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Loading... Al Pacino: The Authorized Biography (original 2006; edition 2007)by Lawrence Grobel, Al Pacino (Foreword)
Work InformationAl Pacino in his own words : conversations, 1979-2005 by Lawrence Grobel (2006)
   None No current Talk conversations about this book.   ) ErinPaperbackstash | Jun 14, 2016 |  For the rest of the review, visit my blog at: http://angelofmine1974.livejournal.com/84610.html (  ) booklover3258 | Jan 24, 2015 | Friday, December 21, 2012 Anyone who watched his brilliant performances in The Godfather, Heat, Sea of Love, Scarface, The Devil’s Advocate will be all too aware of the immense talent Al Pacino brings to his trade and with which he has wooed movie aficionados for decades. In February, while their mother was in the US, I sat down with the children to watch Heat. Each time I see this film it brings home to me just how outstanding an actor Al Pacino is. I can view it in the same way my youngest can Scooby Doo, never tiring of it. I was glad to share it with my kids. Some will think that not PC but that’s okay. Thinking is fine so long as we don’t stop others thinking. I grew up more or less watching what I wanted and I would like it to be the same for them. It broadens the outlook. Pacino has a string of films notched up. I derived immense joy from all the Godfather movies, in particular the first. Yet I never warmed to the character Michael Corleone, even though the acting by Pacino was broodingly superb. The atmospheric Heat tops the lot in terms of the personal enjoyment I took from it. The power of his performance as the lead cop, Vincent Hanna, pitted against Neil McCauley, played by Robert De Niro, is nuclear. The self-critical voice rendered from the top of the building when he realised what fellow cops didn’t, how the hunter had become the hunted, still echoes. The dialogue between Hanna and McCauley over coffee after Hanna had been dropped by chopper near a spot where he could get in his own car, pursue McCauley’s and ask him to pull over, carries force in a way that the insane gun battle at the bank finds it hard to match. Pacino fired the warning shot in the coffee shop then the real one at the bank, which saw McCauley’s crew begin to fall apart. So good is Pacino at his craft that he even managed to varnish what would certainly have been a dull wooden performance from the immensely irritating Robin Williams in Insomnia: the only film I have ever enjoyed Williams in, while still holding to the view that it would have been so much better without him. I am one of those film buffs who firmly believe Robin Williams is a cure for anybody’s insomnia. Lawrence Grobel conducted interviews with Pacino over the course of a quarter of a century. In this authorised biography he pulls them together. These constitute the book but are complemented by a very worthwhile introduction penned by Grobel. While the two became friends it didn’t prevent Grobel asking the probing question nor Pacino dismissing it if he didn’t want to answer or thought it sailed too close to his relationships which he wanted to keep off limits. The two were wholly at ease in each others company. It was a light read, picked up almost at random from a section in one of the book shelves which houses biographies of actors, singers, sportspeople. I had purchased it a few years back in Dundalk knowing that at some point I would get my head into it. Preparing to catch a North bound train about a year back I stuck it in my bag. I have forgotten the journey or its purpose but not the book. Thinking it would be one of those books that would require no thinking and that it would hardly matter if by the time page 3 was reached the contents of page 2 would respond to an automatic delete command and vanish from memory, this had a few pleasant surprises. Celebrity books are frequently trashy, like a Premiership footballer making hay while the sun is still shining on his career. Just churn it out as if it is a penalty kick and no keeper. Not with this. There is so much thinking at play in these pages. Over 25 years in the making it evolves naturally. This book opens many doors but the biggest insight it gives is into the powerful intellect of Pacino, alongside his immersion in the role: what Meryl Streep described as ‘relentless in pursuit of a character.’ How an actor thinks about what he does or how it should be done differently is a feature of this compilation book. The dimensions of a character, Pacino layers on with painstaking dedication. A man who does theatre, reads Dostoyevsky and Balzac, whose favourite role is in Godfather II, is not somebody given to the emission of unintelligible grunts. Al Pacino: The Authorized Biography. by Lawrence Grobel, 2006. ISBN 1416912118. Simon & Schuster: London. ( ) Susini | Jan 2, 2013 | ) drsnowdon | Jul 27, 2010 | ) susiebrooks | Aug 29, 2009 | no reviews | add a review
For more than a quarter century, Al Pacino has spoken freely and deeply with acclaimed journalist and bestselling author Lawrence Grobel on subjects as diverse as childhood, acting, and fatherhood. Here, for the first time, are the complete conversations and shared observations between the actor and the writer; the result is an intimate and revealing look at one of the most accomplished, and private, artists in the world. Pacino grew up sharing a three-room apartment in the Bronx with nine people in what he describes as his "New York Huckleberry Finn" childhood. Raised mostly by his grandparents and his mother, Pacino began drinking at age thirteen. Shortly after he was admitted to the renowned High School for Performing Arts, his classmates nicknamed him "Marlon," after Marlon Brando, even though Pacino didn't know who Brando was. Renowned acting coach Charlie Laughton saw Pacino when he was nineteen in the stairwell of a Bronx tenement, and the first words out of Laughton's mouth were "You are going to be a star." And so began a fabled, lifelong friendship that nurtured Al through years of not knowing where his next meal would come from until finally -- at age twenty-six -- he landed his first salaried acting job. Grobel and Pacino leave few stones unturned, touching on the times when Pacino played piano in jazz clubs until four a.m. before showing up on the set of Scarecrow a few hours later for a full day's work; when he ate Valium like candy at the Academy Awards; and when he realized he had been in a long pattern of work and drink. As the pivotal character inThe Godfathertrilogy and the cult classicScarface, Pacino has enshrined himself in film history. He's worked with most of Hollywood's brightest luminaries such as Francis Ford Coppola, Sidney Lumet, Michael Mann, Norman Jewison, Brian De Palma, Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, Gene Hackman, Sean Penn, Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Hilary Swank, and Robin Williams, among many others. He was nominated for eight Academy Awards before winning the Oscar for Best Actor for his role inScent of a Woman. Pacino still seems to prefer his work onstage to film and, if he's moved by a script or play, is quick to take parts in independent productions. Al Pacinois an intensely personal window into the life of an artist concerned more with the process of his art than with the fruits of his labor, a creative genius at the peak of his artistic powers who, after all these years, still longs to grow and learn more about his craft. And, for now, it's as close to a memoir as we're likely to get. No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)791.4302The arts Recreational and performing arts Public performances Film, Radio, and Television Film Techniques, procedures, apparatus...LC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3.66)
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