ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST MOVIE

Like Leone stated, Once upon a Time in the West is a dance of death: all of the characters, except Claudia Cardinale, are conscious of the fact they will not arrive at the end alive. The tone is solemn throughout the entire film, almost ceremonious, and there are relatively few (but admittedly extremely violent) action scenes.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST MOVIE

Throughout the movie panoramic shots are alternated with extreme close-ups to create a feeling of proximity and immediacy in a vast forlornness. The sudden outbursts of violence are announced by the arrival of the train and a scene of Jack Elam stopping the telegraph machine, all at once, by brute force. The slow movements, accompanied by the sounds of dripping water, a squeaking windmill and a buzzing fly, reflect the tortoise pace of the narrative.

The now famous opening scene with the three men waiting for the train, serves as an ouverture to the movie. Leone thought the result was too intellectual for its own good, and asked Sergio Donati (who had already contributed to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) to prune it of some of its superfluities. In the script numerous moments from classic American westerns were recycled to create the ultimate vision on the dying West. His writings were reworked by Leone himself and a young man called Dario Argento. A first draught of the script was written by Bernardo Bertolucci, the future director of Novecento and The Last Emperor. United Artists, who had distributed the Dollars Trilogy, offered Leone big names like Charlton Heston, Gregory Peck and Warren Beatty, but he had set his mind on Henry Fonda and Charles Bronson and would finally make the film for Paramount.

But it would also be about the new era and the birth of a nation. It would be a dark, melancholic movie, a movie that would administer the last sacraments to a dying genre and its myths, and would express all pessimistic ideas of its maker on mankind. ItвЂ™s a movie about the end of an era, as well as a movie about the end of a genre. It was not a film set in the West, but a film about the West вЂ“ and about the western. In most countries the original Italian title, CвЂ™era una volta il West, wasnвЂ™t translated correctly: it reads Once upon a Time there was the West. With his fourth western, Leone would nevertheless break away from the action packed tradition of his previous films.

But in 1967 nobody was interested in Once upon a Time in America, so once more he went back to the genre he had redefined with his Dollar Trilogy. When he had finished The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Sergio Leone wanted to pass on to another phase in the history of the New World, the gang wars of the 1920вЂ™s. Once upon a Time in the West (C'era una volta il West) Director: Sergio Leone - Story: Dario Argento, Bernardo Bertolucci, Sergio Leone - Screenplay: Sergio Leone, Sergio Donati - Cinematography: Tonino delli Colli - Music: Ennio Morricone - Cast: Claudia Cardinale, Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Jason Robards, Gabriele Ferzetti, Keenan Wynn, Woody Strode, Jack Elam, Al Mulock, Paolo Stoppa, Frank Wolff, Lionel Stander, marco Zuanelli, Simonietta Santaniello, Enzo Santaniello, Benito Stefanelli, Spartaco Conversi, Antonio Molino Rojo, Claudio Scarchilli, Bruno Corazzari, Frank BraГ±a, Aldo Berti, Fabio Testi, Luana Strode

Once upon a time in the west