weasl-729-310682
I don't know, but the bespectacled, and uncredited guy that Al interrupts with his "wife" sure looks like him to me when he was that young. Any information would be greatly appreciated.I searched everywhere, and he's not officially connected to this film in any way I could find. Maybe he's just another extra. It was a bit part, but it sure does fit in with James Spader's career.I loved this movie. It is so gritty, and such a slice of life from the 70's, which I lived through.It doesn't pull any punches. It will impact you, if you dare to watch it. Please don't watch this if you're sheltered and unfeeling to those less privileged than you are.The most amazing thing about this movie is that though neither of the protagonists had any future at all, they both looked forward to one. It was never going to happen.Sad, sad movie, but very true to cruel life for people without support systems in their lives.
Cate Baum
The Panic in Needle Park is a 1971 American film directed by Jerry Schatzberg and starring Al Pacino in his second film appearance. The screenplay was written by Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne, adapted from the book by James Mills.The story of a rather empty and silly girl with no life who hooks up with a charming loser junkie somehow comes off as the eternal love story. Bobby (Pacino) and Helen (Kitty Winn) meet through the pretentious Mexican artist Marco (Raúl Juliá), Helen's boyfriend, a man so narcissistic he would rather score drugs from Bobby than worry about Helen's back alley abortion, leaving her bleeding on the floor of his studio while he scouts for blow – ironically leading to her turning to Bobby for support and romance.Shot in the cinéma vérité-style without any music whatsoever, many passerbys look straight at the camera – this is a documentary, with Winn and Pacino sliding into the world that existed in Needle Park in the 70′s – Needle Park being Sherman Square and surrounds, named for the amount of heroin users jones'ing about the area. Pacino improvises with a tall African pimp on the street, " I got nothing'" he says, with a quick smile as he bowls along 72nd Street. They sit on a kerb, Bobby wearing a headscarf like an old peasant woman, cold and bored as feet rush by their noses. New York seems utterly futile and flat – with no hope for the likes of these underachievers.Thought to be the first movie in which full-on real drug injection is seen, this is as stark as it gets – but there's no humor or irony here as in Spun or Pulp Fiction. This is nasty, bleak, boring drug-taking with nothing people in void lives. New York is grim, sludgy with old snow; cold and gray. The addicts live in an alternate reality like ghosts as commuters go about their day – they only see each other as if anyone not on heroin is invisible.The Panic is a term used to describe a drought of supply – and there's a big shortage coming. But also The Panic is about their habit. As Bobby is "chipping" – a term to mean using recreationally – he develops a $50 a day habit – and this, so his brother, the burglar Hank (Richard Bright) tells him, is going to be an issue. Where's the money going to come from? What if he can't get a fix? Helen, bored of waiting for Bobby, gauched out in bed for hours on end when she wants sex, starts using too. Their relationship is so distant despite their close proximity 24 hours a day that Bobby doesn't notice straight away, only seeing her eyes eventually and asking " When did that happen?" Of course, it's not long before Helen is addicted too – and takes a job as a waitress to support their habit. Obviously a junkie waitress isn't going to do too well, and she quickly turns to hooking to make the vast amount of cash they need to sustain their drug bingeing.Performances are straight A all round, with Pacino turning in the performance that landed him The Godfather, and Winn was awarded Best Actress at Cannes that year, going on to star as Sharon Spencer, Regan's tutor in The Exorcist.Some ratings boards gave this film an X rating, such as in Germany and Britain, leading onto a spate of X-rated movies such as A Clockwork Orange and Deliverance. For me, it's the truth that lies inside the screenplay that makes this an X-rated movie – that there are people out there who live like this – a prostitute hides her baby in the toilet with Helen and Bobby, who is at that moment OD'ing and puking in the bowl, so she can let in her john for his appointment; Helen and Bobby find it funny when they rob a young guy after her turning a trick with him. They beat each other, cheat on each other, steal from each other – and yet they stick together like glue.There's obvious comparison to Requiem For A Dream, but this is even more bleak and realistic – these people aren't charming or good-looking or even interesting – there's no poetry. The co-dependency is so strong that Helen freaks and runs to the streets searching for Bobby when she wakes up alone in the apartment they share. They writhe on dirty old blankets in moldy rented rooms and pass out in greasy street diners. The neon sign " Drugs" hangs red through the window as Bobby consoles Helen with banana cake when she comes down.A terrible scene where a puppy dies – which reminded me of the Apocalypse Now puppy that disappears after the shoot-out on the boat and makes me cry every time. Even when a narcotics cop Hotch (the late Alan Vint) takes a fancy to Helen and tries to help her, it seems out of lust rather than any genuine care for her situation – because who cares about these rotten souls? And that is why the movie keeps on turning like a horrible carousel to the very end – without each other, Bobby and Helen would not even exist.A destroying watch.
Lauren Griffin
This film is one of the rare few that shows heroin addiction in a realistic manner. None of the horrors are left out but there is also a refreshing lack of the usual over-the-top harping on the subject. Al Pacino is absolutely at his best (in his first major role)... little surprise that he was cast in The Godfather shortly thereafter. The drug scenes and situations are true-to-life. The way the relationship between Bobby (Pacino) and Helen (Kitty Winn) is portrayed is especially moving. They truly love each other but are trapped having to do whatever it takes to get their fix. Heroin addiction becomes a trap in which you must continue repeating the same routine daily no matter what happens. This is illustrated well when Bobby turns back to look at Helen and says, Well? and the viewer is left with the impression that nothing is going to change.
kylebristol12
Jerry Schatzberg's "The Panic in Needle Park" is an incredibly well-made film, a major overlooked example of New Hollywood cinema. Al Pacino and Kitty Winn star as lovers Bobby and Helen who live in the city and who are addicted to heroin. The film is shot like a documentary, uses no music, and features some very disturbing, realistic scenes of heroin injection. There have been countless American movies that feature drug use, but "Needle Park" stood out to me. It isn't dated because much of the film's run-time focuses on Pacino and Winn (both in extraordinary performances) and how their relationship disintegrates because of their addictions. The final scene of the film is so bleak and haunting.
