Brian De Palma is usually known for big, operatic set pieces, but in Scarface he opens on a simple close-up of Al Pacinoโs face. He later explained why...
"I think the most stunning thing about Al is his face. He's the kind of guy that can hold the screen with his face. When you start a movie, you sort of want to give the lead character a very impressive entrance. And that face, that character, the crazy shirt he's wearing, the scar, the way he moves, the way he talks; you just want to really hit them because you're hitting them with something they've never seen before.
A lot of this had been reported on the news, but nobody had ever seen it in a movie before. You see these Cuban gangsters and the way they talked, the way they moved. And he just sort of embodied that in that close-up."