Remarks at the Presentation of a Volta Festival Tribute Award to Al Pacino
Dublin, 20th February 2012
Thank you, Festival Chairman, Arthur Lappin, and Festival Director,
Gráinne Humphreys.
Is cúis áthais fé leith dom bheith libh go léir anseo anocht ag ceiliúradh an 10ú Féile Scannánaíochta Bhaile Átha Cliath.
It is indeed a great pleasure for me to join you all here this evening to celebrate the 2012 Jameson Dublin International Film Festival. And tonight is a cause for particular celebration, because it marks the 10th anniversary of an initiative taken by the late Michael Dwyer, film correspondent of the Irish Times who, in 2003, had both the courage and the foresight to restore a Festival which had fallen into abeyance.
I would like to warmly congratulate the Arts Council and the Irish Film Board for being key funding partners of this Festival. I would also like to commend the Festival Sponsors, Jameson, for their ongoing support of this important event in the Irish arts calendar.
It is a singular honour for me this evening to present a Festival Tribute Award, a Volta Award, to one of the true icons of world cinema – Al Pacino.
I am further delighted, as I know you all are, to know that Al Pacino is joined at
Dublin’s International Film Festival by another great American actor and good friend of mine Martin Sheen. I know that, from their late teens, Martin and Al have had many acting and social collaborations with each other.
In a long and enduring career which has been marked by excellence and extensive variety, Al Pacino has performed all the major functions of the film genre in the roles of actor, director, screenwriter and producer. The winner of a slew of Awards – including an Academy Award for Best Actor for the 1992 film “Scent of a Woman”, and the American Film Institute’s prestigious Life Achievement Award in 2006 – Al Pacino has truly demonstrated an outstanding versatility which has entertained audiences throughout the globe. In terms of both quantity and quality, the Pacino portfolio is truly inspiring and includes such powerful work as The Godfather trilogy, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, Scarface, Sea of Love, Glengarry Glen Ross, Carlito’s Way, The Merchant of Venice and Ocean’s Thirteen.
Al Pacino has previously expressed the view that he was lucky in finding a desire and deciding early in his life, on a career that he has enjoyed throughout his life. But that desire needed to have a focus and a direction, and Al Pacino honed his skills by acting in basement plays in New York’s theatrical underground, studying at the Herbert Berghof Studio, before finally successfully auditioning for the prestigious Actors Studio of New York. During those early years when he was learning and honing his craft as an actor, Al Pacino worked at a string of jobs, including busboy, janitor, postal clerk, and even as an Usher in the now-defunct Riverly Movie House in New York.
As we here in Ireland continue to develop our film and audiovisual production industry, and as we seek to demonstrate to the world our longstanding tradition of being a nation of storytellers, I believe that the example of perseverance and resilience in Al Pacino’s life-story should serve to inspire and encourage our highly talented practitioners here at home.
Al Pacino’s Wilde Salome is his third work as director and is described by himself as his “most personal project ever”. In 2006, he came to Trinity College to research the project and was awarded Honorary Patronage of the College’s Philosophical Society in the process. We are now about to view the end-product of these labours, a work that is in part a filmed stage production, a part fictional film of Oscar Wilde’s life, but for us all a celebration of Al Pacino’s passion and love for his craft.
Just before we view it, however, there is the very important matter of the
Volta Festival Tribute Award. This award is named after the first cinema that was opened in Dublin in 1909. Called the Volta Electric Theatre. One of its founders was
James Joyce. What an apt symmetry then that we should tonight present an award associated with Joyce to an outstanding actor and director who has made a captivating film about another Irish literary genius, Oscar Wilde. It gives me enormous pleasure to present this Volta Award to our distinguished guest, Al Pacino.