Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

Majestic Western, one of the greatest Westerns ever made...one of the greatest films ever made...

This is arguably Leone's masterpiece (even though some prefer the magisterial Once Upon a Time in America). It is one of the most astounding Westerns ever made. It can stand next to any of the great Westerns (Stagecoach, The Searchers, Unforgiven, The Wild Bunch), and it is such a unique, moving, and brilliant experience that you can see this film over and over again, and it never gets boring.

After Leone's "dollars" trilogy was wildly successful (and is still adored today), Paramount decided to bring Leone to America and let him direct the ultimate Western. This is the masterpiece he came up with. Leone wrote the original story with the great Bernardo Bertolucci and the great, underrated Dario Argento. It has one of the greatest (and longest) opening credits sequences in movie history, and it's also one of the most tension filled and actually quite funny at times. It also has one of the most cold blooded villians in Western history, played brilliantly against type by Henry Fonda. Reportedly, when Fonda accepted the film (based on his friend Eli Wallach's endorsement of Leone and Fonda's screening of the dollars films), he grew a mustache and got brown contact lenses. When Leone saw this, he said "no, no, no!". He wanted the Fonda that the American movie going public loved to be the villian.

One can't talk about this film without mentioning the great score by Ennio Morricone. It's one of the most famous scores in movie history, and Leone's and Morricone's relationship is one of the most unique in cinema history. Rarely has a composer and director been so closely linked (and done so well together) like Morricone and Leone. The film has one of the greatest final shootouts in movie history, but it's made even greater by the music score. Leone was so taken by Morricone's music (who wouldn't be?) that he played the score during the actual final shootout so Charles Bronson (who is excellent as Harmonica) and Fonda would move to the music like a ballet.

The film is surprisingly realistic in its depiction of the West. Many American critics hated the spaghetti Westerns, but this was extremely shortsighted. Leone's films are actually far more realistic than many more famous Westerns. The clothing worn by the men of Cheyenne (played brilliantly by Jason Robards) were long, yellow dusters. Many asked Leone where he got the idea from. He said he went back to the original source. Men didn't wear the tight leather pants and fancy cowboy outfits as much as Hollywood would lead you to believe. The dusters worn in Once Upon a Time in the West were worn because they were very practical for cowboys to wear. They shielded them from the rain and kept them warm during the cold nights in the desert. The trading post scene is also very realistic. It's very dimly lit, like it would be back in the old West. Leone was very well read on the West, and maybe there was some resentment from old timers that this upstart Italian director knew more about the West than they did.

It's quite ironic that the first time I saw this film, I didn't fully get it, but something said to try again. I did this, and the film got better each time I saw it. Paramount stupidly cut it from 165 minutes to 144 in its initial theatrical run (it was restored for VHS, laser, and DVD releases to its original 165 minute running time), and it really tanked at the American box office. But it was a major hit in Europe, especially France, where the dusters worn by Cheyenne became a fashion phenomenon and the film ran in Paris cinemas continually for FOUR years. The film is also beautifully paced. As Leone's career progressed, his films became longer, more leisurely paced, and quite melancholic and contemplative (especially his final film Once Upon a Time in America), and this one is a prime example of the genius of Sergio Leone. September 24, 2008

An Absolutely Awe-Inspiring Western! I Can See Why This One Is So Critically-Acclaimed!!!

Sergio Leone's monumental western epic, 'Once Upon A Time In The West' (1969) is a western movie that truly has to be seen to be believed and fully deserves its reputation as a classic. Visually, this film is a treat for the eyes, as the beautiful cinematography and photography are unmatched by anything else of its time (with the exception of perhaps, Hell in the Pacific) and combined with the excellent sound editing, makes for a very realistic-looking vision of the American Old West. This is especially true in the movie's opening scene, where three villainous goons lie in wait for a train supposedly carrying their intended quarry for a good 15 minutes. The near absence of any musical score during this scene along with its languid pacing and silence aside from a aged windmill creaking, flies buzzing and the wind softly sowing, instantly drew me in and made me feel like I was actually there.

The story is a highly-engrossing and very involving one, too, with multiple storylines for the lead characters of Henry Fonda, Jason Robards, Charles Bronson and Claudia Cardinale all intricately interwoven and interconnected in a fascinating, almost 'Traffic'-like style. The plot is a little tough to follow at some points but it engages your interest throughout by keeping you guessing and it all comes together full circle in a fully revealing, amazing, and shocking finale. The acting all throughout from the phenomenal cast is uniformly excellent as well. I especially liked Charles Bronson's portrayal of the enigmatic gunman known only as Harmonica, for the instrument he carries around his neck and plays in eerie, mournful tunes that sharply accent and herald his on-screen presence in certain scenes. And you'll simply be blown away by Henry Fonda as the callous, throughly evil killer, Frank. Even for a western villain, his bad-guy factor is off the charts in this film. The always-entertaining Jason Robards (who I really admire as an actor alot) also manages to get a few of the movie's best lines and moments. Claudia Cardinale as the wealthy land baroness is tie linking their three paths and fates together. It's all done marvelously well.

As big and as excellent as this movie is, I don't know how I ever missed it seeing before on TV. If you want to experience to the 19th Century Wild West as it truly was, this movie is about as close as most of us can get. A visually stunning and fascinating tale! I strongly recommend this movie, even to viewers who don't normally like westerns. Five stars.

I kind of prefer to think of this movie as an unofficial prequel to Sergio Leone's later, 20th Century epic, 'Once Upon A Time In America' (1984). Oh, boy ; looks like I'm up for the daunting task of reviewing that movie next!

September 16, 2008

Masterpiece

I had never seen the uncut version of Sergio Leone's famed Once Upon A Time In The West, before stumbling across the DVD at a bargain price. I had seen major portions of it, chopped up by censors, studio heads, and the nitwits who need to run commercials for local television stations. While intriguing I did not think it could hold up to his justly praised Once Upon A Time In America. I was wrong. It does, and in its own way is just as good, or great. Whereas America is amazingly complex, and follows the lives of several gangsters, West is sparse, amazingly straightforward, yet surreal- having been released fifteen years before America, in 1969. Instead of having affinities more in tune with Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather and Apocalypse Now it resonates with the tv series The Prisoner and Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The film is quite surreal, depending far more on what is shown (imagine that- a film where the visuals are the most important element!) than what is said. In two hours and forty five minutes there's a reputed only fifteen pages of dialogue; most of that cryptic and seeming torn from a Beckett play, rather than being at home in a Western, a genre I generally detest for all the American triumphalism and John Waynean braggadocio, celebrating the worst aspects of the Ugly American. Yet, this film is loaded with symbolism, and a very simple plot. A land speculator named McBain is killed, along with his family, as he awaits his new wife's arrival from New Orleans. She is Jill (Claudia Cardinale), a gorgeous ex-prostitute. The murder is ordered by a man named Morton (Gabriele Ferzettii), a robber baron railroad man whose physical handicap leaves him a prisoner on his train (much in the mode of a 19th Century James Bond supervillain), and who employs a killer named Frank (Henry Fonda), who actually does the deed. On his tale is an unnamed man named Harmonica (Charles Bronson), for the instrument he plays, and also a bandit gang leader named Cheyenne (Jason Robards), whom Frank has framed for the crime.
The film follows the interactions of the four main characters, as described by others.... As for the film, it is surreal, yet also hyper-realistic in its use of the scenery of Monument Valley, and the great faces of many of its character actors- from Jack Elam and Woody Strode in small, early roles, to Lionel Stander and Keenan Wynn in later roles. There are scenes that ring true, even as they are also pure symbolism, such as Cardinale's close association with water and self-image, Bronson's almost magical sliding in and out of frame, and the way Frank radiates more real menace in a lip curl than Hannibal Lecter can in a whole film. The film damns Romanticism, even as its title celebrates it. It dazzlingly inverts clichés and, most importantly, realizes that film can and should make use of time, and long shots and scenes. MTV has destroyed much of appreciation of the brilliance that long scenes can hold. This is never truer than the film's start, where three gunman waiting at a train station for someone or something that is coming on the next train. No explanation, no conversation; not a word is said, yet they deal with water drips, flies, and knuckle cracking. Fifteen minutes pass before what they are waiting for arrives, yet it's a visual and aural feast for pure cinemaphiles, on par with 2001's opening scenes of prehistoric humans.
Throughout the film, glares, scowls, and small facial twinges convey emotion far more effectively than most pallid dialogue. And the grandiose scenes of natural beauty are something even David Lean would admire. The four musical themes attached to the main characters are highly effective. There are also many great lines in the film. Two of the best are when Harmonica is told by one of Frank's henchmen, after asking if a horse was brought for him, that it `looks like we're shy one horse.' Harmonica replies, `You brought two too many.' The other is when Frank, after being queried on his methodology, says, `People scare better when they're dyin'.' Touches like this, and even the title, lend credence to the idea that, like his later Once Upon A Time In America, this film is nothing but someone's dream of the West, not the real thing. Yet, both within and without, people must wake up to modern America. Damn!
September 15, 2008

"Inside the dusters were three men and inside the men were three bullets.."

Arguably one of the greatest westerns ever made, this is a strange and slow moving tale of crossing paths and revenge. Charles Bronson as the mysterious "Harmonica" whom we first see at the train station. He is met by a trio of killers (Jack Elam, Woody Strode and Al Mulock).
Bronson: Did you bring a horse for me?
Elam (laughing): Well, I guess we're one horse shy.
Bronson (shaking his head): No. You brought two too many.
Henry Fonda as Frank, one of THE most vicious killers on film. Jason Robard's Cheyenne and Claudia Cardinale (who has never looked more beautiful) as Jill McBain. Described by one of the featurettes as an "Opera of Violence", that is a pretty fair assessment. Each character is pursuing a particular path that brings them all together: Harmonica is out to kill Frank (Fonda) -- for reasons which become clear toward the end. Cardinale's character has married a man who is murdered by Frank and his gang to get his land for the railroad. Cheyenne (Robards) is involved when Frank tries to frame him by having his men commit crimes in the type of rain slickers his men wear. This is apparent in the bar scene where Bronson, Robards and Cardinale meet. Cheyenne has just escaped from jail and watches into the desert bar with his men amid a cloud of dust. Bronson is seated on the bar, playing a wailing cord on his harmonica. In the course of things he discusses the three men who meet him at the railroad station earlier.
Harmonica: I was met by dusters like those. Inside the dusters were three men. Inside the men were three bullets." In the final confrontation, Frank wants to know Harmonica's reason for coming after him.
Harmonica: Only on the point of dying.
This is the most complicated of the Leone westerns. A brilliant score by his long time composer Ennio Morricone -- with distinct themes for each of the major characters. Different in many ways from the Dollars films and the last box office hit he would have. After the Dollars Trilogy he wanted to do his gangster epic ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA. Paramount convinced Leone that if he did another western they would bankroll his pet project. September 15, 2008

Now That You've Said My Name..

A line from Henry Fonda (as Frank) right before he eliminates a kid,never did Henry Fonda play a more ruthless character than in Sergio Leone's classic epic western,Once Upon a Time in the West,featuring an all-star cast with Charles Bronson,Jason Robards and the luscious,Claudia Cardinale and also genre actor,Frank Wolff,character actor Jack Elam and Woody Strode,the opening scene alone is classic with no dialogue for the first ten minutes into the film,there was a story the legendary director Sergio Leone once considered Clint Eastwood,Eli Wallach and Lee Van Cleef for the opening scene roles,of course they would be eliminated after the first scene,can you imagine these three desperados up against Charles Bronson,it makes you think,who would've won this battle,who knows,never happened. If you've never seen this Spaghetti western it is a glorious spectacle to be seen,the greatest western ever made?,definitely in the top twenty,let's not forget about Peckinpah's,The Wild Bunch. This special two disc edition is presented in 16x9 widescreen at a cheap reasonable price. September 12, 2008

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