Al Pacino picks his two favourite movies
The list of Al Pacino’s remarkable achievements in cinema is seemingly endless, having contributed to some of the genuine best movies ever made. Whether portraying Michael Corleone in The Godfather and its sequel, Tony Montana in Brian De Palma’s Scarface or Frank Serpico in Sidney Lumet’s 1973 biopic, Pacino always delivered the acting goods with proper intensity.
Quite simply, Pacino is one of the greatest actors ever to commit himself to the profession, and the quality of his work speaks for itself. With an Academy Award and two Tonys to his name, Pacino has also been rightfully admired from a critical perspective. So many of the New York City-born actor’s films have featured countless audience members’ favourite moments, but what about Pacino’s own top choices?
When Pacino was asked by AFI about his favourite films, he seemed to labour over the answer. “My favourite movie of all time?” he said. “Oh, I have about five or six – not any I’ve done – but I have five or six movies that I really think are the greatest. I’d have to think about them; they’re varied.”
It was at that point, though, that Pacino let slip one of his all-time top choices, noting, “I know I really liked The Tree of Wooden Cloggs, but they’re all different kinds of films.” The actor is referring, of course, to the 1978 Italian film directed by Ermanno Olmi, which won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
The Tree of Wooden Cloggs tells of the life of the peasantry in a farmhouse in 19th-century Lombardy. Starring the relatively unknown Luigi Ornaghi, Francesca Moriggi and Omar Brignolo, Olmi’s film has a series of similarities with some works of the early Italian neorealist movement in how it depicts the lives of the poor by using real-life locals and farmers rather than actors.
Just as Pacino was being dragged away to speak to another reporter, he shouted out another choice. “Singin’ in the Rain is good, yeah”, he said with a smile to the camera. Singin’ in the Rain is far more recognisable than Pacino’s first selection, and the Gene Kelly-directed and choreographed musical romantic comedy remains one of the most iconic movies of all time.
Starring Kelly, Donald O’Connor, Debbie Reynolds, Jean Hagen, Millard Mitchell, and Cyd Charise, the classic film serves as a heartwarming reflection on Hollywood in the late 1920s with Kelly, O’Connor and Reynolds each playing a star caught up in the difficult transition from the silent movies to the “talkies”.
