On April 25, the actor Al Pacino turned 80. With a 50-year odyssey in the cinema and on the stage, Al Pacino remains one of America’s finest actors. While his career has taken him to Hollywood stardom, he has always been an exemplar representative for the craft of acting.
Al Pacino has discussed his beginnings and early approach to his life in art. Growing up in New York City, Al Pacino dropped out of a performing arts high school and moved to Greenwich Village to pursue acting. After studio study and theater work he joined the Actors Studio. Pacino would find mentors during this formative period, both Lee Strasberg, who would play Hyman Roth alongside Pacino’s Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part II, and Charlie Laughton. Honing his craft in theater (winning a Tony in 1969) and film, his big break came when Francis Ford Coppola—at the behest of the studio, even during production—cast him as Michael Corleone in 1972’s The Godfather.
The earliest part of Pacino’s journey, in the years between 1959 and 1972, represent a commitment to acting that was self-directed and genuine. As Pacino explains,
“When I was a young actor in my twenties, someone talked about a career, and I didn’t know what they meant by that. I didn’t know what a career was. In the Village, in the café theaters there, we were doing plays of 16 performances a week. We would pass the basket. That’s how we lived. That’s how we’d eat … maybe I was doing crazy stuff, but I wasn’t thinking about a risk or anything else. I was just doing it.”
The Godfather happened to change that, but he was no-less committed to the artistic expression afforded by his vocation. Pacino continues,
“I did Richard III in Boston when I was young in my early thirties. I had just become well known; The Godfather [1972] came out. Talk about getting blasted out of a cannon. Life changed in a big way. You know, that happens sometimes, and it did then. So there I was in Boston and went back to the stage, because I felt comfort there. [I had been] living in a life of what happens when you get famous.”
The 1970s, of course, became perhaps the most prolific decade of Pacino’s career. Beyond The Godfather and its exquisite sequel, Pacino starred in renowned films such as Dog Day Afternoon and Serpico. In the former, paired with his friend, the late John Cazale, Pacino shows an understated capacity for vivacious expression that would help animate some of his later roles.
A New York Times article from 1977 captures Pacino’s spirit, profiling a young man who could switch been introversion and extroversion, deals with the difficulties of fame while not necessarily despising it, and is, as always, wholly committed to his craft.
Pacino’s career continued into the 1980s; while this time period was not as fruitful as others for the actor, his iconic performance as Tony Montana in Brian De Palma’s Scarface encapsulates the feel and direction of Hollywood in 1980s.
His late-career spark in 1990s has been my personal favorite phase of his work, the 1970s notwithstanding. With films such as Glengarry Glen Ross, Scent of a Woman, and Michael Mann’s Heat and The Insider, Pacino showcases a range of dramatic reach, commercial appeal, and unique characterizations. Al Pacino makes the 147 minutes of Donnie Brasco, for instance, feel like a quick, entertaining conversation with your favorite charming relative—who may or may not be involved in organized crime—that you think about for the rest of the day.
While his filmic career was more action-focused and less dramatically diverse into the 2000s—notwithstanding some noteworthy standouts, such as Christopher Nolan’s Insomnia—he evolved into acting’s elder-statesman and resumed theater work, finding roles in Shakespeare and as Shelley Levene (Jack Lemmon in the film to Pacino’s Ricky Roma) in a new run of Glengarry Glen Ross. With performance, Pacino says, “there are more demands put on you when it is on the stage.”
In addition to his memorable appearance in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, Al Pacino had a brilliant 2019 with his role as Jimmy Hoffa in The Irishman. While De Niro’s performance fit the quiet hallowing of Frank Sheeran, Pacino’s Hoffa colored the film, brought the audience into its historical context, and showed yet again Pacino’s ability to seamlessly embody a complete individual. His Hoffa’s inability to let go of pride—sometimes comic, but, ultimately, the character’s downfall—provides a subtle and complementary thematic body to The Irishman.
Reflecting on Al Pacino’s career, I cannot help but think of his performance in The Godfather films as epitomizing his talent. One of the film’s most compelling aspects, of its many brilliant ones, is the gradual descent of Michael Corleone from a nice “college boy” to the dispassionate head of the family. The transition happens slowly over the two films, and, given Michael’s quiet nature, occurs through glances and gestures, progressing through acts of brutality that his deputies carry out under his command.
My favorite moment is the final scene of the sequel, where, after the completion of Michael Corelone’s ascension, Coppola cuts to a scene that takes place before the timeline of the first film.
At the dining room table before Vito’s birthday, the characters of the family—here before their various future fates—fill the scene with a sense of innocence and play. Michael informs the group that he’s joined the army, sparking Sonny’s rage. The scuffle is interrupted by the arrival of Vito. The group leaves; Michael remains, alone.
After dissolving back to a shot of De Niro’s Vito occurring decades before, the film ends by transitioning back and pushing the camera in on present-day Michael. Still seated alone, he is now outside on his vast property, with nothing but his own isolation. Closing out perhaps the best two-entry film series in cinematic history, Al Pacino’s wordless performance tells the whole story of the Corleone saga.
On casting Al Pacino, Francis Ford Coppola said,
“We were ready to go into production before we found our Michael Corleone. The studio guys wanted Jimmy Caan to play him. I love Jimmy, but I felt he’d be wrong for Michael—and perfect for Sonny. Other people suggested Robert Redford, Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, Ryan O’Neal. But all I could see was Al Pacino’s face in that camera. I couldn’t get him out of my head.”
Happy 80th to Al Pacino, one of America’s most brilliant actors.
- JG