Something to do with greatness

Rating: 10/10 (25 November 2010)

Sergio Leone was the greatest filmmaker of all time; all his films are masterpieces, they have something to do with greatness and cinematic excellence, the best films ever made. Once Upon A Time In America covers the periods in the 20s and 30s as recalled from 1968. It's a poignant and dense movie in which the motion, the frame and soundtrack simultaneously strike in a beautiful counterpoint. The movie is an example of visual and aural storytelling beyond time and reality – it's an indivisible whole where time is not a linear flow into past, present, and future. Once Upon A Time "in" America is not a social historical analysis nor a scientific work, it's a tale, a fairy tale which defies description because it's a dream that Noodle (Robert De Niro) begins in 1938 and doesn't end in 1968. Sergio Leone believed in huge stadium like movie theater where people would come together and watch on a giant screen an epic tale of passion, love, friendship, betrayal, vengeance, faith and perseverance; he believed in four, six hours long films, he believed in the extraordinary visual composition and movements that movies can celebrate, he believed in the powerful vibrancy, depth and richness of wide format films, he understood and empathized the sense of insight that follow a discovery one make for oneself – it was a fulfillment of integrity and lyrical concern over a lifetime. I can't even try to imagine what we all lost with his too-soon passing, what his next film would have been – Leone was planning a Soviet co-production film on the Siege of Leningrad during World War II – an epic larger-than-life film project left uncompleted at the time of his death. His film-making skills were so good that it's quite a physical experience to see his movies... they offer pleasure on a lot of different levels, you don't really know where it comes from but it's a shock of joy and sadness, full of feeling, emotions so essential to our lives. Watching and studying Sergio Leone's films are likely to yield to a better visual culture.