Serpico (1973)

          Serpicooccupies such a significant place in film history that it’s difficult to discuss the film without reaching for superlatives so grandiose they lack real meaning. Among other things, Serpicois one of the greatest police movies ever made, Al Pacino’s leading performance stands among the finest accomplishments in ’70s screen acting, and Sidney Lumet’s meticulous direction demonstrates why every other subsequent filmmaker telling a New York-based crime story owes him a huge stylistic debt. Furthermore, the story—which was drawn from a famous real-life saga—perfectly encapsulates the ambivalent attitude Americans had toward cops and criminals in the ’70s. The fact that Serpico is essential cinema on myriad levels creates a challenge when trying to articulate its strengths and weaknesses—the strengths are familiar to most movie fans because the picture has been seen so widely, and the weaknesses don’t matter all that much. Nonetheless, any survey of ’70s cinema is absurdly incomplete without Serpico, so here goes.

          Pacino, in the full bloom of his early-’70s breakout period, brings all of his intellectualized Method intensity to the role of Frank Serpico, a real-life NYPD detective who became a controversial figure by testifying publicly about widespread police corruption; this adaptation of Peter Maas’ best-selling book portrays the hero as an everyman with high principles who finds it harder and harder to survive in an environment rife with officially sanctioned illegality. The picture begins with Serpico’s early days as a uniformed beat cop, when he alienates coworkers by refusing to accept protection money and by refusing to pinch cash that’s taken from crooks. As Serpico’s career continues, he evolves into a longhaired detective adept at undercover work, earning a steady stream of commendations and promotions for his bravery and investigative skill. Alas, Serpico’s rise coincides with a cancerous spread of police corruption, so his unwillingness to play dirty provokes widespread enmity. This culminates with a showdown that the real Serpico claims was an assassination attempt engineered by bad cops who were afraid that Serpico was going to blow the lid on corruption. And, indeed, the finale of the story, as in real life, is Serpico’s public testimony.

          The narrative is fantastically interesting from start to finish, and Pacino’s investment in his work is unquestionable—he’s a live wire in every scene. By the time the actor fidgets and struts through undercover scenes while he’s hidden behind long hair, a shaggy beard, and a floppy hat, his performance has reached the level of incarnation, because the emotional and physical reality Pacino creates by occupying space in a naturalistic way is utterly persuasive. Furthermore, Lumet captures the gritty rhythms of New York life so perfectly that much of Serpicofeels like a documentary. If there’s a noteworthy flaw to Serpico, it’s that Lumet and Pacino focus too closely on the details of the main character’s journey through the shadowy world of the NYPD. With the movie covering such a large stretch of time and including so many incidents, supporting characters inevitably seem incidental and interchangeable. As noted earlier, however, criticizing Serpico is a fool’s game, because one could easily counter-argue that the personal nature of Serpico is exactly what makes the film uniquely powerful. (After all, the story’s about one man against the world.) FYI, the movie’s success inspired a short-lived 1976-1977 TV series starring David Birney, though the deeper influence of Serpico can be seen in countless subsequent movies that attempted, with varying degrees of success, to imitate the film’s hyper-realistic texture.

Serpico: RIGHT ON

Scarecrow (1973)

          Given its casting, pedigree, and subject matter, Scarecrowsounds like an automatic addition to the Mount Olympus of ’70s cinema. It’s a downbeat road movie about two vagabonds ineptly pursuing small dreams, the vagabonds are played by Gene Hackman and Al Pacino, the film was directed by adventurous humanist Jerry Schatzberg, and the cinematography is by the extraordinary Vilmos Zsigmond. Yet while the movie has a lovely intimacy, it doesn’t linger in the memory anywhere near as much as it should. That said, Scarecrow is near-essential viewing for fans of this period in American cinema simply because it exudes integrity and contains strong but obscure performances by two of the best actors America has ever produced. Although Hackman and Pacino each did better work in other films (because other films gave them better raw material from which to craft performances), it’s still a tremendous pleasure to watch these remarkable men amplify and complement each other’s talents.

          Hackman plays Max, a volatile ex-con traveling like a hobo from California to Pennsylvania, where he plans to open a car wash. (Whether Max actually has the financial or managerial wherewithal to realize his dream is one of the film’s many richly ambiguous elements.) Max becomes traveling companions with Lionel Delbuchi (Pacino), a former sailor who approaches life with boyish exuberance; barely more than a simpleton, Lionel believes there’s almost no problem a good joke can’t solve. One of the inherent shortcomings of George Michael White’s script is that the Max/Lionel friendship always feels a bit contrived; their bond is more narratively convenient than purely organic. Nonetheless, Hackman and Pacino lend as much credibility to the relationship as possible, even when the characters behave in predictable ways—Lionel rarely steps outside his man-child persona, and Max keeps getting into stupid brawls even though he seems, in other respects, like a mature human being with real self-awareness. The film also suffers from the inherently episodic nature of most road movies.

          Therefore, it’s almost all about the acting. Hackman is explosive and haunted and tender all at once, demonstrating his unique gift for incarnating emotionally conflicted men, and Pacino—though a bit over the top, thanks to a set of indulgent physical tics—creates many resonant moments. Supporting players Eileen Brennan, Richard Lynch, and Ann Wedgeworth lend strong atmosphere as well, though their characters border on being clichéd movie-hick grotesques. Former photographer Schatzberg and master cinematographer Zsigmond capture all of these lively performances in artful frames that showcase grungy locations and meticulous production design, so the physicality of the movie feels real even when the dramaturgy slips into artificiality.

Scarecrow: GROOVY

Al PACINO MEETS CHRISTOPHER BASTIN

During the 1970s, FBI undercover agent Donnie Brasco (Johnny Depp) infiltrated in a New York mob family and worked together with Lefty Ruggiero (Al Pacino). Lefty can't seem to make enough money, his son is a drug addict and he is continually passed over for promotion within the crime family. He continually reminds Brasco of his growing disillusionment about having spent 30 years as a wiseguy (and killing 26 people), with little to show for it.

In Donnie, at least, Lefty sees a young protégé who might be able to succeed where he failed. He takes Donnie under his wing. Donnie quickly becomes accepted by the other family members, as an "associate" (the lowest Mafia rank describing people who have criminal ties to the Mafia but are not actual members) and is later nearly officially inducted into the mob as a "made man." 

Al Pacino wears a double breasted fur collar coat in the movie. The question is, was this the inspiration for GANT Rugger designer Christopher Bastin to design the High Roller?  An old man's coat fully lined with fake fur. Pimp meets Prep, next level steez.

The Panic in Needle Park (1971)

          If you’re a fan of ’70s cinema, you owe The Panic in Needle Parka major debt of gratitude—Al Pacino’s performance in this movie convinced director Francis Ford Coppola that Pacino could handle the leading role in The Godfather. So, without this gloomy study of heroin addicts living on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, we would never have seen Pacino’s sublime work as Michael Corleone. Yet Needle Park is a worthwhile film beyond its cinema-history significance. Written by the posh literary couple Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne (from a novel by James Mills), and directed in a gritty verité style by photographer-turned-filmmaker Jerry Schatzberg, Needle Park is painful and sad, a sonnet to wandering souls who search for themselves in the oblivion of hard drugs. Presented without music and unfolding over a leisurely 110-minute running time, the movie is unrelentingly ugly—characters abuse each other and themselves; injections are shown in excruciating close-ups; and so on. Even by the anything-goes standards of ’70s cinema, this is a brutal depiction of misery without promise of salvation.
          Pacino stars as Bobby, a fast-talking hustler who gets by on dealing, handouts, and petty crime while nursing a heavy habit. One afternoon, he meets a pretty young woman named Helen (Kitty Winn), whom he draws into his orbit with compliments and jokes and kindness. Other characters populating Bobby’s dangerous world include his older brother, Hank (Richard Bright), a professional thief who uses heroin periodically, and a narc named Hotch (Alan Vint), who sees Bobby as a tool for catching major suppliers. Once Helen takes the inevitable step of shooting up for the first time, she starts a spiral down into prostitution. Meanwhile, she and Bobby are so detached from reality they can’t see they’re killing each other—Bobby becomes a full-time dealer in order to keep them both stoned, and Helen sacrifices her dignity by returning to Bobby again and again, despite several near-death experiences.

          Pacino’s performance is alternately explosive and poignant, his streetwise swagger clashing with his tiny physical stature, and he’s persuasive whether he’s sharing tenderness with Winn or simulating drugged states. Winn, a naturalistic, theater-trained actress whose limited filmography also includes a supporting role in The Exorcist (1973), delicately moves between being our window into this depressing world and incarnating the tragic emotions of those who love unwisely. To a certain degree, however, the film’s dirty locations are the main attraction—viewed through Schatzberg’s long lenses during exterior sequences and observed more closely during interior scenes, the sordid textures of low-rent Manhattan speak volumes about the fragile lives of addicts.

The Panic in Needle Park: GROOVY

Bobby Deerfield (1977)

Two Hollywood heavyweights famous for intellectualizing their work succumb to bad habits in Bobby Deerfield, a plodding romantic drama without enough narrative substance to support its heavy themes. Ostensibly the story of a racecar driver mired in existential crisis, the big-budget misfire gets lost in a maze of pretentious dialogue and vague characterization. Despite all their obvious effort to craft something surpassingly sensitive, producer-director Sydney Pollack and director Al Pacino ended up making something utterly artificial: The storytelling lacks the depth found in Pollack’s best dramas, and Pacino’s performance is so internalized it validates every criticism about self-indulgence ever lobbed his way. Bobby Deerfield is especially disappointing because Pacino and Pollack should have comprised a dream team for fans of thoughtful movies. Based on a novel by Erich Maria Remarque and written for the screen by the literate humanist Alvin Sargent, Bobby Deerfieldbegins with narcissistic Formula One driver Bobby Deerfield (Pacino) watching a nasty crash that injures one driver and takes the life of another. Jarred by the realization that his career involves courting death, Bobby starts wandering around in an angst-ridden haze, eventually visiting the hospital where the surviving driver is recuperating. While there, Bobby meets a fellow troubled soul, Lillian (Marthe Keller), who has a whole different set of issues with human mortality. Even with Pollack’s consummate skill for constructing love stories, the dynamic between Bobby and Lillian holds zero interest. Bobby’s such a cipher it’s impossible to care whether he finds love, and Lillian’s an ice queen—thus, since their interaction is the whole movie (aside from a few moderately distracting driving scenes), Bobby Deerfield is a 124-minute spiral into a black hole of downbeat boredom. The movie is skillfully made and the acting is strong, within the limitations set by the murky writing, but who cares? Digging the good stuff from the muck simply isn’t worth the effort.

Bobby Deerfield: LAME