I just love this scene:
LINK: Tango Scene from Scent of A Woman
GREAT actor.
Posted on 05/24/2025 8:18:44 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
In his new memoir, Sonny Boy, Al Pacino describes how Shakespeare was central to his early development as a young actor. “I would bellow out monologues as I rambled through the streets of Manhattan,” Pacino writes. “If the hour was late and you heard someone in your alleyway with a bombastic voice shouting iambic pentameter into the night, that was probably me, training myself on the famous Shakespeare soliloquies.”...
Pacino “always felt at home on a stage,” and an early performance in a school play literally brought his divorced parents “back together again,” if only for a post-show ice cream. You can feel how much the art form means to him, and though he doesn’t pinpoint the moment he discovers Shakespeare, he envisions a future for himself doing “repertory theater” and dreaming romantically of the work he would do. “These were plays that would change my life,” Pacino writes. “Playwrights were prophets. They made me a better actor, gave me an education, offered me a deeper understanding of the world, and filled me with joy.”
After stage triumphs in The Indian Wants the Bronx and Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?, Pacino became globally acclaimed for his intense and contained performance as Michael Corleone in The Godfather, and the first thing he did in the wake of that film’s extraordinary success was return to the stage. Pacino accepted an invitation to play Richard III in Boston…
This image of Pacino fumbling around searching for how to interpret a character is documented fully in his 1996 film Looking for Richard. Years in the making, this passion project that Pacino financed and directed himself allows the actor an opportunity to fulfill a lifelong ambition to, as he explains in his opening voiceover, “communicate how I feel about Shakespeare to other people.”
(Excerpt) Read more at folger.edu ...
from “The Godfather”:
DON CORLEONE: You were afraid to be in my debt […] You had a good trade, made a good living. The police protected you and there were courts of law. And you didn’t need a friend of me. But, uh, now you come to me and you say, “Don Corleone, give me justice.” But you don’t ask with respect. You don’t offer friendship. You don’t even think to call me Godfather.
from “The Merchant of Venice”:
SHYLOCK: You call me misbeliever, cutthroat dog, And spet upon my Jewish gaberdine, And all for use of that which is mine own. Well then, it now appears you need my help. Go to, then. You come to me and you say “Shylock, we would have moneys”—you say so, You, that did void your rheum upon my beard, And foot me as you spurn a stranger cur Over your threshold.
Saw his Shakespeare.
Not his cup of tea, I would say.
Interesting to compare Marlon Brando and Charlton Heston’s takes on Marc Antony in two different films versions of Julius Caesar — both American but the former being “Method” normally in his approach and the latter more Classical…
The same speech, two takes:
Brando
https://youtu.be/101sKhH-lMQ?feature=shared
Heston
https://youtu.be/0bi1PvXCbr8?feature=shared
Word on the street was not to get a seat too near the stage because Richard III Al let the saliva fly.
Great post.
Brando for the win.
I just love this scene:
LINK: Tango Scene from Scent of A Woman
GREAT actor.
I really enjoyed watching this. I did not know Heston did Julius Caesar. He’s very powerful but I think I like Brando’s better, but both are very impressive.
What a cast in that film, Robert Vaughn (I saw him in there) Christopher Lee, Diana Rigg, John Gielgud, Jason Robards, Richard Chamberlain. Wow. I’m going to have to watch that one.
I stopped everything to watch both of these. Shakespeare. What a gift to us all. We are still marveling at his words. His characters. I’m downright proud of Pacino to feel as he does. He has a real love of his art.
Made my night. Thank you.
Was Al’s Bronx accent just too distracting?
Nicol Williamson did the best Hamlet.
/fight me
😜
Greatness in action indeed. You’re so welcome!
William Shatner would say: “Al Pacino, now THAT guy over acts...”
Thank you. Stunning.
You’re welcome!
Now I have to go watch Julius Caesar in both forms...I just finished “Pillar of Iron” by Taylor Caldwell a few months ago, and her interpretation of Marcus Tullius Cicero was very interesting.
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