Pacino in Panic

As Al Pacino turns 70 it seems only right to reflect on a career that has spanned five decades and involved some of Hollywood’s and Broadways finest performances.

Pacino possesses a catalogue of movie classics, of memorable performances, an inexhaustible list of movie quotes and an unflinching secret desire by almost all men to be, just like him.

Out of these feature-length greats comes a movie that is often overlooked, a cinematic second thought; Pacino’s first foray as a leading man Hollywood as Bobby, in Lee Shatzberg’s Panic In Needle Park (1971).

Set in New York’s Sherman Square, we follow the squalid lives of two lost souls in love. Pacino plays Bobby, a tragic, yet rather charismatic heroin addict who engages in petty theft to feed his habit. Bobby meets Helen (Kitty Winn) a frustratingly lost and naive woman who falls for the charms of Bobby. Although initially clean, we follow Helen’s decent into the harrowing world of drug addiction where all concepts of right, truth, dignity and integrity drain away like the colour in their faces, and the hopes and dreams of their youth. Their romance is tangled in a web of addiction, betrayal and prostitution, all in the name of the obsessive chasing of the next fix.

Panic isn’t an enjoyable film; it hasn’t the gags that other drug themed pieces have such as Trainspotting, and it hasn’t the atmospheric and reflective aura of other tragic movies. Panic is in fact an onslaught; it is an assault upon the emotions of its audience, that doesn’t so much shock them with bouts of excellence, but more of a continual grind that leaves its audience exhausted, unsettled, and then a little later, contemplative.

The directorship of Lee Shatzberg (who would again direct Pacino in Scarecrow with Gene Hackman) explains the ethos of a film that is truly pioneering. Panic uses no soundtrack, just the real life noises of the city and the pains of its people- it gives it a realism that is unrivalled. As well as this it has a real-life documentary feel, with wobbly camera footage to boot, which would make Jamie Oliver’s production team jealous.

Panic isn’t scared of shocking – in fact it thrives on it, in a matter of fact type of way. The picture used actual scenes of drug injection- thought to be the first of its time. These are close-up, gruelling shots that aren’t for the faint hearted.

Pacino made his bones with Panic; a movie that was pivotal in his meteoric rise and that is as relevant today as it was back then.

Panic set the tone for Al Pacino’s cinematic journey – it was a signal of intent from a man who wouldn’t be afraid to shock, of taking on difficult subject matter and running with it. The film lit the spark to a Hollywood rocket. It was Pacino’s performance as Bobby that impressed Coppola so much that led to his role as Michael Corleone in Godfather.

Pacino became a made-man through The Godfather, but it was Panic in Needle Park that injected the ambition into this Hollywood great.

Rupert J Conway