LISTEN TO ELVIS MITCHELL'S 18-MINUTE CHAT WITH KENNY ABOUT HIS RECENT BOOK
"De Palma is a guy who does a lot of radical things with form, and has a lot of interesting and very radical perspectives on things," Glenn Kenny tells Elvis Mitchell during a recent discussion for Mitchell's podcast The Treatment. "And his body of work is so varied, and encompasses a lot in terms of politics: sexual politics, American politics, world geo politics. And one of the things about Scarface that’s interesting is, De Palma will talk about it as having been a work that was brought to him, that wasn’t his idea. And that, too, is a part of it. The idea of what he brings to the table when he’s doing a work-for-hire thing, which, as he laid out for me, is something that he believes is the duty of a professional film director, is to do not just the projects that he determines he wants to do, but also to do things to keep his hand in as a movie industry professional. Which is interesting. You know, I certainly don’t think that Scorsese feels that need. And two of his other good friends from the industry, Lucas and Spielberg, are almost attached to the marketplace in a way, so they don’t have that problem. And then Coppola, as we see, is in constant engagement/disengagement battle, etc., from the marketplace. But as De Palma – who may be working on a new film now, which would be a great, great thing – but it was De Palma who made explicit the idea, like, not so simplistic as one-for-me, one-for-them, which is the truism that a lot of lazy critics attach to independent filmmakers, but maintaining a position within the industry that keeps your viability there. Which Scarface didn’t necessarily turn out to be, because of the way it went over budget and made a lot of people very uncomfortable during the actual production, but that was the initial idea for De Palma, in any event."
In the full 18-minute discussion, centered around Kenny's book, The World is Yours: The Story of ‘Scarface’, Mitchell tells Kenny that he appreciates the way that the people involved in the making of Scarface really seemed to open up to him in a new way, because Kenny approached them as artists, asking them to discuss their connection to the art of the film. Kenny discusses how it took a long time to get Michelle Pfeiffer to agree to be interviewed for the book, and how her perspective on things really surprised him. Mitchell also notes how Kenny writes about the physicality of Pacino's performances as Tony Montana and Carlito Brigante, etc., and how Kenny makes the case for De Palma as an actor's director. Listen to the conversation in full by clicking the image above.