The Panic in Needle Park

This mostly forgotten gem of the 1970's plays like Days of Wine and Roses with heroin addicts instead of alcoholics. Street hustler, Al Pacino meets college girl, Kitty Winn. He's a charming heroin addict, and she's not... yet. The crudity of Jerry Schatzberg's direction proves to be both naive at times and at other perfectly suiting the material with an unusual efficiency. For scenes involving elements of the story he will cut into the scene, have a character quickly speak a single line of pertinent dialogue, and then quickly cut to the next scene. He then dwells on the "inconsequential" scenes, such as those involving the process of separating and distributing the drug or the graphic scenes involving taking of the drugs (if you have an aversion to needles, this may not be the film for you). Of course, life goes downhill for our characters and you never know what they'll do next to satisfy their addiction. The streets scenes have that gritty, documentary feel -- in fact, I'm fairly certain that often the filmmakers would hide across the street, zoom in, and have the actors walk down the street with no one around even aware that a movie is being made, lending a kind of New Wave realism to the surroundings, the situations, and the performances. Pacino has always had incredible depth as an actor, but it's Kitty Winn who surprised me with her unimpressive, yet beautiful features and the kind of naturalness to her performance that almost breaks your heart. Like many films of the era, it manages to capture something real, yet still manages to escape true greatness.