Once upon a time there was Sergio Leone

Rating: 10/10 (27 May 2012)

Sergio Leone's life-long struggle to make the perfect picture would eventually culminate in a crime fairy-tale on Jewish mobsters, aptly titled "Once Upon a Time in America" (1984). And it would hold its ground despite heavy competition of Coppola's well received "Godfather" films and the critically acclaimed Scorsese's gangster epics. Made 13 years after his previous picture, Leone's interlude as a producer didn't take away his passion to get the "America" project that was in the pipeline finally going. Eventually it bore fruit and would also turn out to be his ultimate one, and maybe his best. In it the former master of spaghetti westerns takes the time to tell a multifaceted story and crams several whole gangster lives into a nearly four hour long epic, still complaining about essential 45 minutes that he was forced to cut. Well, that's Leone for you...
At any rate the result is an operatic classic based on the quasi-autobiography of a gangster turned informant, packed with period details of the 1910s, 30s and 60s. It's a nostalgic trip through half a century with time as the key player that washes over the viewer like a mesmerizing, beautiful dream in an opium den, however at the same time feels like a violent nightmare commenting on themes of past vs. present, memory vs. dream, love vs. desire and above all betrayal vs. friendship. Add to the extensive script that was honed for years an array of beautifully photographed scenes, breathtaking Technicolor cinematography and a truly numinous score, and you've got yourself a masterpiece. For it all is married with such a tremendous amount of meticulousness for details that one can't help but get lost in the gangster world of Lower East Side of Manhattan. Aside from Leone's superb visuals, the accompanying music that links times and suggests themes needs special mention as it single-handedly raises the aesthetic level of the whole production by another notch. Created by Ennio Morricone, the famous memories evoking melancholic pan pipes not only fit the film's emotional ride through passing time, but also help to transcend it.
The flashback story, with bits and pieces falling into place like in a jigsaw puzzle, is what makes the films so overwhelming, so emotionally intense. This time around a Leone picture however is not so much about landscape and close-ups, but about characters and their environment, the area they live in and their history. De Niro, James Woods, Joe Pesci, Danny Aiello let it all come alive. And at the side of the young Jennifer Connelly the 13 year old unknown Scott Schutzman Tiler plays the young version of the protagonist Noodles and nearly steals the older one's thunder, which is no other than De Niro. On the one hand the street urchin's lightheartedness shines in the character's youth while the veteran actor immerses himself so completely in the aging gangster that the weight of his past becomes almost palpable.
Sergio Leone not only made Henry Grey - the man on which the story is loosely based - a larger-than-life monument, but also himself as a grand narrator of adult fairy-tales. Actually, "Once Upon a Time in America" is two movies in one, and the overarching flashback structure makes it an unforgettable experience. All that of course was butchered on US release that sank the picture - even more reason to re-discover it as it was intended to be seen, in all its nostalgic glory.