… directed by Howard Hawks. This is for Peter Nellhaus.
It’s a wonderful sequence, spare and violent, ominous and yet elegant – not one shot too many, a perfect mix of mess (the sound of the bowling alley mixed with the crowd with the strange eerie whistling going on over it – the whistle that we now know means some bad shit is going to go down) and clarity. You don’t need to say too much or do too much to create an entire event. Story, story, story. Those old-time movie directors, secret auteurs though they all may have been (and I believe they were), never spoke in terms of art, although they obviously made art. They all talk in terms of STORY. Even down to the philosophy of the closeup, which Howard Hawks was quite eloquent about. There aren’t many closeups in his films. A closeup really meant something back then. Yes, it is the most efficient way to shoot a scene sometimes, but it’s not always the best, in terms of emotion. If you hold your closeups back, and use them sparingly, then they really have some impact. The first closeup of Katharine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby comes almost 20 minutes into the picture. It’s the first closeup of anyone in the picture. Unheard of today, especially for a star of Hepburn’s magnitude. But when it first comes, that shot is meant to be subjective, or, editorial – it almost reads as an aside to the audience, like in the days of Shakespeare. You rarely see that kind of spareness with closeups nowadays, because a lot of film directors come from the television world, which is the world of closeups (and it makes sense there, with the small screen, and the limited format) – but it’s really wonderful to get into the groove of the old pictures, and realize how much they tell, without either banging you over the head with it, or leaving too much to the imagination so that the event becomes murky. In Scarface, Hawks gets it all just right.
Yes, the film is violent in an almost documentary fashion. But Hawks had a lot of fun here, with themes and motifs and symbols. The film is so full of X-es that I eventually stopped looking for them. They are in shadow on the wall, an X on Ann Dvorak’s back made by her dress straps, and more. It’s a motif that works on mutliple levels. It could be a cross (the shadows from the windows), which adds a troubling layer of potential martyrdom and noble suffering to the picture, and to the depiction of Tony. But here’s Hawks to Peter Bogdanovich on all of those X’es:
In the papers, in those days, they’d print pictures of where murders occurred and they always wrote “X marks the spot where the corpse was.” So we used Xs all through the film. When anyone connected with the picture thought up some way of using an X, I’d give him a bonus.
The theme is visible in the props, costumes, lighting design and motif of the film, but not in the dialogue at all. It works on you, as opposed to insisting itself on you.
And here, in the bowling scene, Hawks manages to get an “X” in the middle of the action, hidden, totally in context, so it works on multiple levels. He just bowled a strike. X means strike. But we also know what else it means, and so we know his days (even seconds) are numbered. X is about to mark his corpose. It reminds us of what is really going on. Brilliant.
The Boris-Karloff-bowling scene in Scarface is a masterpiece of storytelling, just in terms of the shots chosen for this short scene. There are about 15 shots all told. That’s all you need. You don’t need to do too much else as a director – at least not if you are confident of the EVENT you are trying to portray.
Gee, thanks. This definitely makes my day, possibly my week or longer.
I am almost absurdly fond of Karloff.
Peter – you’re welcome – and thank you for the idea!
Ken – me too. He’s just great!
Great shot of Karloff smiling. My favorite Karloff trivia: His grandmother’s sister was Anna Leon-Owens, the ‘I’ of “The King and I”.
Doc – Ha! I had no idea! Cool!
Ken – if you are “absurdly fond” of Karloff (love that phrase) – you might want to check out Peter Bogdanovich’s essay about him in his book “Who the Hell’s In It”. He hired Karloff for what was, I believe, Karloff’s last job – and I believe as well it was Bogdanovich’s first directing job. Wonderful essay about the graciousness and hard-working aspect of the man, well worth checking out. Made me love him even more.
I’m with Ken. Karloff was almost indescribably cool. When I was growing up, we had a television station that had All-night ‘thriller’ movies on Saturday night. ANYTHING with Karloff in it was rewarding to watch. I have fond memories of those days. My best friend at the time had a sister one year younger than we were, and she would have friends stay over every Friday or Saturday night. The parents were divorced, so there was no Dad in the house. Oh, the humanity! Those were glorious times.
That Hawks was able to make gold of movies/genres such as âDawn Patrolâ, âScarfaceâ, âOnly Angels Have Wingsâ, âTo Have And Have Notâ, âThe Big Sleepâ, AND âBringing Up Babyâ, âHis Girl Fridayâ, âBall Of Fireâ/âA Song Is Bornâ,âI Was A Male War Brideâ, makes him a genius. Then thereâs my all time Sci-Fi favorite âThe Thingâ (no disrespect to credited director Christian Nyby but that movie has Hawks all over it). Hawks could have made Busby Berkeley musicals or Flaherty documentaries.
Have I been too subtle in my admiration of Howard Hawks?
Boris’ narration of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas just perfect.
Unfortunately, I also have a hard time seeing him without thinking of Martin Landau’s stunning Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood, “Karloff! Karloff! That limey cocksucker isn’t worth the stink off my shit!”
Envy and heroin, not a good combo.
Sheila:
Thanks so much for the link. It was the sort of analysis to make you think that Bogdanovich should write a book called *What They Want to Do and How the Hell They Do It * so you can realize just how much art there is on display and how much care goes into it:
“A line will take us hours maybe;
Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought,
Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.”
— William Butler Yeats, “Adam’s Curse”
Mutecypher’s nod to “Ed Wood” reminds me that my first thought of Karloff is Stephen King’s observation in *Danse Macabre* that Karloff, notwithstanding a few risible roles, essentially ended his career the way he began it: as a gentleman. It’s nice to think that in “Targets” he was the hero for a change, a subduer of monsters instead of a monster (or monster-maker) himself.
Radio, radio: Karloff didn’t get to play Jonathan Brewster in *Arsenic and Old Lace* on film, as he did on stage, but he did portray him in a radio version (no Cary Grant, alas). He’s chilling and comical, or, to use Teddy Brewster’s favorite word, “Bully.”
Mr. Todd insists that I not leave you before noting Karloff’s performance as Uriah Heep in a 1950 radio version of *David Copperfield.* He is so good (and in such good company: a young Richard Burton, fresh from *The Lady’s Not for Burning,* is the adult David, Cyril Ritchard is Mr. Micawber and Flora Robson is Aunt Betsey, among mothers) that you will gladly eat umble pie and eat it with an appetite.
I