History

Rating: 10/10 (13 July 2003)

Silence. Black backdrop and white letters. A murder. A search. A ringing phone. This is the beginning of one of the best movies ever. What follows is almost four hours of pure Cinema. Sergio Leone's final film is an elegy of gigantic proportions, a tour de force that shows who really are the hands that built America. Spreading from the beginning of the century to the end of the prohibition until the 1960's, this movie raised the foundations for all the stories about friendship and brotherhood, and established a way of making movies that continues to influence countless generations. The editing work is astonishing, the period detail priceless, and Ennio Morricone's score is already considered one of the best scores ever did for a film. A true everlasting classic that deserves its place on the history of movies, and a work that will be hard to top. Rarely has a movie condensed such emotion, cinematic intensity and gripping storyline: seeing it is virtually unstoppable. Hail to the DVD for recovering the movie in all its grandeur.