It’s been way too long since Al Pacino has had a movie role that matches his talent. Perhaps his best work in recent years has been for the small screen, playing such controversial real-life figures as Phil Spector, Jack Kevorkian, and Roy Cohn in PHIL SPECTOR, YOU DON’T KNOW JACK, and ANGELS IN AMERICA. But this is about to change. His two latest theatrical films were screened at the Toronto Film Festival and, in each, he delights as he gives carefully observed, refreshingly low-key performances.
The first is THE HUMBLING, directed by Barry Levinson and based on a Philip Roth novel. Here, Pacino plays a self-described “washed-up actor” who begins a relationship with a woman, played by Greta Gerwig, who may as well be his granddaughter. In David Gordon Green’s MANGLEHORN, he is the title character, a type who is sorely underrepresented on screen: a lonely, solitary locksmith residing in an unspectacular blue collar environment. This character is a self-described “wounded man” who is obsessed with a long-lost love, and it would not be surprising if Pacino’s performance in MANGLEHORN nets him a Best Actor Oscar nomination.
Understand one thing: THE HUMBLING and MANGLEHORN are not great films. Some of the scenes in THE HUMBLING seemed to be comical, but I wasn’t quite sure if they were meant to be comical. MANGLEHORN, meanwhile, is a flawed film. Parts of its plot are way too obvious and predictable, but there are some undeniably poetic moments. Note, for instance, the scene in which Manglehorn spends time with his granddaughter in a park-- and balloons fly into the sky.
I attended the MANGLEHORN press conference in Toronto because I was intrigued by Pacino’s acting, and I asked him why he was attracted to these projects. Was it the depth of the characters and the issues each faced? Was it their age-appropriateness, or was it something else? And I got a wonderfully detailed and thoughtful explanation. Being that he is an actor, the character in THE HUMBLING is “someone I could relate to,” Pacino explained. “It’s about our world.” He added that THE HUMBLING “came out of my reading of [the] Philip Roth novel and feeling that there was something in that novel... that I could relate to. I saw it as a tragic comedy.” But playing Manglehorn was “an opportunity to get to know and understand other things beside this world we’re in. In a strange way it’s a relief to get into someone else and the issues they have, and we find out how similar we are.”
When preparing for and playing a role, Pacino noted that he tries not to overanalyze his technique. “You don’t want to load up with too much crap,” he said. “You want to keep that openness to things.” As for the characters in relation to their ages, he added: “I believe we go through cycles. I won’t call it aging. I’d call it changing.” And he stressed the importance of a fully-fleshed-out screenplay by observing: “The play is the thing. Shakespeare said it. And he’s right. That’s what keeps us going.”
If you ask Al Pacino a question about acting, you will get a long, thoughtfully detailed answer. Clearly, this is a man who takes great care in preparing to play his roles, to understand his characters. And when it was time to end the press conference, he did something that was out of the ordinary, and quite refreshing. Pacino declared that he wanted it to continue. He wanted to keep the conversation going, and keep discussing acting.
It has been my experience that, once a press conference ends, most actors rush off the podium. But not Al Pacino, and this really impressed me. He is man who truly loves his craft.
Rob Edelman teaches film history at the University at Albany. He has written several books on film and television, and is an associate editor of Leonard Maltin’s Movie and Video Guide.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.