Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
 |
Review #1,306 |
THE SCOOP
Director: Sergio Leone
Cast: Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards, Gabriele Ferzetti
Plot: Epic story of a mysterious stranger with a harmonica who joins forces with a notorious desperado to protect a beautiful widow from a ruthless assassin working for the railroad.
Genre: Western
Awards: -
Runtime: 165min
Rating: PG for western violence and brief sensuality.
International Sales: Park Circus - Paramount Pictures
IN RETROSPECT (Spoilers: NO)
“Keep your lovin' brother happy.”
I
may be bias, but having seen a great deal of Westerns over the last ten years,
I feel that Once Upon a Time in the West
is no doubt one of the greatest films of the genre. It is also my personal favourite, and having
seen it at least five times now, it still gives me immense pleasure and
anticipation to continue revisiting it.
Directed
by Sergio Leone in what was a majestic follow-up to the popular 'Dollars'
trilogy - A Fistful of Dollars
(1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965)
and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
(1966), Once Upon a Time in the West
is at once grandeur and operatic, but also a mournful ode to a storied American
past.
With
its 50th anniversary coming soon, the film ought to hold a special
place in the medium's history for prophesizing the inevitable death of the
genre through its thematic concerns. The
wilderness versus garden—a dialectic that the master John Ford was obsessed
with—and in particular, the horse versus train themes are laid bare in visual
terms. The narrative may not be as
goal-oriented as Leone's previous pictures, but the characterizations are
mesmerizing.
Charles
Bronson plays the man with the harmonica—an instrument so brilliantly
incorporated into the music and sound design by the legendary Ennio Morricone—who
seeks to settle a personal matter with Frank (Henry Fonda in a rare monstrous
role), who in a separate incident, tries to frame a wanted bandit (Jason Robards)
for a vicious attack on a family that he slaughtered in cold blood. The beautiful Claudia Cardinale (who plays
Jill) also comes into the picture, traveling west in hopes of seeking a better
life with the massacred family.
Leone
and Morricone bring these characters together expertly, both narratively and
musically. In one of the most
astonishing marriages of visuals and music in cinema, we see Jill enter the new
town in a sweeping crane shot, and later, ride on an open-top horse carriage
across the harsh and arid landscape—Morricone's accompanying main theme always
gives me the chills.
Once Upon a Time in the West may come across as slow, and
even guilty of directorial self-indulgence, which is most evident in the
opening sequence and the climax, but it is a film with grand ambition. Its elegiac treatment also continues to draw
out emotions of longing for the past, marked by the contrasting—and looming—inevitability
that is change.
Verdict:
One of the greatest Westerns in the history of cinema, and my personal
favourite.
GRADE: A+
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