The Iceman Cometh - Al Pacino recites Hickey's big speech

[overlander]

sorry, but this just don't grab me by the cohunas. Not like Lee Marvin's version

[Morituri100]

I really liked Al Pacino's reading,--what a good actor--and I even liked Jason Robards, in the small clip shown, but Hickey to me will always be Lee Marvin. It;'s strange but you never realize what a great actor Marvin was until a comparison like this.

[MaTchBoOkPoEt]

pacino can only play mobsters or cops lol

[Godzilla52]

@MaTchBoOkPoEt Watch The Insider and "And Justice for All" to prove your wrong about that.

[dantean]

Thank you for posting this. It takes O'Neill's naturalist style to tamp down ol' Al's instinct to go over the top--WAY OVER, a great deal of the time. Again, thanks.

[Shelby596]

It cracks me up when amateurs criticize Pacino on youtube... who is without a doubt one of, if not THE greatest actor ever. Cracks me up every time.

[dantean]

@Shelby596 Then you have been cursed with a surprisingly low threshold for humor..somewhere around the Benny Hill level, I'd say.

[Shelby596]

@dantean What, you've never heard of sarcasm, genius? Google it.

[whatsgoingon07]

looks just like Jim Carrey in the end

[modelprisoner]

This is not al at his best. JASON DID it right and also Lee Marvin did a quite credible job in a film version. I'v used this monlogue for auditions. So much there that needs to be said and suggested. A true actor's challege.

[furiosd6]

Heat

[nosmokingpistol77]

Pacino is way over the top here, as well as unconvincing and uninspiring. I realize Jason Robards is a tough act to follow and probably no one will top his interpretation of Hickey, but I think Pacino really overdoes it and looks like a buffoon. I loved this man in The Panic in Needle Park, Serpico, and basically all of his 70's films, but he seems to have lost it. Perhaps fame/affluence has made him forgetful.

[mineheadX1]

@nosmokingpistol77 I think he has to find the right role, casting him as Jack Kevorkian was brilliant, put Pacino in the right role and there's no better actor out there...but his energy is all wrong for Hickey...

[whirlpoolzend]

As with Sylvia Plath's uplifting 'Daddy', truly exhilarating.

[Andy1Emcee]

Pacino's good, but this isn't necessarily the role for him. Jason Robards played Hickey the best. Granted this is a reading, but he doesn't accentuate the right parts. Plus, he was truly great in the 1970's, with his only exception being Scent Of A Woman in 1992.

[bungi98]

@Andy1Emcee

He was truly great in the 1970s, and he still is truly great.

Watch "You Don't Know Jack" and "Angels in America" for some of the greatest performances in his entire career all made very recently.

[websurfin2010]

"when you leave the dream...it's an abyss"

[basilray]

This isn't the role for Pacino. It's far too deep for him. While I believe he would be fine as Hickey in the early moments of his arrival in this script, he isn't capable of playing the deep reveal and emotional unleashing of Hickey after those moments.

I also disagree with the way he is reading most of this...it got so bad, I had to stop it. He totally misses the boat, and it comes across as if he's revealing a childish memory/fantasy. Weak, Pacino, weak.

[harshlight7]

@basilray He's just giving a reading here, so give him some credit. Even the greatest actors can only give an approximation of a performance on the first try. And saying that a role is "too deep" for Al Pacino?! Come on!

[MrLippman]

@basilray The fact that Pacino doesn't obey your idea of how the speech should be performed doesn't make him a bad actor. And if you think that "deep reveal and emotional unleashing" is beyond his range, I question whether you have ever seen him act in anything besides this.

[basilray]

@MrLippman I never said he was a bad actor...this just isn't a role for him.

[MrTrykster]

i know it might sound stupid but the music in the background is amazing... anybody know what the song's name is? ANY CHANCE? love the vid ;)

[akki109]

it's john cale's name,right?

[123ghz]

4:15+

[agtgoldbond007]

I've always been a Pacino fan. I caught him live on Broadway a few years back doing 'Salome'. Brilliant. This clip, though, is not his finest work. I saw Jason Robards do this same speech, live, at a rehearsal for a gala performance for the King and Queen of Sweden for the O'Neil/Strindberg retrospective. It was the single greatest piece of acting I, as an acting student, had ever seen. He moved effortlessly around the stage, the words flowing, his voice guttural befitting a bar-fly.

[Inspektisto]

Ciekawe o co im chodzi?

[dw3541]

Just awfful. Pacino brings his heavy handed Actors Studio over emoting all about me acting instead of telling the story and ruins a classic speech. The same reason he can't do Shakespeare (see "Looking for Richard" - painful).

[yourass117]

"Illusion" free, or "allusion" free?

[MrTrykster]

@yourass117

illusion (a dream)

[akapner]

one of my all time favorite actors for all time....end of story...period.

[dw3541]

a shame you don't know any better.

[Bigmac79]

The Problem is, you cannot do it like Al in a Theater.

Only the first seats will hear it. You have to do it loud and powerful...but then the intimacy will gone away.

[MajDigi]

I dunno, some actors can throw a mutter to fill up a theatre.

[Haris13131313]

dont talk bullshit.Who says that theatre means yelling?It has nothing to do with who loud you say something

[Bigmac79]

I didn't say yelling.

I am an Actor at a Theater in Germany with 1200 Seats. You can't do it like Al did it in this Clip.

So, who is talking BS here?

[evet45]

@Bigmac79 Oh for cripes sakes,

Just wear a microphone!

End of argument.

[Bigmac79]

No real theater actor would wear a microphone in a theater.

Only Musical Actors do this.

Pacino's Arturo Ui with Microphone? This is a Joke.

[evet45]

@Bigmac79 There are microphones that are barely detectable, Where's the sound man? Who designed the acoustics? However, Al is incredible,

[dw3541]

you know nothing except what the media tells you. They tell you this is a hit song, you listen to it, this is a great actor, you believe it.

[RoryMercury]

Oh, my God! Is so spectacular!!! Al is the best!!!

[sugachic01]

he's 69 he was borned in 1940

[Timthethespian89]

I'd like to see him really work on it and actually perform it and not read it. I bet it'd be great then. Not his best stuff, but really good.

[andreacha2009]

wow pacino!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[AshLuvsJonnyStew]

God he's good...too good...

[polishactor]

he makes acting look so effortless

[shirleystemple]

@polishactor

Indeed.

[castheman1050]

how old is he now i hope he doesn't die

[simian455]

Pacino is god.

[HousseinGabriel]

yes, Pacino is the best!

[mizanahmed]

Such a brilliant actor.

[Bubdylan524]

Al really is something else. I've become disillusioned with most great actors (coughDeNiroCOUGH), but this guy cares about his craft. He still does it on a high level.

[kylekeske]

Pacino is The GOD of act!

[lunigal]

what a great work. Thanks for posting. so revealing.

[destinyuraqte]

my God ... he gave me a heart attack Jesus he is good!

[TheHotShower]

one word to al pacino: AMAZING

[FutureStagePhantom]

AMAZING! Oh. My. God.

This is one of the best plays, written by the best playwrite, acted by one of the greatest actors alive.

[ajveda]

That was the best fuckin' cold read I have ever seen!

[RomoloMampieri]

This is unbelievably good. Pacino is one of the greatest actors of all time and my personal hero.

[fedbymum]

He was good in his movies during th 70s then he became Al"why am I suddenly screaming" Paciono.

[Simbaa991]

why am I sunddenly screaming? What do you mean?

[transhuman7]

Very gifted actor.

[suda51]

Al pacino.. he's natural..

[yongCE08]

AL PACINO is always a GREAT! even though he had some crappy movies, his acting is still SUPERB!

but i don't think that his fit for romantic movies.. lol...

[ew1951]

It was good to see this video. I was looking for the 1973 (Lee Marvin & Frederik March) version put out by the AFI. Glad this was here.

[cyfp]

i re-fell in love with theater when i saw this

[girl43]

He's not bad !

He only does it in an other way.

More interiorized.

But guys, Al Pacino is NEVER bad.

Even in the few bad movies he's played in, he managed to be good!

[polites]

so how is Pacino bad? He had the gravity, his voice just carried more calm and defeated than the other actor

[bencheshire]

If this is the worst he ever does, then man o man... Al Pacino...

[Thorrules1234]

He's doing a cold reading dumbasses. For a cold reading of THAT speech it isn't that bad. If you have any doubts, just remember, he's a better actor than any of you will or could ever be.

[memodeh]

I've never seen al pacino do something this awful

[hawkssens]

That was awful...

Thanks for the upload!

[lonerebel1]

it's not that great because he doesn't have it memorized.. He's reading it and acting as he goes... But Al Pacino is the man..

[mieciolomi]

That's what happens when you're well fed and ideas take over hunger...

[Hello945]

wow...horrible interpretation...

[Geshien]

god awful.

[donpedrosan]

Robards is rolling over in his grave...crap

[aliarikan]

This is great. Thanks.