“Is the cinema more important than life?” -François Truffaut

French film direcor, screenwriter, producer and actor, Francoise Truffaut (1932-1984)

 I was listening to Nat King Cole and drinking hot coffee while I scrolled down Listal. Suddenly, I found a list called “What’s Cinema?”, and I read a few quotes about cinema by Truffaut. I was grabbed by the one in the title: Is the cinema more important than life?

God knows I don’t have the answer, nor anyone else, I believe.  Over the last year, I became an extremely huge film buff, to the point where I honestly can’t spend a whole day without even talking or reading about a movie, an actor or a director. I watch a film (sometimes more than one) almost everyday and I never stop daydreaming about looking like my favourite actresses or having a perfect life with my favourite actors. I know it sounds quite silly, but I don’t think I’d be half as happy as I am without all this, all the movies and all the artists. On ocasions, I feel as if my life depended on it. Now, I don’t want you to think I’m strange, I do a lot of other things and I spend time with my beloved friends and family, but the cinema is clearly a very big and important part of me and my routine. I guess you could say I have a few similarities with Mia Farrow’s Cecilia in Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose Of Cairo (1985), but only a few.

Farrow as Cecilia in Allen's The Purple Rose Of Cairo (1985)

One of my biggest hobbies is writing fiction, and even when I’m writing I can’t stop thinking about movies and actors. When I create a character, I always choose an actor who would play her/him and I also imagine my whole stories and books as films, with the soundtrack and the titles, etc.

Marcello Mastroianni in Fellini's 8½ (1963)

Charlie Chaplin and Virginia Cherrill in Chaplin's City Lights (1931)

A shot of Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954)

So, what do you think? Do we film buffs, artists, actors, directors, critics sometimes take the cinema more serious than life? Do we prefer to live in a fantasy world of our own for a little while instead of having to deal with our lives at times? Is it right, is it wrong? Who knows…

FILM HEROES • Al Pacino (1940 – )

I was checking out a fantastic blog called A Rhinestone World and I felt inspired by her amazing “Movie Hero of the Week” entries. Well, since I don’t have the slightest bit of patience to do only a movie hero per week and I’m an impulsive person, I decided to call my series by the simple name of “Film Heroes”. Anyway, I adore posters and I’ve got a hundred of them sticked all over my walls. One of them is the beautiful picture of Al Pacino I posted above, and sometimes I literally can’t stop staring at it, it’s one of my favourite posters.
I don’t know exactly why I decided to start the “Film Heroes” series with Al Pacino, you could say it was something rather  spontaneous.

To me, Al Pacino is one of those actors that can make you smile or at least stop whatever you’re doing at the very first moment you see him in a film. Even if it’s a drama like Dog Day Afternoon or a movie about the mafia like The Godfather, he makes me smile, and I believe that’s an extremely important and valuable quality that every great actor should have. There’s something about him that seems so…human, casual and real, just as if he were one of us, not a breathtaking heart throb. I’m not saying that giving an ilusion of perfection is bad, after all, that’s what movies are, ilusions, but I think people love to see the underdog or a person that they can identify with, which, to me, Al Pacino accomplishes even when he’s playing Tony Montana. I get this feeling with many other modern actors I like, Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman, for example.

While some prefer him as Michael Corleone in The Godfather trilogy, I don’t. I do love The Godfather trilogy, but I don’t think it’s the best way to show Al Pacino’s talent. One of my favourites is Dog Day Afternoon (1975), directed by the marvelous Sidney Lumet and also starring the great John Cazale. You see, in the case of Scarface, I think he gave a fabulous and memorable performance, but again, not his best. Another Al Pacino film I enjoy is The Panic In Needle Park (1971), his performance is gritty and vulnerable at the same time.  The first time I saw Serpico (1973), I didn’t like it very much, but then I re-watched it and thought it was great, really great. Then there’s Scent Of A Woman (1992), which is an amazing movie, and his performance as Frank Slade is wonderful. There’s also a romantic comedy he did with the lovely Michelle Pfeiffer in 1991 called Frankie and Johnny, which I watched a few days ago and thought it was charming, it’s extremely nice and the chemistry between Pacino and Pfeiffer is really good. About his latest work (2000 and so on), I don’t like it very much, but he’s still an amazing artist, that’s for sure.

“People always said that time, the ’70s, was about pretty boys, and then I came along!”

Now, what do you think about Al Pacino’s looks? I happen to be one of those girls who find him quite attractive. You can’t deny there’s something about him that grabs you. I watched a marvelous documentary about The Godfather trilogy about a month ago, and Francis Ford Coppola said that Marsha Lucas (George Lucas’ wife at the time) told him that Al Pacino was right for the part of Michael because he undresses you with his eyes. Again, as I said before, he’s not your typical heart throb, but he has good looks, enough for being a leading man, I believe.

“I hope the perception is that I`m an actor, I never intended to be a movie star.”