Once Upon A Time In The West

365 Films

Entry #153

Once Upon A Time In The West (1968)

Directed by Sergio Leone

Once Upon A Time In The West is a strange place to start my Sergio Leone retrospective, but then again, it's sort of strange for me to be doing a Leone retrospective in the first place.  It really is apropos of nothing; no anniversaries, no commemorative screenings, not even an exhibit at LACMA.  Then again, I should say my appetite was re-whetted after seeing The Lone Ranger a month ago and just relishing the obvious passion Gore Verbinski displayed for Leone in the film, which, along with his previous film Rango should play as a double bill Leone tribute for some enterprising repertory theater someday.  My personal interest in Leone came from a bit of fanboy marketing on the part of Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino back in 2003 upon the release of Rodriguez's Once Upon A Time In Mexico.  The story goes that Tarantino pointed out how Rodriguez had inadvertently made his own version of Leone's Dollars Trilogy with El Mariachi and Desperado, all he had to do now was make his The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.  Thus, Once Upon A Time In Mexico was born.  I can also remember my brother, while I was still in high school, talking about a class he was taking at NYU that was entirely focused on Spaghetti Westerns.  A term that all at once baffled and delighted me in that I thought it referred to some kind of cinematic cross breeding between a splatter/slasher movie and the western (I thought Spaghetti was referring to tomato sauce, as in the color of blood gushing all over the screen, it wasn't until later I learned it meant Italian filmmakers making westerns).  With all of this cross-pollination of information, my interest piqued somewhere around January of 2004 and I eventually made the momentous decision to rent a bunch of movies from the video store.  Oh shit, I almost forgot, Kill Bill came out in the fall of '03, didn't it?  Yeah, that definitely played a part, what with Tarantino's liberal cribbing of Morricone's music for the film and its corresponding advertising.  In any event, I remember a sort of week long splurge of every Leone film I could get my hands on.  Lucky for me, all of Leone's major achievements were available on DVD by that point with the exception of Duck, You Sucker.  The only problem was, I had to make due with a tiny television set in my college dorm room, which was absolutely fine for every other purpose it served, it just couldn't make Leone that memorable.  I remember being very fond of the films, but none of them really hit me the way I wanted them to.  It wasn't until I had the opportunity to see Once Upon A Time In The West at the Egyptian theater here in Hollyood a few years back.  All I can say is: holy, fucking, shit.  It was a transcendent experience, and if you don't believe me, try watching that film on a giant screen and just wait until Claudia Cardinale makes her entrance.  When the camera soars majestically over the train station building and takes its very first view of the blossoming town nestled within and Morricone's score kicks into high gear, I dare you not to be a big blubbering mess by the end of it.  I can now say with utmost certainty that not only is Once Upon A Time In The West my personal favorite of Leone's, but it is definitely in my top five of films ever made (maybe even top three).  Sure, there are minor quibbles to be had, most of them involving Leone's complicated (to put it mildly) treatment of his female characters.  That's a discussion I'm not really equipped to have in this particular forum but I will point out that I acknowledge it and still love the film in spite of it.  It just seems down right nutty to ignore the indescribable majesty of the rest of the film.  And I would also argue that Claudia Cardinale turns in an extraordinary performance that delivers some much needed shading to a precariously sketched character.  Everything about this film from the chill-inducing score (I honestly can't think of a more successful and mind-blowing collaboration between director and composer than Leone and Morricone) to the stellar performances from Bronson, Fonda, and Robards (all outstanding, particularly Fonda), to the unbelievably operatic scope of the thing.  I hate making statements like this but I'm going to do it anyway, there is a part of me that thinks if you don't like Once Upon A Time In The West, you might as well stop watching movies because clearly you just can't vibe with what they are pedaling.  This was the first in what would later be known as Leone's second trilogy (since un named) after the Dollars or Man With No Name Trilogy.  It was to be his final pure western and the beginning of a three film examination concerning the brutal beginnings of this country.  As a swan song that evocatively captures the mythic qualities of a vanishing western genre (and way of life) while simultaneously under cutting every single one of those romantic qualities with shocking and punishing reminders of the violence inherent to the American character, Once Upon A Time In The West reminds us that the western, (or any forgotten genre really), regardless of knee jerk reactions to current popularity can be re-vitalized and say something bold and relevant about the society which created it.  We could really use another Once Upon A Time In The West really soon as far as I'm concerned.  We could use more filmmakers like Leone too.