Pacino’s Eyes Wide Open 50 Years After The Godfather

Now 81 & 50 yrs later, Al Pacino says the fame he got for his iconic role in “The Godfather” was hard to accept. Young at the time, rebellious & into drugs, it was only his third film after gaining some cred on Broadway. Yet, was director Francis Ford Coppola right about Pacino portraying a quintessential virgin-turned-mafioso don?

In a New York Times article Pacino recalled of his Michael Corleone: “It’s hard to explain who I was at that time and the bolt of lightning that it was … I felt like, all of a sudden, some veil was lifted and all eyes were on me. Of course, there were others in the film. But ‘The Godfather’ gave me a new identity that was hard for me to cope with.” Pacino also struggled to explain why he didn’t attend the Academy Award ceremony after being nominated for Best Supporting Actor (while Marlo Brando outright rejected his proffered one for Best Actor). “I was young in terms of the newness of all this. It was the old shot-out-of-a-cannon syndrome. And it’s connected to drugs and those kinds of things, which I was engaged in back then. And, I think that had a lot to do with it. I was just unaware of things back then.”

In the great film’s 50th anniversary yr & many accolades later, including a Best Actor Oscar for “Scent of a Woman,” Pacino has grown back to being more like the sweeter, down to earth early Michael. It’s as if the blind marine officer he played in “Scent” had opened his eyes: “I am deeply honored by [the fame The Godfather brought me] ... It’s a piece of work that I was so fortunate to be in. But it’s taken me a lifetime to accept it and move on. It’s not like I played Superman.”

Davd Soul