Stage and Screen: Pacino: An Actor’s Vision

Stage and Screen: Pacino: An Actor’s Vision

By Matt Zoller Seitz on June 28, 2007 in Film Jump to Comments (0)

Though far from perfect, the films are revealing, because they suggest that Pacino, who started out on the New York stage, is still a theater artist at heart-—a fact apparent not just in his choice of material (and in his often grandiose acting), but in his direction, which manages to be at once cinematic and stagy; all three movies boast odd images, edits and effects that catch the viewer off guard.
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Dare I say it, I think Stigmatic is something of a masterpiece. I didn't find the Cockney accents distracting at all and I think they fit the context quite well. The language/slang is meant to appear otherworldly. Indeed we're not supposed to even understand much of the discussions as they are based on talks the characters have had in the past. We're eavesdroppers.

Pacino is pretty mesmerizing in this piece - his use of his body is a master class in and of itself - threatening by posture, intimidating by rocking back and forth like a cat about to pounce.

Liked "Chinese Coffee" too. Quite good. Orbach and him are in complete sync.

Unlike some I almost never find Pacino hammy or over the top. I just think he likes those kinds of big characters and he plays them with gusto. Love him in "Heat" - that's holding the screen, not chewing the scenery. I think where others see overacting I just see a remarkable vividness.

In this day and age where anybody can be "in movies", he's the welcome reminder that acting is/can be an Art form.

He's still great : "Insomnia", "Angels in America", "Merchant of Venice" .......
Posted by paul k. on 2007-07-07 01:37:00 I completely agree with what Matt Zoller Seitz says about pacino's acting-style and his "saving" mediocre films. Even his "imprecise shouting and mugging" in HEAT makes sense to me, when I take into account that his character is supposed to be a cokehead (as pacino explains on the DVD and in some interviews; but the scenes where you see him snort the coke were, as he says, cut from the film...).
Can't wait to see what he does with DALI...(and I would have loved to see him as John McClane, a part he turned down...)
Posted by kai on 2007-06-29 11:52:00 Regarding the whole issue of the Cockney accents, I guess i'd be more forgiving if I could think of a single reason for their adoption. It's not as if the whole English milieux plays a big part in the film--in fact, one of my concerns with the film is just that; there isn't really any reality to the context. Unlike, say in A Clockwork Orange, which this clearly evokes with the bit of old ultra-violence, and where there is a definite importance placed upon the socio-economic and political context. These guys could be two nihilistic working class stiffs from just about anywhere in the western world, so why bother with the phony accents(which, I'll grant, are a step up from Dick Van Dyke-land, but shit, my daughter could do a better Cockney accent than Rob Petrie)?
Posted by Dan Jardine on 2007-06-28 20:43:00 KJ -- Actually, I didn't mean "grandiose" as a rap, necessarily. Certainly Pacino (like Brando) often "saves" mediocre films by messing around with his performance to give you at least something to fixate on and argue about. ("The Recruit" is a pretty good movie with an absolutely terrific, hammy, but complicated Pacino backup part, and I love Al's shouting and speechifying in "The Devil's Advocate.") Pacino has even said in interviews that big isn't necessarily bad, and that invisible acting can be boring. I guess what I mean is, that's a theatrical attitude toward the craft that's more in line with old movies than contemporary ones. Orson Welles was a big actor (no jokes, please) and Brando could be, too, but grand and stylized isn't necessarily bad. (Although I think it is in Michael Mann's otherwise cool and controlled "Heat," where Pacino's shouting and mugging seem out-of-place, and imprecise -- to me, at least. But I know that performance has big defenders, Sean Burns being among them.)

I also disagree about Pacino and Guilfoyle's cockney accents being distracting. They took some getting used to, but I got used to them, and "The Local Stigmatic" has an undertone of dread that sort of clings to the viewer like an evil spirit. I like it a lot.

As for Pacino vs. Wheeler as the "real" director of "Stigmatic," I think Pacino's devotion to the film (for 14 years between initial conception and completion, during which time he paid for all of it himself and supervised endless editing and re-editing) I'd give Pacino more credit than Wheeler. Plus, there are tonal and visual consistencies between "Stigmatic," "Chinese Coffee" and "Looking for Richard" that point to a Pacino sensibility guiding all three.
Posted by Matt Zoller Seitz on 2007-06-28 19:46:00 Grandiose acting? Meh, perhaps. Watching Al work on material that is less than stellar is instructive. Seeing how he provides the missing color, shape, and texture. It had better be on the page, cause Al will walk with it, otherwise. Kind of like what would happen if one were to hand Ornette Coleman a Kenny G. "composition" and ask him to interpret it.

After Chris Walken there's no one else who gives such peculiar and fascinating line readings. Both these guys are pregnant with the most tumultuous inner life. And for sure you could never accuse Al of phoning work in, unlike some of his collegues.

I'd love to see Al and Abel in the mix. That would be pure dope. I'd happily give up movies for a long time if I could get that one thing.
Posted by KJ on 2007-06-28 13:58:00 Stigmatic is credited to Wheeler and Pacino, but I suspect most of Pacino's directing was done from the actor's chair, not the director's. From everything he says on these discs, directing really isn't for him; he only does it out of necessity, when there's no one else around to get the job done. And while I quite love Looking for Richard and enjoyed Chinese Coffee, neither was as a direct result of the directing. The former appears to have been elevated to level of art by the editor, while the latter stands out because of the performances of Pacino and Orbach.
Posted by Dan Jardine on 2007-06-28 12:57:00 Hmmm, wasn't LOCAL STIGMATIC directed by David Wheeler?? As far as I remember, Pacino himself states in an interview with Larry Grobel (to be found in Grobels book) that he did *not* direct STIGMATIC...(so the critics calling RICHARTD his directorial debut where actually right...)
Posted by kai on 2007-06-28 11:03:00 Matt, I just finished watching this set (shameless plug: and reviewing it for Apollo Guide) and I found it a bit of a mixed bag. I loved Looking for Richard, but of course that one's been in circulation in one form or another for a decade or more, and not such a mystery to cinephiles. It's the other two films in this set, The Local Stigmata and Chinese Coffee, that Pacino fans will be lining up to see, and while I appreciate the anger and alienation that pours out of the former, it is the clash of artistic temperaments in the latter that I found much more compelling. Stigmatic just feels a bit too contrived (the characters are so unpleasant as to tax even a misanthrope's patience) and clearly stage-bound. Plus, what can I say? Pacino and Guilfoyle sporting working class English accents, it just kept pulling me out of the film. On the other hand, I could easily identify with the struggle of the failing artists and their clash of wills in Chinese Coffee, and I felt the performances of Orbach and Pacino were spot-on. After witnessing some of his more histrionic (verging on self-parody) performances in Hollywood movies of the past ten or fifteen years, it's nice to see Pacino putting in an honest's days work.
Posted by Dan Jardine on 2007-06-28 06:14:00

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