Scarface (1983 film) to leave the antihero floating face down in a literal bloodbath." The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes offers a contemporary interpretation of the film's reception, providing an 81% approval rating from 68 critics – an average rating of 7.4/10 – with the following consensus: "Director Brian De Palma and star Al Pacino take it to the limit in this stylized, ultra-violent and eminently quotable gangster epic that walks a thin white line between moral drama and celebratory excess." Metacritic gives it an average score of 65/100. "Scarface" was released theatrically in North America on December 9, 1983. The film earned
Brian De Palma in 1963 but remained unreleased until 1969, when De Palma's star had risen sufficiently within the Greenwich Village filmmaking scene. De Niro was unknown at the time; the credits mistakenly display his name as "Robert ." The film is noteworthy for its invocation of silent film techniques and an insistence on the jump-cut for effect. De Palma followed this style with various small films for the NAACP and The Treasury Department. During the 1960s, De Palma began making a living producing documentary films, notably "The Responsive Eye", a 1966 movie about "The Responsive Eye" op-art exhibit curated by William Seitz