Al Pacino reveals himself candidly in his memoirs

At 84, the legendary actor from The Godfather and Scarface speaks openly in his autobiography, Sonny Boy, finally translated into French.

“Today, I am at a point in my life where I never stop thinking about this period of my youth. I never imagined that I would return to these events, and even less that I would credit it with such positive energy…”

Thus written Al Pacino Proust style seeking to sublimate a past that is nevertheless fractured everywhere, a refuge from a life spent in the light of the headlights of the entertainment industry. These memories therefore open and close in the few streets of the South Bronx where Sonny Boy – nickname given by his mother – went all out with his little gang: Cliffy, Bruce and Petey, all died young because of the dope.

Pacino, born in 1940 into a very modest Italian-American family, sees himself as a miracle and still asks himself: “Why am I still here?“. Between an absent father and a psychologically fragile mother who soon committed suicide, Pacino did not have an easy childhood and the pages he devotes to this period have more to do with Oliver Twist that The side of Guermantes.

Al Pacino recounts his disgusting first meeting with Marlon Brando

Anecdotes

For the rest, those who would like to know more about the filming of three Sponsors, Serpico, A dog's afternoon Or Scarface will have something to eat, but let's admit it straight away this remains rather anecdotal. More frustrating is the way he skims over his later filmography. Thus his work with Michael Mann (Heat, Revelations…) can be summed up in a few pithy lines. Not much either The impasse by Brian de Palma, The Irishman by Martin Scorsese or Once Upon a Time in Hollywood by Tarantino. Pacino is rather nice to everyone and each filmmaker, with a few rare exceptions, is awarded a “talented“, “tremendous”“gifted”…

We clearly feel when reading his memoirs that the theater is the great business of his life. It is to Chekhov, discovered almost by chance at the age of fifteen in an old theater in the Bronx, and to Shakespeare that he owes his salvation. The talent of any actor must be measured on the stage, balancing on a tightrope where every evening you have to do everything again in a single gesture and not on a movie set where everything can be replayed tirelessly and pieced together.

And it is no coincidence that the film he speaks about with perhaps the most warmth and tenderness is his Looking for Richard (1996), hybridization between theatrical recording, rehearsals and reflections on the staging around Shakespeare's Richard III. The disappointing experience from a commercial point of view will at least have given meaning to his work at a time when his career was fading due to a lack of suitable roles and low personal motivation. On this point Pacino does not cheat. The author will always be more fond of the Shylock of Merchant of Venice as Michael Corleone or Tony Montana.

Crazy and untamed dog

Besides Chekhov and Shakespeare, two mentors guided his journey: his agent Marty Bregman, the one who never recovered.for missing Dustin Hoffman” and his spiritual guide Charlie Laughton (nothing to do with the author of The night of the hunter). “When you no longer have your father, you are always looking for one“, he writes. Pacino, a crazy and untamed dog who is a little messy in his personal and professional life, owes them almost everything.

The actor is not kind to himself and bluntly describes his inability to manage his money, his addiction to alcohol or even drugs, his wanderings, his erratic love life, his refusal to play the system's game. thus delaying his consecration by his peers (his account of his evening at the Oscars for Serpico shot with Valium sitting next to a stunned Jeff Bridges, is very funny)

He dwells without complacency on the last part of his life devoted mainly to maintaining an expensive lifestyle to satisfy his family. Those who were complaining last year about not being able to get rid of 450 euros for a “Evening with Pacino” at the Salle Pleyel in Paris will be reassured to learn that even Pacino didn't really believe in it. He saw it as a good opportunity to replenish his coffers. These Memoirs are undoubtedly participating in this project without one having to blame him for it. The whole holds up and draws a sensitive portrait of its author.

Basically, what shines through here is the absence of cynicism of a scruffy legendary actor (Pacino makes fun of his appearance in the photo album in his book), extralucid about himself. He is a slightly crazy Michael Corleone who is wary of laurels and glory, aware that he will always remain the little guy from the Bronx refusing to come home to eat his soup to stay with his friends in the neighborhood. Adult life, especially when everyone is looking at you, confiscates your space of freedom.

From his meeting with Marlon Brando on the set of Godfatherthe young Pacino will have especially remembered the image of a solitary ogre gorging on chicken between two takes with his hands full of sauce. “Is that how movie stars act? So we can do anything…“Except that guys like them turn “anything” into cathedrals.

Al Pacino, Sonny Boy, memoirs. Threshold. 27 euros