Need Help With This One

Rating: 7/10 (24 November 2007)

With great anticipation I watched the 229-minute DVD director's cut of Once Upon A Time In America. The original release version was supposedly butchered beyond recognition, but I was frustrated to find this one itself had so many problems, because it is often beautiful. What could've been a masterpiece on The Godfather Part II level misses for reasons I cannot fully understand, and it's sad.
It is possible that much of it went over my head, but right now it appears that director Sergio Leone, or his cutter and assembler, unaccountably lost account of or forgot to include crucial narrative information in a way I have never seen happen before in a major production.
SPOILERS AHEAD: At the beginning, a woman is shot by Burt Young and another thug after going to look for Noodles (Robert DeNiro), who's in hiding from them. A few seconds before she notices some bullet holes on or near Noodles' bed. The bullet holes are never explained, and I think this woman was Noodles' girlfriend seen much later in a 1933 flashback (Darlanne Fluegel?). However, we are never really introduced to her; she just shows up those two times with no back story, and this seems confusing and abrupt. The motivation of Burt Young, et al going after them to begin with was vague; it was obviously because of a rip-off but was not shown or explained coherently. There's some build-up to an ambitious robbery that's supposed to be very dangerous, with much forewarning from Tuesday Weld (who is excellent), but we never see this event come down. Yet Leone spends interminable minutes on a boy toying with a pastry. Also there seems to be some material missing about Treat Williams' union official's relationship with organized crime and how this led to James Woods' plight at the movie's conclusion. Finally, what was the point of not bothering to age the actors? Elizabeth McGovern is supposed to look different from 1933 to 1968, but there was no effort to show 30 plus years of aging. De Niro gets some gray in his hair; that's it. I suppose I'm missing some symbolism. I was very unhappy with the rape scene, not only due to the revolting imagery but also because since there was no prior hint of such potential behavior in the development of the DeNiro character, it was shockingly unexpected.
I nod to OUTIA for its breathtaking production design, good cast, good performances and pacing. But for the frustrating lapses, I express puzzlement, unless, as some have suggested, the 1968 portion is all a dream. I'm not used to the way some European directors work, and don't have the time or patience for repeat viewings to tease out all the hidden information here (if it is here at all) as such films require, so I thank other posters for their insights. For now, much of this movie is too abstruse for me.
I still like this picture much better than any other Sergio Leone production I've seen, as I have always been alienated by his supposedly ironic but mostly just arch deconstruction of the Western, in which meaningful dialogue, character development, and exposition is ditched in favor of long, enigmatic minutes of actors' faces close-up as they stare at each other, with strangely grandiose, glorious music swelling up in the background. Call me reactionary, but I regard his contribution to the Western genre to be a largely a load of stylistic, self-absorbed poppycock.