The underground movie Al Pacino called “the definitive drug film” of the 1970s
Before Al Pacino landed his big break in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather, he appeared in two movies: the first, a small role in Me, Natalie, and the second, a leading part in a painful movie about drug addiction.
The Panic in Needle Park remains a somewhat underrated entry into Pacino’s filmography, but it was an important introduction to the screen. It wasn’t an easy role for an actor who was brand new to the industry to take on, but, alongside Kitty Winn, he played the role of an addict with impressive skill. That performance alone was a solid indicator of the stardom that was very soon to come for him.
Films about drug addiction are never easy to watch; just look at the harrowing Requiem for a Dream, a movie that tops most people’s lists of movies that they can never watch more than once. These movies rarely have happy endings, although that doesn’t mean that a film about substance abuse is always going to be serious in tone.
The 1960s and early 1970s saw a rather unusual approach to drugs within cinema, mainly because drug culture among young people was quite a serious issue at this time, particularly with the rise of psychedelics used by hippies and rebellious young folks looking to expand their minds. Movies entirely dedicated to the experience of drug-taking, not explicitly condemning or praising them, were released to mixed success, like Roger Corman’s The Trip and Richard Rush’s Psych-Out.
Laden with hallucinatory visuals that made audiences feel as though they were under the influence, these movies showed a more fun side to the ‘drug film’, compared to those that were much less forgiving, such as The Panic in Needle Park. Jerry Schatzberg’s film arrived when hippie optimism was on the way out, with addiction becoming a very real issue affecting young people who had once found a sense of freedom in taking whatever drugs they could get their hands on. Heroin was a final and lethal avenue for some.
“It came at a strange time, that movie, didn’t it?” Pacino posed in an interview with Roger Ebert’s website, “Andy Warhol’s Trash came out at the same time and was supposed to be the definitive drug film at that time”.
Pachino’s referring to the Warhol-produced movie, released the year before, which saw Paul Morrissey take on directorial duties and starred Factory superstars like Joe Dallesandro and Holly Woodlawn.
Was Trash the definitive drug film? It’s hard to say, because so many movies about drugs, from Easy Rider to Barbet Schroeder’s More, were emerging at the time. But Trash certainly was pretty iconic, its underground stars and dark humour perfectly encapsulating the period.
It is much more real than the other movies that emerged around this time, not least because of its low budget and the actors’ willingness to do pretty much anything, including full-frontal nudity.
Gene Siskel, writing for the Chicago Tribune, summed up the movie’s dedication to honesty and realism pretty well: “The Warhol-Morrissey world is a strange one, but in many ways, especially if taken in infrequent doses, a far more real world than the formula Hollywood drama or comedy”.
