The Panic in Needle Park

"The Panic in Needle Park" -- out now on Blu-ray via a limited edition release from Twilight Time -- is a crowded movie. Its first shot is of a packed train. We focus on one commuter in the center; her name is Helen (Kitty Winn). We follow her out to loft apartments and dingy streets, where she meets a human love (Bobby, played by Al Pacino) and a chemical one (heroin). Armed with nothing more than flyweight cameras and active zoom lenses, the movie chases them down streets and up alleys while they try to score. We're usually watching them from the other side of the road, or from the corner of a bedroom, like a lascivious onlooker. This movie isn't just "crowded." It makes you into part of the crowd.

And it doesn't let you look away. The compositions gaze unreservedly at needles being injected into veins; at skin turning gout under the throes of the disease; and at "pillow talk" that turns into "nodding off." The question is whether or not this gaze represents fascination or fetishism.

In a booklet included with the Blu-ray release, Julie Kirgo tries to answer that question. She details the working histories of the creative team -- the film is directed by Jerry Schatzberg, and it's written by Joan Didion and John Dunne -- while rightfully defending its unsparing look toward the troubled side of New York's lowest class.

What's undeniable is that the film emphasizes its own voyeurism. There's a documentary-style focus on recording the moneymaking techniques and the copious slang of the chosen subculture. "Panic" is searching for anything that skews against normalcy. That is the perspective of an outsider -- but we're still standing on the same street as the insiders we're looking at.

In addition to the essay, the Blu-ray disc features a number of other special features. First up is a theatrical trailer. Following that is two featurettes: "Panic in the Streets of New York" interviews a number of the creative participants (including the director), while "Writers of New York" focuses on comments from Didion. Finally, there's a unique twist on an old Twilight Time standard: The disc features an isolated score track, even though "Needle Park" doesn't feature a score. What you get to hear is an unused score composed by Pulitzer winner Ned Roram that was ultimately excised from the final cut. (The final extra on the disc provides notes and information regarding the creation of that score.)

But in the finished version of "Needle Park," the only soundtrack is composed by the streets. Instead of Roram's music, we overhear half-finished conversations held among addicts, all marked by a raspy and intoxicated tone of voice. Other comments from passerby intermingle liberally with whatever's happening between Bobby and Helen. They're living their lives in public spaces -- on sidewalks, in storefronts, on ferries, in jail -- and the audio track never lets you forget it. It's as crowded as the compositions. And it's one of the defining characteristics of the movie's sense of intimacy -- one that would be repeated in American movies made up to the current day.

This may be post-Cassavettes, but whole scores of unsparing American movies come from the lineage of "Needle Park," right up to last year's miraculous pseudo-remake, "Heaven Knows What." Among low-to-the-ground cinema, this is truly a landmark.

"The Panic in Needle Park"
Blu-ray
$29.95
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