Montana. Scarface hadn’t been made when Pete Townshend’s 1974 song “ The Punk and the Godfather” came out, but The Godfather certainly had.
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