The Panic in Needle Park

I’d like to start by drawing attention to the awful poster. Its religious tone draws parallels to the silent propaganda films that promoted the temperance movement. Panic, however, is much more than a junkie romance or an old-fashioned moralist message on the dangers of drug use.

Panic is a film full of surprises. Most notably it is credited as Al Pacino’s breakthrough. Both Francis Ford Coppolla and Dino de Laurentis have stated that it brought the actor to their attention. Pacino was subsequently cast in both filmmakers’ respective projects, The Godfather and Serpico. Jerry Schatzberg, the film’s director, worked with Pacino again in 1974 casting him alongside Gene Hackman in Scarecrow. Although I have not seen Scarecrow the clips of it that I have watched indicate that aesthetically it contains similarities to Panic. Both films show Schatzberg to be a promising talent with a distinctive vision. The director’s career, however, sadly never progressed past his auspicious early productions. Perhaps there was no audience for his gritty, realist take on the lives of America’s displaced citizens.

As stated in the title sequence Needle Park is the name bestowed upon the junction of Sherman Square in New York by its inhabitants. In the film the area is populated with cheap hotels, diners and run-down apartment blocks. The people that dwell in this dilapidated environment include pimps, prostitutes, drug addicts and petty criminals. Bobby, Al Pacino, is both an addict and a thief. The film follows his relationship with Helen and their increasing drug use.

The environment that the film creates correlates a number of the social problems that affect Needle Park. The community of drug users, dealers and prostitutes co-exist and the boundary between their identities is blurred. Bobby, for example, starts the film as an addict who steals in order to feed his addiction. Later, however, he starts dealing and working with the substance manufacturers. His relationship with Helen and their excessive dependence on heroin leads him to use her as a sexual object when he needs his next hit. Eventually Helen herself becomes a prostitute and thief as she robs her clients. What at first seems like a food chain, a hierarchical system of corruption, ends up becoming a vicious cycle of despair.

Another component in the cycle are the cops that monitor Needle Park, who are as self-absorbed as the junkies that they detest. “They all rat” is what one of the detectives tells Helen when trying to bribe her into setting up Bobby. This only adds to the atmosphere of paranoia that governs the region. Ultimately the cops are portrayed as a deterrent to the problem rather than a solution. Their method of blackmailing criminals into betraying one another makes Needle Park an increasingly volatile place.

Schatzberg sympathetically portrays his displaced characters. Their conflicting emotions present a contrast to the cold and manipulative motives of the police force. Helen best reflects this theme. She is presented as a soft spoken, fragile and helpless female. At the beginning of the film we find her bed ridden after getting an illegal abortion. She is not, however, an addict. Her exposure to Bobby’s lifestyle subsequently leads her to start using. In the process her dependent nature is revealed. She is more reliant on men than drugs. We later learn that she ran away from home and therefore her attachment to men is almost out of necessity as she is homeless. Bobby is in the same predicament, navigating the vacant spaces he can use as shelter and stealing in order to survive.

Schatzberg’s film borrows from the neo-realist tradition by detailing the hardships of marginalised communities. The exclusion of music from the film’s soundtrack places further emphasis on its commitment to realism. Furthermore the use of handheld camera in the sequence in which Bobby overdoses, coupled with quick cuts, deliberately gives the scene a documentary style, Cinéma vérité appearance. The superb editing in the film also adds to the moments of dramatic tension. The first time Bobby gets busted is an excellent example of the film's imaginative use of the technique. The simple cut to show Bobby showering in prison, which takes place immediately after he tries to rob a truck, is a brilliant example of how to successfully build suspense and how to maintain an economically tight narrative structure.

The poor marketing that Panic received has ultimately detracted from its layered storyline, instead focusing too much on the tragedy at its core and the star-making turn of its protagonist. The open-ended conclusion, unlike so many romantic tragedies, is not about sacrifice. In fact it reinforces the film’s central theme concerning the hopeless cycle of despair faced by Needle Park’s residents, if you can call them that. Therefore Panic is a more complicated affair than the countless other independent films of its ilk.