“Before Requiem for a Dream and Sid and Nancy, there was The Panic in Needle Park. A harrowing 1971 New York tragedy.”
– Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out New York

“A starmaking performance by Al Pacino as a junkie lowlife, a screenplay by Joan Didion and husband John Gregory Dunne, and director Jerry Schatzberg's grimy, sweaty portrait of downscale Manhattan, circa 1971. WHY THE HELL ISN'T THIS SEEN AS A PERIOD CLASSIC THE WAY TAXI DRIVER IS? THIS IS GENRE-DEFINING CINEMA, AND YOU SHOULDN'T MISS IT.”
– Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com
Click here to read complete article

“New York's classic shoot-'em-up... Filled with choice 'Fun City' locations. An American art film that would have found its natural home in a 42nd Street grind house—although the new print of this 1971 dope opera at Film Forum this week looks a lot better now than it did then. Pacino is a force of nature. This mop-topped motormouth is as wired as Robert DeNiro's Johnny Boy and as cute as Woody Allen's Alvy Singer.”
– J. Hoberman, The Village Voice
Click here to read complete article

"ONE OF THE CLASSICS OF 1970s NYC FILMMAKING!"
– The Moment Blog of The New York Times
Click here to read complete article and see a clip from the film

“WELL-WORTH RE-VISITING! ” – Reverse Shot
Click here to read complete article

“One of the most gifted and original filmmakers to emerge during the 70s, Schatzberg combines a photographer’s eye for telling detail with a psychologist’s passion for the twists and turns of human motivation."
– Dave Kehr, The New York Times

(1971) That’s the little triangle at the intersection of Broadway and 72nd St. (aka Sherman Square, adjacent to Verdi Square) and Shootup Central for West Side drug addicts, and where decent Midwesterner Kitty Winn is headed from the moment she spies artist boyfriend Raul Julia making a connection with small-time crook and pusher Al Pacino. Scintillating star debut for Pacino (Paramount execs green-lighted him for The Godfather only after Coppola screened Panic for them) as the Boyfriend from Hell — and an equally smashing debut for Winn, granddaughter of General George C. Marshall: she won the Best Actress award at Cannes for her performance. Stark, music-less, near-documentary treatment of drug life — and an offbeat love story — with scenes shot (by Polish DP Adam Holender) on Gotham streets (B’way & 69th doubled for the real Needle Park), and with Pacino often improvising from the solid basis of Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne’s screenplay (based on the book by James Mills). Only the second film from photographer Schatzberg (already renowned for his fashion work and Bob Dylan images, including the iconic Blonde on Blonde cover), Panic established him as a distinctive stylist. With Richard Bright as Pacino’s thief brother, the unsung Alan Vint as the narc (setting new records for low-key delivery) and Paul Sorvino cameoing as a john. Produced by Dominick Dunne. Color; Approx. 110 minutes

1:10, 3:20, 5:30, 7:40*, 9:50
*Q&A with director Jerry Schatzberg and Director of Photography Adam Holender,
following 7:40 show on Tuesday, February 3.

A CRITERION PICTURES RELEASE OF A TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX FILM

• Leonard Lopate (WNYC) Interview with Jerry Schatzberg and Kitty Winn
• Time Out New York interviews with the cast & crew (2009)
• Interview with Joan Didion on The Panic in Needle Park (2008)
• "Overlooked and Undervalued, the Films of Jerry Schatzberg" by Scott Foundas, The Village Voice [pdf]
• Interview with Jerry Schatzberg by Nicolas Rapold, L Magazine [pdf]
• Review by Roger Ebert (1971)
• Bio of director Jerry Schatzberg
• Schatzberg's photo sessions for Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde

“A keen, unsentimental observation of a drug and a relationship. Due to the combined artistry of Schatzberg, Pacino and Winn, Park aches with despair: close-ups evoke the same amount of pain whether the camera is focused on a heroin injection or simply a character’s glance. The key to Needle Park’s gritty, photorealistic beauty is its verisimilitude... Schatzberg peers inside the minutiae while revealing a broader panorama of the insular world these characters have created for themselves.”
– L Magazine
Click here to read complete article

“Schatzberg moves with considerable force over the urban territory of Midnight Cowboy, using hand-held cameras and a sustained editing rhythm to convey the couple’s gradual descent into hell as mercilessly as he shows the needles entering his characters’ veins.”
– Time Out (London)

“A relatively unsung chronicler of ’70s alienation… Remembered mainly as the neophyte Pacino’s launching pad into Godfather stardom, the modestly scaled, harrowing Needle Park has over the decades proven to be nearly as influential as Coppola’s blockbuster, setting a cinematic template later used by Drugstore Cowboy, Requiem for a Dream, and a good deal of Sundance Channel fodder.”
– Fernando F. Croce, SLANT