We last checked in on Al Pacino back on Day 232 of the challenge as we saw him pick up his third of five Best Actor nominations for Dog Day Afternoon. Whilst Pacino was considered one of the biggest stars of the 1970s, the eighties presented somewhat of a creative slump for him. After garnering a fourth Best Actor nod, for the 1979 film ...And Justice For All, Pacino starred in a number of notable Box Office failures. The one exception to this rule occurred in 1983 when Pacino portrayed the iconic Tony Montana in Scarface, a role that was cruelly overlooked by Oscar. But Pacino's career would turn around in the 1990s with three more Oscar nominations as well as a reprisal of one of his most famous roles.
That role was of course Michael Corleone who was one of a number of familiar faces returning for the third and final instalment in The Godfather franchise. Pacino had previously been nominated for playing Michael in the prior two Godfather movies even though he was only given a Supporting Actor nod for his role in the original movie. Ever since I revisited the first two films I've had a problem with Brando winning Best Actor as Michael is really the leading character in the first film. Pacino is on screen longer than Brando and The Godfather is really about Michael's journey from military man to head of the family. Of the three Godfather films I have to admit that I've never watched this final instalment due to the fact that it's been panned critically. In fact the film only exists due to Francis Ford Coppola's financial problems after his previous film, One from the Heart, failed to draw an audience. Taking up Paramount's long standing desire to create a final film, Coppola created what he claimed to be an epilogue to The Godfather franchise and he originally wanted to call it The Death of Michael Corleone. There are definitely a lot of problems with The Godfather Part III but Pacino's performance isn't one of them as he perfectly portrays an ageing Michael. Now with greying hair and at one point suffering a diabetic stroke, Michael attempts to get out of the criminal enterprise once and for all until another murder pulls him back in. The film also concerns itself with introducing Michael's natural successor, Sonny's illegitimate son Vincent, who has made a lot of enemies prior to appearing on screen. Vincent soon starts a romance with Michael's daughter Mary a relationship that is soon quashed by Michael who believes that their pairing will ultimately end badly. The climax of the film occurs in Sicily as the family arrives to watch Michael's son Anthony take part in an opera. It's here at the opera that some of the Corleone's enemies are murdered and Michael suffers a particularly big loss.
Part of the problem with The Godfather Part III is its overly wordy script as I felt there were too many scenes featuring a lot of men talking in rooms. This started at an event to honour Michael's new role as the Commander of the Order of Saint Sebastian due to his charity work. Whilst the planning and the plotting worked in the first two Godfather films here it felt forced and I mentally switched off during a lot of these scenes. It was only when the family arrived in Sicily that I felt the film really got going especially in the scenes in which Michael and Kay reminisced about their past together. Pacino's chemistry with Diane Keaton was a great as ever with the latter conveying a tinge of regret in Kay's eyes before Michael inevitably started scheming again. The closing scenes at the opera were beautifully done as Coppola and his editing team deftly switched between the performers on stage and the murders that were happening at the same time. One of the most famous problems with the film was the casting of Coppola's daughter Sofia as Mary Corelone. Although viewed as pure nepotism on Coppola's part, the role of Mary was initially given to Winona Ryder before she dropped out at the last minute. I didn't have a problem with Sofia's performance in the early stages of the film but it was only during her romance with Andy Garcia's Vincent that the cracks began to show. The issue was that Sofia and Garcia had little chemistry so it was hard to care about their Romeo and Juliet love story which was one of the movie's major subplots. Similarly, as Sofia had done little to make me care about the character, I really didn't care that much when she was gunned down in the film's final moments. Garcia himself gave a decent turn as Vincent and was given a Best Supporting Actor nod as a character who was attempting to emulate Michael. The Godfather Part III did suffer from a lack of interesting characters as Fredo was murdered at the end of the second film whilst Tom Hagen was similarly absent due to Robert Duvall's refusal to be paid a lot less money than Pacino was getting. The ultimate result of these decisions meant that The Godfather Part III was a patchy film that sullied the memory of its predecessors. Though Pacino gave a memorable turn and the film got going during its final third, this was an unnecessary addition to what was a perfect franchise and it was evident that Coppola had returned to the Corleone family purely for monetary gain.
The same year as The Godfather Part III was nominated for Best Picture, Pacino was given a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his role in gangster spoof Dick Tracy. Two years later Pacino finally won the Oscar that had alluded him for the past twenty years. If you include his Supporting Actor nod for Glengarry Glen Ross the same year, Pacino's winning turn in Scent of a Woman was his eighth Oscar nomination overall. In the film Pacino plays the drunken blind Army Lieutenant Frank Slade who changes his outlook on life after spending Thanksgiving weekend with a young companion. The companion in question is Charlie Simms, a scholarship student at a prestigious boarding school who agrees to be Slade's carer in order to earn more money. Scent of a Woman is Charlie's story as much as it is Frank's as we witness his moral dilemma of either shopping out some of his fellow students for performing a prank or taking up the headmaster's offer of a scholarship place at Harvard. Frank's first appearance in the film takes place about twenty minutes in as he's initially portrayed as quite an unlikeable man who has little time for anyone. This portrayal of the character continues into the next segment of the film as Frank cons Charlie into taking him to New York where they spend a memorable couple of days. Screenwriter Bo Goldman only really makes us sympathise with Frank when we see him spend time with his family and learn how he was blinded in the first place. This scene is soon followed by Scent of Woman's most iconic moment as Frank meets a young lady at a hotel and persuades her to tango with him. I found this tango scene to be perfectly shot with both Pacino and his female co-star Gabrielle Amwar succeeding in enticing the audience. We then continue to sympathise with Frank as he attempts to take his own life and its only due to a last minute arrival by Charlie that he changes his mind. I was perfectly conflicted about the film's rather predictable final scenes in which Charlie is threatened with expulsion after he refuses to give up the names of the pupils responsible for the prank. The disciplinary committee are forced to change their minds after Frank gives an impassioned speech on Charlie's behalf in which he berates the headmaster for casting the poor youngster as a scapegoat. Whilst this speech was well-delivered by Pacino I don't think it really deserved the standing ovation it was given by the school's pupils. This scene led in turn to Scent of a Woman having a rather cheesy ending which felt out of place after what had come before it.
Part of me feels that Pacino's Best Actor win for Scent of a Woman was the Academy's way of honouring his past achievements. His performance as Frank Slade certainly didn't top the turns he gave in either of The Godfather film or in Dog Day Afternoon. It certainly took me a while to warm to Frank and I think that Pacino's performance was a little too big for me to really take him seriously as a character. It was only after the aforementioned tango scene that Pacino captured the essence of the character and in turn Frank's attempted suicide was rather emotional. The Academy's trend of honouring an actor for his entire body of work really started with Henry Fonda in the early 1980s who won an Oscar for his turn in On Golden Pond which wasn't his best performance by a long shot. I do feel that Chris O'Donnell definitely made Charlie the most sympathetic character of the two as he was the one who the audience could identify with a lot more. O'Donnell conveyed Charlie's journey perfectly and as the journey progressed his on-screen chemistry with Pacino improved. As Scent of a Woman was primarily a two-hander there was very little room for any other cast members to make an impression. The exception to this rule comes from a young Philip Seymour Hoffman who is utterly detestable as Charlie's wimpy classmate who hides behind his lawyer father in attempt to avoid taking any responsibility for witnessing the prank. One of my main problems with Scent of a Woman was its length as it was a film that had no business running for two and half hours. Every scene felt over-stretched and I think that if each had a couple of minutes shaved off it Scent of a Woman would be better paced. I do ultimately think that Scent of a Woman is only memorable for being the film that Pacino won his sole Oscar for and if that wasn't the case the film wouldn't be as well-remembered as it. Overall I found the film to be a rather unremarkable road trip movie that contained a patchy performance from Pacino and a message that was presented in a heavy-handed manner by director Martin Brest.
To date Pacino hasn't been nominated for another Oscar but he will return once more on the challenge in his last appearance in a Best Picture movie.
Next time we come to the end of the 1990s as we invite a friend over for dinner.
No comments:
Post a Comment