evil bill
Posts: 6560
Joined: 19/7/2006
From: mordor/ uk
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Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
Epic, episodic, tale of the lives of a small group of New York City Jewish gangsters spanning over 40 years. Told mostly in flashbacks and... Epic, episodic, tale of the lives of a small group of New York City Jewish gangsters spanning over 40 years. Told mostly in flashbacks and flash-forwards, the movie centers on small-time hood David 'Noodles' Aaronson and his lifelong partners in crime; Max, Cockeye and Patsy and their friends from growing up in the rough Jewish neighborhood of New York's Lower East Side in the 1920s, to the last years of Prohibition in the early 1930s, and then to the late 1960s where an elderly Noodles returns to New York after many years in hiding to look into the past.
In the wake of The Godfather, for Leone pr any director to even consider taking on an epically scoped New York gangster film takes courage,as Coppola had set the bar at an impossible height.But for me Leone's final film is a sprawling, haunting, visually rivteing masterpiece,that come's close to knocking The Godfather off the top spot,of greatest gangster epic ever.Great scene follows great scene with inventive direction for almost four hours,and do yourself a favour avoid the butchered theatrical version. The story about friendship among thieves, telling the story of a group of Jewish kids in New York near the turn of the century who grow up to become powerful and ruthless mobsters, while trying to maintain their bond with one another.This movie includes one of De Niro's best roles ever,in fact i think it's even tops his role in Godfather II,also it is James Woods best film role/acting ever.The rest of the cast are excellent,but these two just tear the screen apart in every scene there in,they are on more than just top form.Of course this is in no small part due to director Sergio Leone a real master when it comes to creating a special atmosphere, full of mystery, suspense and drama.It took almost ten years to get this motion picture to the screen,and Sergio's original script treatment the outline for the story was 200 pages long,it ended up 400 pages.For me he's also one of the few directors who understands the art of cutting a movie in such a way that you can't help but stay glued right until the end.Plus because of the way the story is told in flashbacks,which are in no clear order,you really need to see this more than once,and you will be rewarded for this effort.As you know Sergio Leone is the master of extreme close-ups and wide frame shots,as seen in Fistful of Dollars and here with wide shots of busy streets. In one wonderful scene a young girl (pre-stardom Jennifer Connelly) walks along a street, and Leone pulls the camera up and up, and back, back, revealing the entire street,soon she is lost in the crowd. The same thing is done with De Niro's character as a child, and we lose image of him in the crowd, but then Sergio uses an almost invisible dissolve and we come back upon him.The movie is full of fantastic visuals,all with that European feel that Leone made his own,and so even if you feel lost on first viewing,you still be blown away.
The score by the greatest movie composer of all time, Ennio Morricone, is incredibly haunting in its beauty and sadness,with no fewer than three separate themes that are so breathtakingly beautiful.The movie alsocontains an incredible amount of sex and violence,which is both disturbing and sickening especially for a film made almost twenty years ago.I'd forgot how brutal and bloody the violence was in this epic,and how graphic some of the rapes are also.The most controversial is the rape scene between De Niro and Elizabeth McGovern,which even by today's movies is totally brutal scene.Now i'm not sure how much violence, sexual content was in the original 3 hour cut,but the 4 hour cut is a full on 18 cert without a doubt,making The Godfather look more like a 12A. Overall i do feel that Once Upon a Time in America is the finest movie of the 1980s,and the second greatest masterpiece of Leone's,also a close second to The Godfather as one of the greatest gangster movie's of all time.It is a must see in it's full 4 hour glory,a breath taking masterpiece,which has no equal in it's truly epic scale and vision,what away to leave this earth,with one last classic movie.
< Message edited by evil bill -- 14/7/2010 6:09:38 PM >
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ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA - 
,and my pick of his classic number 1 masterpiece is as you know The Good The Bad And The Ugly.A lot of his style of camera work/visuals is stunning in both movies,but The Good... just edges out Once Upon A Time...in overall style and enjoyment,plus Ennio Morricone score for this is his finest moment. 
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