De Palma's Carlito's Way: Analyzing Narrative Deception and Suspense

The Unreliability of Carlito as an Omniscient Narrator in "Carlito's Way"

Carlito's Way (Brian De Palma, 1993) is a crime film that tells the story of Carlito Brigante (Al Pacino), a Puerto Rican criminal who desperately wants to escape the world that led to his incarceration. The purpose of this analysis is to examine Carlito's role as the narrator in the film and how his unreliability affects the audience. We will analyze his narrative function both in a specific scene and in the movie as a whole, explaining how this narration is used to create suspense and mislead the spectator.

Analyzing the First Narrative Intervention

To analyze this phenomenon, we focus on the first narrative intervention of the film. This is the moment when we first see Carlito, lying on a stretcher at the train station after being shot. This is a key moment, as the audience receives a significant amount of information in just a few minutes. Carlito, the main character, is presented via a flashback while the narrator recounts the events that have transpired.

Carlito functions as a complex narrator:

• He is internal, as he is a character within the film.
• He is omniscient, because he knows everything that has happened.
• He is external to the story-time, because he recounts the events after they have taken place, narrating from the future.

Despite his omniscient status, the narrator is ultimately unreliable because he deliberately withholds or distorts the truth.

Manipulation and Subjectivity

The movie is self-conscious, and the narrator addresses the audience directly, establishing a close relationship between Carlito and the viewers. In this scene, the action is presented from Carlito's point of view (POV), which intensifies his personal perspective and subjectivity. This subjectivity is used as a manipulative device.

The narration serves two primary functions:

1. To provide necessary context and background.
2. To mislead the audience and maintain suspense by not disclosing all the information.

The opening scene acts as a spoiler, revealing that Carlito is shot and dies. However, the narrator's unreliability changes how the audience processes this information. If the spectator trusts the narrator, they watch the film differently than if they doubt him. The use of the unreliable narrator ultimately heightens the surprise when he is shot just before entering the train.

Impact on Audience Expectation

Different types of film narration serve various purposes and significantly influence the spectator's reaction. In Carlito's Way, the narrator implies that Carlito will survive or achieve his goals. This implication has a profound impact on the movie as a whole, particularly the ending. Because the audience expects Carlito to achieve his goals and leave with Gail, his failure results in a powerful feeling of surprise and sadness.