50-Minute Documentary on LEE STRASBERG: 'The Method Man' (1997) (Mei 2024)
Al Pacino, voluit Alfredo James Pacino, (geboren 25 april 1940, New York, New York, VS), Amerikaanse acteur vooral bekend om zijn intense, explosieve acteerstijl.
Quiz
Al Pacino
In welke film verscheen Al Pacino?
Vroege carriere
Na opgegroeid te zijn in East Harlem and the Bronx, verhuisde Pacino op 19-jarige leeftijd naar Greenwich Village, waar hij acteren studeerde aan de Herbert Berghof Studio en verscheen in vele Off-Broadway- en out-of-town-producties, waaronder Hello, Out There (1963)) en Why Is a Crooked Letter (1966). Hij volgde acteerlessen van Lee Strasberg en speelde een kleine rol in de film Me, Natalie in 1969. In hetzelfde jaar maakte hij zijn Broadway-debuut en won hij een Tony Award voor zijn optreden in het toneelstuk Does the Tiger Wear a Necktie? Pacino's eerste hoofdrol in een film kwam met The Panic in Needle Park (1971), een grimmig verhaal over heroïneverslaving dat een soort cultklassieker werd.
Stardom: The Godfather, Serpico en Scarface
Director Francis Ford Coppola cast Pacino in the film that would make him a star, The Godfather (1972). The saga of a family of gangsters and their fight to maintain power in changing times, The Godfather was a wildly popular film that won the Academy Award for best picture and earned Pacino numerous accolades—including his first of many Oscar nominations—for his intense performance as Michael Corleone, a gangster’s son who reluctantly takes over the “family business.” Pacino solidified his standing as one of Hollywood’s most dynamic stars in his next few films. In Scarecrow (1973), he teamed with Gene Hackman in a bittersweet story about two transients, and his roles in Serpico (1973) and Dog Day Afternoon (1975) displayed Pacino’s characteristic screen qualities of brooding seriousness and explosive rage. He also repeated the role of Michael Corleone for Coppola’s The Godfather, Part II (1974), a film that, like its predecessor, won the best picture Oscar.
De volgende paar films van Pacino deden het niet zo goed. Bobby Deerfield (1977) was opmerkelijk als zijn eerste kassafout sinds hij een ster was geworden. De donkere komedie
En Justice for All (1979) bevatte enkele van Pacino's meest memorabele scènes, maar Cruising (1980) en de lichte komedie Auteur! Auteur! (1982) waren kritieke en populaire rampen.
In Scarface (1983) van Brian De Palma keerde Pacino terug naar het soort brandbare, intensieve rol die hem beroemd had gemaakt. Als gangster Tony Montana gaf Pacino een zeer geladen, ongebreidelde uitvoering die, hoewel hij door sommigen geliefd is en door anderen wordt betreurd, tot zijn meest onvergetelijke behoort. Zijn volgende film, Revolution (1985), was een dure flop en Pacino verscheen vier jaar lang niet in een andere film.
Academy Award en latere films
Sea of Love (1989), his biggest hit in years, reestablished Pacino as a major film star. In 1990 he reprised the role of Michael Corleone in The Godfather, Part III and gave a hilarious portrayal of grotesque gangster Big Boy Caprice in Dick Tracy. Frankie and Johnny (1991) and Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), both adaptations of plays, continued his string of well-received films, and he won a best actor Oscar for his portrayal of a bitter blind man in Scent of a Woman (1992). Pacino’s other notable films of the 1990s included Carlito’s Way (1993); Heat (1995), a crime drama in which he played a detective hunting a thief (Robert De Niro); Donnie Brasco (1997), in which he starred as a low-level mobster who unknowingly befriends an FBI agent (Johnny Depp); and Oliver Stone’s Any Given Sunday (1999). Also in 1999 Pacino appeared opposite Russell Crowe in The Insider; based on real-life events, it examines tobacco companies and their efforts to conceal the dangerous side effects of cigarettes.
Pacino's productieve acteercarrière ging door tot in de 21e eeuw. In 2002 speelde hij met Robin Williams in de thriller Insomnia en later verscheen hij in Ocean's Thirteen (2007), het laatste deel van een populaire komische trilogie met George Clooney en Brad Pitt. Na zijn publieke personage te hebben verdraaid met een rol als zichzelf in de Adam Sandler-komedie Jack and Jill (2011), speelde Pacino een verouderde gangster in Stand Up Guys (2012). Hij getuigde van het isolement van een slotenmaker in een kleine stad in Manglehorn (2014) en de openbaring van een rockster in Danny Collins (2015). Na een reeks rollen in onopvallende films, sloot Pacino zich aan bij een cast van kleurrijke personages in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time
in Hollywood (2019). He then costarred with De Niro in The Irishman (2019), his first film with director Martin Scorsese. In the mob drama, which received a theatrical release before airing on Netflix, Pacino played labour leader Jimmy Hoffa, whose disappearance in 1975 caused much speculation. For his performance, Pacino earned his 10th Oscar nomination.
TV and stage work
In between his big-screen work, Pacino appeared in several television productions for HBO. For his role as homophobic lawyer Roy Cohn in Angels in America (2003), an adaptation of Tony Kushner’s two-part play about AIDS in the 1980s, he won an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award. His performance as Jack Kevorkian, a doctor who assisted in the suicide of terminally ill patients, in the movie You Don’t Know Jack (2010) earned him the same awards. He later starred as another controversial figure in David Mamet’s Phil Spector (2013), which was set during the embattled record producer’s first trial for murder. In Paterno (2018) Pacino played legendary Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, whose reputation was tarnished by a sex-abuse scandal that occurred during his tenure. In the Amazon series Hunters (2020–), he portrayed a Holocaust survivor who leads a group of people searching for Nazis in the 1970s.
Pacino frequently returned to the stage throughout his career, notably winning a Tony Award for his leading role in The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel (1977). He also starred in such plays as William Shakespeare’s Richard III (1973 and 1979), Julius Caesar (1988), and The Merchant of Venice (2010); Mamet’s American Buffalo (1980, 1981, and 1983) and Glengarry Glen Ross (2012); and Oscar Wilde’s Salomé (1992, 2003, and 2006). In 1992 Pacino originated the role of Harry Levine, a washed-up writer who is depressed about his lack of success, in the Broadway drama Chinese Coffee; he later directed and starred in a 2000 film adaptation. He also directed the documentary films Looking for Richard (1996) and Wilde Salomé (2011), which offered behind-the-scenes looks at two of his stage productions.
In 2001 Pacino received the Cecil B. DeMille Award (a Golden Globe for lifetime achievement). His other awards included the National Medal of Arts (2011) and a Kennedy Center Honor (2016).
