ALTHOUGH DIRECTOR AUDIARD LOVES DE PALMA'S FILM
Jacques Audiard's A Prophet, which is now playing in cinemas throughout the U.S., swept the César Awards last month, winning best picture, best director, and best actor (Tahar Rahim). The film, about an Arab who rises up in the Mafia while in prison, was also nominated for best foreign film at this year's Oscars. Audiard told the L.A. Times' Chris Lee last month that he wanted A Prophet "to be the anti-Scarface not because I don't like Brian De Palma's Scarface -- I've seen it five times! But there's not much to like about him, and you cannot relate to a character who is all bad." Audiard elaborated on that point last week to Geoff Pevere at the Toronto Star, saying, "Don't get me wrong, I love Brian De Palma's movie and I love the character of Tony Montana. But the reason that I love him is also the reason I wanted to make a very different kind of film. Tony is a character with no interiority at all. He's all surface. Everything you need to know about him is right there. What about a guy about whom you know absolutely nothing? Whose entire character unfolds as you're watching him. That's the challenge that I was interested in. A character like Tony Montana has no ambiguity about him whatsoever. What's interesting to me is a guy about whom we really know nothing, except for a few hints like scars that appear on his back, but whom we follow as he does things we may not approve of or even understand. We watch him becoming a person. That was the kind of character I wanted to create. And to watch."