Os Viciados

Until the mid-Fifties, the taboo theme of drug addiction in films was either fleetingly mentioned - as in MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM (1933) - or ridiculously overblown as in the REEFER MADNESS (1936) school of movies but, with the appearance of films like Otto Preminger's THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM (1955) and Nicholas Ray's BIGGER THAN LIFE (1956), Hollywood producers showed that they had learned to treat it in an objective, mature and sensitive way. But, with the the runaway box office success of EASY RIDER (1969), the subject got its own unexpected little niche and the general public was for the first time allowed to wallow in a no-holds-barred view of the junkie lifestyle; of course, I am discounting films like Shirley Clarke's THE CONNECTION (1961; which I've never watched myself) and the Andy Warhol Factory movies which are anything but mainstream Hollywood products.

I can't say I've watched many of those 1970s drug-related movies and, off hand, only John G. Avildsen's JOE (1970; with Peter Boyle and Susan Sarandon) and Ivan Passer's BORN TO WIN (1971; with George Segal and a young Robert De Niro) come to mind. Even so, I'd say that THE PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK is arguably the bleakest, grittiest and most realistic screen portrayal of drug addiction I've ever watched - at least, until Darren Aronofsky's REQUIEM FOR A DREAM (2000); for one thing, while most films of the era made extensive use of the contemporaneous rock scene, this one has no musical underscoring at all.

Frankly, I've had the film on VHS recorded off Cable TV for over 10 years and only now managed to catch up with it because my father rented it on DVD (and, subsequently, turned it off before long)! Indeed, the scrappy first half-hour is rather off-putting and dreary and it wasn't until the main protagonists - Al Pacino (already superb in just his second movie) and Kitty Winn (who would go on to win the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film festival for her work here) - really got together that I started to genuinely care about their plight; perhaps the most moving scene they share is their short-lived idyll in the country where the couple even purchase a dog with the little money they have (but lose it almost immediately through negligence when the urge for the drug habit kicks in once again). Subsequently reduced to prostitution, Winn is watched over by a sympathetic young cop but soon he's demanding that she turn Pacino over to the law. At the end of the film the couple are reunited, but it looks like their relationship has nowhere to go.

When I first saw this film, Al Pacino was an unknown actor, yet to play in the Godfather. I usually just enjoy the movie, but I was surprised by how fine an actor the star was. I wondered why I had never seen this guy before.

Pacino has made many fine films, but this one is actually one of his best..and very few people have ever heard of it. It used to be available on VHS, but has been out of print now for about twenty years. I was finally able to get a very expensive used copy from an internet vendor specializing in hard to get film.

I just hope that this comes out in DVD.

A year before Al Pacino got his career role as Michael Corleone in The Godfather he and Kitty Winn got great reviews as a pair of junkies in The Panic In Needle Park. This film is a brutal and realistic look at the New York's nasty world of the narcotics addict as seen through Pacino and Winn.

Even in this world romance can bloom even among these folks on the bottom most rung of society. Still the need for the needle overrules all, a fact that narcotics cop like Jesse Vint exploits to the max.

Richard Bright who plays Pacino's older brother who is a burglar by trade and not a junkie delivers a good performance. My one criticism of he Panic In Needle Park is Bright's willingness to take Pacino in on a job. Any good burglar wouldn't rust a junkie even if he was family.

The scenes showing the heroin use are brutally realistic. One scene that jolted me was the efforts to save Pacino from a hot shot dose of pure heroin. Done by his fellow narcotics peers without any professional medical help.

Not much has changed in the junkie world in the intervening half a century since Needle Park came out. The real tragedy of this film.

This is probably one of Al Pacino's best films. I would say that it is even better then "The Godfather" because you almost want to reach out and help the characters but you can't. They all have the same problem. That problem is heroin addiction and it has caused a multitude of problems in their lives. This is a great film. It is usually not shown on television (I did see it on PBS a few years ago but I think that was a rare exception) I think however, because of its realistic content most stations try not to air it. If you can find it on video I highly recommend it.

The Panic in Needle Park (1971)

Wow. This is as close as American Hollywood gets to cinema verite. The way it's filmed, the subject matter itself, and the acting by the whole cast, especially the two leading actors, is astonishing and gripping. Like many reality-based stories, this one lacks only a driving narrative thread. As disturbing and terrific as it is, it also gets slow, and could have been edited down with the same effect.

But less of it. By that I mean, if you can just settle into this world of 1970 heroin abuse in New York City, with close ups of shooting up and some very convincing rushes and rides, with squalor and hopelessness and indifference, with prostituting and stealing and a wide cast of people down and out, you'll want it to keep going. There is nothing quite like this movie, even as it lacks propulsion.

Al Pacino is so good, so convincing, as Bobby, you can almost picture the movie is a documentary and this slightly charming junkie is a real guy who was willing to be filmed. His girlfriend Helen played by Kitty Winn is also perfect, at first as a kind of tagalong who isn't comfortable with this world but who seems to have nowhere else to go so she sticks with Bobby. But she falls into the lifestyle, and her clean innocence is gradually worn down, almost before our eyes, and the two of them go through all the stages of addiction and desperation. They have no money, they sometimes have nowhere to live, but they stumble along, stealing or pulling tricks (sexual ones) to get their fix.

If anyone harbors any sense that heroin must be terrific, watch this movie. Even the famous euphoric rush is so internal it can't be appreciated, and people on their several hour high just seem to be sleepy all the time. And then the rest of their lives are absolute hell. I guess you don't care about everything else, so it may as well be hell, but from the outside, it's something to avoid.

And in that sense, the movie is perfect. It is so truthfully frank it's a masterpiece of some kind of cinema that we could use more of, but which is so raw and unappealing you can see why there isn't more. It's not a fun movie. And when it does get a little slow and repetitive you might even give up on it, or zone out like one of its characters. But watch at least part of it to appreciate what's been done. Here's the great Pacino in his first major role (and his second film), and Winn (also her second film) in an award winning performance.