DeNiro or Pacino?
DJBombjack
Miami 1,665 Posts
It's so hard... they've both made classics and both made stinkers... what does SS think?
DJBombjack
Miami 1,665 Posts
Comments
Pacino is good....Dog Day is one of my Top Ten.....was filmed in my neighborhood.
But DeNiro is
Pacino was pretty fucking great early in his career, but he has become such a caricature of himself lately that its hard for me not to have a bias against him. Admitedly, This applies to Deniro aswell, though in a far less pronounced way.
I mean, compare Dog Day Afternoon (where Pacino was utterly brilliant) to anything he has made in the last ten years. Yikes.
Pacino:
Dog Day Afternoon
Devil's Advocate
Donnie Brasco
City Hall
Heat
Carlito's Way
Scent Of A Woman
Glengarry Glen Ross
Godfather Trilogy
Serpico
Frankie & Johnny
Looking For Richard
Deniro:
City By The Sea
Ronin
Copland
Heat
Casino
Goodfellas
A Bronx Tale
Godfather II
Cape Fear
Midnight Run
Once Upon A Time In America
King Of Comedy
Raging Bull
The Deerhunter
Taxi Driver
Mean Streets
Deniro has the bigger body of work... but he also has way more many stinkers.
It's so close to call, i'm still on the fence.
"I'm hip."
"You don't LOOK hip."
As some critic (forget who, or I would cite) once said, "Pacine continues to think he can yell himself into character". With the exception of "The Insider," he hasn't done anything good in the last 15 years.
Hey Johnny boy, you know what a mook is?
And without checking: who's the oldest of the two ?
...
Right, you had that one wrong didn't you ?
honestly, I don't know anything about DeNiros personal life...
And who is older? DeNiro?
Pacino may have even been in better movies...I dunno. But a lot of those movies I like for reasons other than Pacino (e.g. Heat).
I think the DeNiro movies I like I like more because of him; his performances are better than Pacino's.
Deniro only bangs black sisters, he stalked Whitney Houston, his dad is rumoured to be gay, his daughter married some oldschool graf dude, he supports Al Gore (dumb move), etc.
They've finally re released this slept on pacino classic
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReviews15/scarecrow.htm
Here's the thing: I'm inclined to actually go - on a sentimental level - with Pacino. To me, he's more charismatic, and I suppose, more warm and fuzzy (again, see "Dog Day Afternoon). De Niro, despite his turns in comedic parts, always came off as just a bit too cold. And, well, psychotic. In a good way.
But in terms of who is the better actor, who commands more presence on screen (rather than harping for it), there's no fucking question: De Niro. That man exudes gravitas in a way that Pacino rarely does. The latter just happens to be more suave and a bit goofy but De Niro is someone you alternately respect and fear.
I wish the two would do another flick together though.
IMHO De Niro is a better actor ( Jackie Brown's "louis" character is the best thing he did in the last 10 years),
but Al Pacino is positively way more human and charismatic, and even if his acting isn't flawless (4 ex. I heard many spanish-language people complaining abt his cuban accent ), he always manage to make his characters warm, compelling and interesting,
and he has better taste in chosing his "stinkers" than DeNiro
Pacino is much more a classic-trained actor in the old fashioned way....( I mean every night performing live on stage in theather classic material)
think abt the way he act in "dog day....." , all those monologues make you feel "the stage training" the guy posses......
from interviews you can tell he has a more artsy view of the acting job,
while the other guy is all abt the challenge (obsession ?) of becoming the character himself
if you think,seems that even when he play disturbed, psichopathic characthers, Pacino seems much more human while Deniro manage to give a dark light even when he plays good people
and by the way R.D.N. lately became too money-oriented, agreeing with whatever project, even credit card commercials........
Yeah, but are you talking about the films or the actors?
Pacino's performance as Tony Montana, while certainly over-the-top, will go down as one of the most memorable in all of screen history.
At the same time I doubt most people could even tell you what Deniro's character's name was in Goodfellas*.
I agree Goodfellas is the better film overall.
But in terms of acting it was more of an ensemble piece where Deniro was just playing standard Deniro if you ask me.
Besides, when you really get down to performances in Goodfellas you think of Joe Pesci more than anyone.
I think it's a pretty close call between Pacino & Deniro two myself, but I've become increasingly bored with both in the last 10-15 years (with an occasional gem here or there).
If I had to pick I'd say Pacino just because I think he's generally played more interesting and diverse roles.
Merchant of Venice for example. When you watch that you gotta remind yourself that it's the same guy that played Tony Montana.
Speaking of which, it's interesting to me that you never really hear people get up in arms about Pacino playing a Cuban (Scarface) or a Puerto Rican (Carlito's Way) the way
people flipped out over Zhang Zi-Yi (a Chinese actress) playing a Japanese character.
I think that speaks volumes of Pacino's abilities as an actor.
Maybe some people here or there complain about his "accent" but it certainly isn't the outrage that you might expect otherwise from a white actor taking on some of these roles.
Let's put it this way, when Puerto Rocks the world over give you dap for a performance like that, and you aren't even Puerto Rican, that says something.
* Jimmy the Gent
when people compare those 2 actors and come out with DeNiro for his performance
most of them forget that he performed on works by scorsese, schrader, leone, cimino etc ...........the quality of the crew made those movies legendary, for sure not just the actor
most of the time, pacino worked with "above average" directors, but surely not as "out of ordinanary - talented" people as RDN did (how can you compare a GOOD director as De Palma with a GREAT director like Scorsese ? )but if you look at his filmography the whole, even if he rarely touched the high of RDN, he worked always in soild, respectable projects, much more than RDN (especially during the last 10 years)
I mean even the choice of material add to make an actor good or bad.......
DeNiro wins in my book, as others have said his performances in Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Casino, Cape Fear, BRAZIL!!![/b], Jackie Brown, The Deer Hunter, etc are pretty untoppable.
I will say that Pacino has made much better career moves than DeNiro, of late. Anyone see his Shakespaere movie (haven't gotten to it but heard it's great).
Well said.
Like several have mentioned, one could argue that both of them often play charicatures of themselves. If Pacino is typecast as the shouting-and-cussing hothead, then DeNiro is the "I just ate a lemon" pent-up anger man:
With DeNiro's characters I often think "what the hell is wrong with this guy", and I often don't get closer to an answer to this question. With Pacino I might think the same, but he has a knack of making me understand at least part of why the character does what he does.
Both are great though. No doubt about that.