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Once
Upon a Time in the West
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Review
by
Brian Lindsey
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10
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10 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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Once
upon a time they made movies like this.
Sergio Leone's penultimate spaghetti western
is not a film for everyone, not even casual fans of the genre.
Running nearly three hours, Once Upon
a Time iIn The West takes its sweet time telling a bareboned
story, albeit in a convoluted, heavily stylized manner. A slow,
measured pace and relative dearth of violent action will doubtless
leave many snoozing. If so, then it's their loss. The Wachowski
brothers may have invented "Bullet Time" with The
Matrix, but "Leone Time" even more demonstrably extends/distorts
cinematic space-time without the benefit of a single special
effect.
The minimalist plot is set against the
sprawling backdrop of the frontier West in twilight, with the
advent of the transcontinental railroad as its locus. A ruthless
rail baron, Mr. Morton (Gabriele Ferzetti), needs a valuable
piece of desert land through which to run his track. Morton's
sadistic enforcer, Frank (the brilliantly cast-against-type
Henry Fonda), leads his gang of toughs in the slaughter of an
entire family the McBains, the family that owns the coveted
land. The widowed Mr. McBain and his three children are shot
down like dogs, even though Morton had ordered Frank to only
frighten them off, not kill them. "People scare easier
when they're dyin'," Frank insists, not without a little
pleasure.
That very day, a beautiful woman arrives
in the nearby town of Flagstone, claiming to be the new wife
of Brett McBain. Jill (Claudia Cardinale) married him in New
Orleans weeks earlier and has now come to live with him at his
ranch, called Sweetwater. Instead of being greeted by her husband
she learns that he and his children have been murdered, that
she is now a widow, alone on the frontier. With ownership of
Sweetwater passing to her, Jill finds herself on the agenda
of Mr. Morton and his hired muscle. But unexpectedly two allies
appear on the scene to defend her: Cheyenne (Jason Robards),
a scruffy local outlaw whom Frank has framed for the McBain
murders, and "Harmonica" (Charles Bronson), a mysterious stranger
so dubbed for the instrument he keeps on a thong about his neck
which he often plays in lieu of talking. Cheyenne doesn't take
kindly to being blamed for crimes he didn't commit; he also
falls in love with the attractive widow, though he knows they
can never be together. Harmonica, for reasons unstated, just
wants to kill Frank. In the end he'll get his chance.
It's a mighty slim story for such a long
film. Nor can it be said that what Leone is truly interested
in is characterization over plot, as we learn surprisingly little
about the characters themselves. Jill McBain, around whom the
others orbit, is revealed to be a former prostitute. Rail baron
Morton, slowly wasting away from disease, puts morality aside
in his obsession to see the Pacific Ocean from the widow of
his train before he dies. His underling, Frank, has designs
on ultimately replacing him as the Man Who Wields The Power.
Cheyenne
an embodiment of the Wild West's passing with the coming of
progress
is a romantic bandit of the type so beloved in Mediterranean
culture, the noble scoundrel. The reason for Harmonica's vendetta
against Frank is finally revealed to us, but not until very
near the end of the movie. Beyond this we still know absolutely
nothing about him.
Sketchy characters such as these are sufficient
for your typical action-oriented fare
something OUATITW definitely is
not. One of the amazing things about the film is just how much
mileage Leone gets out them, without any real backstory and
comparatively little dialog, simply by letting the actors convey
worlds of meaning in the director's trademark close-ups. Their
faces
especially the roughhewn Bronson's
are as much a part of the gritty western landscape as the soaring
buttes of Monument Valley. Harmonica doesn't have to say a word
to let us know he's a man who's suffered greatly... It's etched
in every craggy line of his countenance. The fabulous score
of composer Ennio Morricone also plays a significant role in
fleshing out the characters, with each assigned a haunting theme.
Less famous than his compositions for the Leone-Eastwood collaborations,
Morricone's work for OUATITW is
by every measure just as good, if not better, and even more
important to the film as a whole. (The theme for Jill's character
is, to me, one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written
for a motion picture.) From the very outset of the project Leone
envisioned it thus, as the music was composed before even a
single frame of film was shot.
Christopher Frayling, the Leone biographer
who contributes substantially to the DVD's supplemental material,
comments that what the Italian director is truly interested
in are the rituals that precede violence, not violence itself.
This is never more evident than in Once
Upon a Time in the West. Apart from the scenes in which
Cheyenne rescues Harmonica from Morton's train and some of Frank's
gang turn against their leader, there is virtually no action
in the film... For a Few Dollars More
has Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef taking down a gang of bandits;
The Good, the Bad & the Ugly showcases
a full-scale Civil War battle
OUATITW has nothing comparable
to these scenes. Here, when violence comes it is all over in
a few seconds. It is the buildup to such moments that
best encapsulate for Leone the mythos of the American West.
This approach finds its ultimate expression in the memorable
set-pieces that bookend the film. The famous opening scene at
the deserted rail station, in which Harmonica is first introduced,
lasts nearly 14 minutes before culminating in two seconds of
gunplay. Similarly, the climactic showdown between Bronson and
Fonda brings everything that has gone before, over 2½ hours,
down to a single, solitary gunshot. Even those who might balk
at the film's length and pacing will have to admit that these
scenes represent filmmaking of the highest order.
Once Upon a Time
in the West is simply
an incredible movie, one of the greatest western films ever
made lovingly fashioned by a unique stylist/storyteller at
the peak of his creative powers.
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No
self-respecting spaghetti western aficionado should be without
this superb two-disc collector's edition from Paramount. The print
used for the widescreen (2.35:1) transfer has been gloriously
restored, looking virtually flawless
some edge enhancement is noticeable at times but it never detracts
from the presentation. It also represents the complete director's
cut of the film, restoring over 20 minutes of footage hacked from
the running time for its 1969 U.S. release. Factored with the
terrific, newly-created 5.1 Surround audio mix, this could easily
be a new film coming to DVD after just completing its theatrical
run, not a picture 35 years old... It looks and sounds that
good.
Given
the film's length the bulk of the extras are consigned to the
second disc. Disc 1 does feature a full-length audio commentary,
however; this is one of the better 'cut and paste' jobs I've heard.
Frayling and Dr. Sheldon Hall contribute the most salient material,
while directors (and Leone admirers) John Carpenter, John Milius
and Alex Cox also periodically weigh in. On Disc 2 you'll find
the U.S. theatrical trailer, location and production galleries,
brief talent bios and an unusual multimedia featurette, Railroad:
Revolutionizing the West, which provides historical background
to the coming of the "Iron Horse". But these are just appetizers.
The main course is comprised of three documentaries: An Opera
of Violence (29 min.), Wages of Sin (19 min.), and
Something to Do With Death (18 min.). The same participants
in the commentary track are also on hand here, interviewed on
camera and interspersed with film clips and production stills,
along with actors Cardinale and Ferzetti, co-writer Bernardo Bertolucci
and cinematographer Tonino Delli Colli. These three docs would
perhaps play best if combined into a single program but they nevertheless
provide fascinating insights into Leone the director and his epic
creation. 12/08/03 |
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UPDATE
An excellent Blu-ray edition was released by Paramount on May
31, 2011.
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