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Al
Pacino
Pacino,
Al (1940- ), American actor, born
Alfredo James Pacino in New York.
Pacino trained at the Actors'
Studio and made his screen debut
in Me, Natalie (1969) while
pursuing a full-time career in
the theatre. His second film,
Jerry Schatzberg's The Panic in
Needle Park (1971), brought him
star status, and in 1972 he
effortlessly faced Marlon Brando
in The Godfather, directed by
Francis Ford Coppola, without
being upstaged-to such convincing
effect that he has starred in a
further two films in The
Godfather series.
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Pacino
is an actor of many facets, who excels at
difficult roles, such as a crazy bank
robber in Dog Day Afternoon (1975), a
homosexual in Cruising (1980), and a
breathtakingly elegant, tango-dancing
blind man in what is possibly his greatest
film to date, Scent of a Woman (1992).
While Pacino can deliver truly virtuoso
performances as over-the-top flamboyant
characters, he is equally good at
portraying the average man, with foibles
and weaknesses, as seen in Frankie and
Johnny (1991) and Carlito's Way (1993).
However, his particular speciality, the
subtle suggestion that an idea or a
feeling is gradually taking shape in his
character's mind, is best shown in The
Godfather films, in which he is the
incarnation of quiet fanaticism-and cold
ferocity. The same masterly psychological
control appears in his psychopathic
portrait in Scarface (1983), directed by
Brian de Palma, in his superbly believable
trapper caught up in the American War of
Independence in Hugh Hudson's Revolution
(1986), in his ruthless salesman in
Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), his policeman
relentlessly pursuing the gangster in Heat
(1995), and his mobster in Donnie Brasco
(1997).
In 1996
Pacino directed his first film, a
documentary about Richard III called
Looking for Richard.
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