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Once Upon A Time in the West (1968)

Dir: Sergio Leone


The destinies of a ruthless railroad baron, Mr Morton (Gabriele Ferzetti), his stone killer henchman Frank (Henry Fonda), an Outlaw, 'Cheyenne' (Jason Robards) and a mysterious gunman known only as 'Harmonica' (Charles Bronson) are played out as their lives intertwine around a beautiful woman, Jill (Claudia Cardinale) and the approaching railroad. A railroad that will change their old West forever…

 

Sergio Leone not only changed the face of the Western with "A Fistful of Dollars", but reinvigorated an Italian film industry that was in a slump brought on by the financial failure of Hollywood blockbusters filmed there ("Cleopatra") or the failure of home grown or international co-productions ("The Leopard").
With this one film Leone gave birth to that unique European take on that most iconic American genre (which had been relegated to television serials, re-runs of classics on TV and a few marginal theatrical productions) and spawned a too brief run of European Westerns (or 'Spaghetti Westerns', though most Italian Directors, especially Leone, disliked the term) that breathed fresh life into Cinema going during the 60's and 70's.

Following "Fistful" with the vastly more impressive "For a Few Dollar's More" and "The Good the Bad and the Ugly" Leone thought he had left the Western behind and was planning on making the Gangster epic "Once Upon a Time In America".
But to get the funding for "America" the studio's asked for another Western.
And Leone gave them a Western that blew away all the preconceptions of even that most off the wall and surprising genre of the 'Spaghetti'.
A Western that kept all the stylistic trappings of his 'Dollars Trilogy', but this time sheathed it in a majestic and poetic sensibility.
That film was "Once Upon a Time in the West"…

Opening with one of the most famous sequences in cinema history as three killers (John Ford regular Woody Strode with Jack Elam and Al Mulock, who killed himself on the set) wait at a dust blown railway station for a train to arrive, Leone's masterwork shows the viewer from the start that they are about to witness a very different type of film.
This opening, with almost no dialogue, no music and exaggerated natural sounds (dripping water, a fly, a rusty windmill wheel), shows us the normality of these characters lives. Whereas the anonymous 'hired hands' in other Westerns are simply shapes to be shot at, here Leone gives them a brief shot of personality as they wait for their victim.
It's the visual equivalent of what Quentin Tarantino would garner praise for via dialogue in "Reservoir Dogs", where everyday things in life not normally shown with such characters, are put under the spotlight. But Leone did it nearly 25 years earlier.

This sequence heralds the arrival of 'Harmonica', and it's not the only outstanding introduction of a character.
Frank (and Fonda himself) is given a striking introduction as the camera moves around from the back of his head to a close up of his set, tanned face and steely blue eyes following his massacre of a whole family.
'Cheyenne' arrives via a wonderful audio only gunfight outside of a lonesome, dust blown tavern that ends with him coming through the swinging doors, the light hitting his eyes as he glances up.
Jill has a magnificently designed and filmed sequence that follows her from the train into the Station Masters Office where the camera stays outside and watches her through the window and as she leaves through the front door it moves up the side of the building and over the roof to show the bustling, growing town beyond. All scored to one of Ennio Morricone's most powerful, moving and simply beautiful pieces of music.

Of course, as in the "Dollar's Trilogy", Leone's music is as vital to the success of Leone's movie just as much as the heavenly Cinematography (here by Tonino Delli Colli who would later go on to a very different slice of cinema with "Salo: 120 Days of Sodom"), top class acting and superlative set design (Leone regular Carlo Simi does an amazing job, not only in the design of the town but in some truly stunning interiors. The out of the way supply store/blacksmiths/stable/tavern is one of the most unusual and fascinating sets ever put on film).
Collaborating with the wonderful Edda Dell'Orso, who supplies some beautiful vocal harmonies (they would do another superlative job on "Once Upon a Time In America"), Morricone actually did the score before a single frame of film was shot. And Leone uses his music to pace and edit the movie. It's one of Cinema's most outstanding collaborations.

Morricone only really has five pieces of music and these are the themes for each of the main protagonists. The melancholy strains of Morton's dream to have his railroad stretch from one coast to the other across America, where strings are mixed with the sound of the ocean, the almost comedic piano for 'Cheyenne' that complements his devil may care attitude to his life and fate, the two heavy guitar twang and horn pieces used for 'Harmonica' and Frank that are the closest to the more familiar, driving music from the "Dollar's Trilogy, and highlight the steadfast, brutal lives the two men lead and finally the beautiful, majestic strings and female vocals used for Jill that becomes the main theme for the film. And it's a piece of music that is as sweeping and yet hauntingly personal as the movie itself.

Leone uses the more typical Italian Western Spanish locations for most of the film, but for the first time he also uses the legendary 'Monument Valley' with it's awesome landscape of beautifully sculptured red sand stone mountains and rises. It's a landscape that came to represent the American Western due to its appearance in so many of John Ford's classic movies. Leone had dreamed of using this 'home of the Western' and in the brief scenes it appears (mostly Jill's coach ride to her Husband's homestead), due to the lush, wide screen Cinematography that Leone is such a master at using, it adds an authentic atmosphere that is obviously rare in the normal, entirely shot in Spain 'Spaghetti' Westerns.
Leone is also a master of composition. Carefully, painstakingly filling the screen with perfectly arranged objects, places and people. The one-on-one finale between 'Harmonica' and Frank is a text book example of choreography, editing, lighting and character placement. As the two enemies move around each other Leone and Delli Colli carefully keep both in frame on the opposite sides of their vast canvas, editing in those trademark close-ups that actors love so much. Add the powerful music and you have one of the most gripping and emotive sequences ever committed to film and it's a sequence that can still raise a chill. Truly wonderful cinema.

Backing all this masterful artistry up is of course the acting. And not only the leads.
Italian Director's (especially Western Directors) are brilliant at casting interesting faces and acting styles for the support and extras. And here those wonderful sweaty, tanned, craggy features of the actors are perfectly utilised. He also gives effective talking roles to veteran American's Keenan Wynn and the gravel voiced Lionel Stander.
And look out for a very brief, silent role for Fabio Testi as one of Frank's men. An actor who would go on to be one of the stalwarts of European cinema in the 70's.
But it's Bronson. Fonda, Robards, Cardinale and Ferzetti that are the backbone of the movie.All give perfect performances. And all are perfectly cast.

This was Bronson's first real lead role and in such powerful company he does an exemplary job. 'Harmonica' is mysterious and ruthless when he needs to be, but Bronson ensures he never becomes an arrogant or overly violent character and he carries the audience along with him.

Robards, given what on paper must have seemed like a secondary role to the main conflict between 'Harmonica' and Frank, makes 'Cheyenne' a fully rounded, stand out character. This is professional, highly crafted acting at it's best.
'Cheyenne' is a rogue, a hardcore bandit and lawbreaker. He has a simple, straight-forward attitude to life, accepting fate and judgement with the same laid back attitude as a fine woman, a fine cup of coffee or the thrill of the chase. His outlook on life and people may be simplistic (like in the wonderful scene where we learn about the importance of the land and the plan for it. 'Cheyenne' jumps to the wrong the conclusion that Jill's late Husband's plan had a purely monetary motive, for that is how he judges peoples reasoning, as that is what his outlaw life is all about) but deep down he longs for more and is ultimately a noble and in the end selfless character.

Ferzetti gives us a strong character in Morton. Which is testament to his performance as Morton is a cripple who spends most of the time weakened, with his personal train acting as his legs. Morton is a dreamer, but he is a dreamer who is determined to have his dreams at any cost. By any means. Using his money (this is a sign that Leone, with his story/script collaborators Dario Argento, Bernardo Bertolucci and Sergio Donati, gives us of the creeping wealth and power of the East of the Country, that was normally old European money, which was slowly changing the West) to hire killers like Frank to take care of his problems.

Fonda is a towering presence. An American icon of good, noble and righteous movie characters, it was a fantastic move on Leone's part to have him essay the stone killer Frank.
Fonda was a huge fan of his opening sequence and always enjoyed the reaction of the audience when the leader of the duster wearing (again some fine costume work by Carlo Simi with Antonella Pompei) group of gun men who has just wiped out almost a whole family turned out to be all American good guy Fonda.
Frank starts off as the most transparent of the characters, coming across as just another ambitious, sadistic (if charismatic) murderer. But a key scene in bed with Jill after he has kidnapped her (a scene that is as disturbing as it is emotionally and motivationally complex) shows that there is more to him. We see that he's ultimately unsatisfied by his life. That he wants more, and believes he deserves more. And yet the fact that he will simply resort to violence and murder to get it, that other people are nothing more but obstacles to be used or killed means he will ultimately be his own destruction.

The beautiful Cardinale gives Jill a dual personality. The lead men in her life all fall for her in one way or another. She casts a spell over men and she knows it. She is strong, determined and has a sense of purpose. Yet all too often she is strong-armed and lead by men.
'Cheyenne', 'Harmonica' (in one of the few scenes that does not work or make any sense, for the way his character has been portrayed, where he roughly rips off parts of Jill's dress) and certainly Frank all push their will and own agendas on her.
Ultimately 'Harmonica' and especially 'Cheyenne' (who through meeting Jill and learning of her Husband's scheme sees how nobility and the strength of having a dream can be as powerful as a gun) all have her best intentions at heart, if their methods are not always easy to accept.
But Cardinale brings so much sexual female power, classical beauty and sheer force of will to her character that Jill in the end comes through as one of the most memorable Women characters in any Western.

The final image in "Once Upon a Time In The West" not only sums up the tarnished romanticism so essential to Leone's take on the 'classic' Western, where complex motives, the real hardships of Western existence and the various shades of grey in life (a far cry from the black and white, good guy/bad guy, clean and simple view of the period in most American Westerns) but it also works as an explicit metaphor for the passing of times and the changes to come.
As a steam train moves through the bare bone beginnings of what will become Jill's new town of 'Sweetwater', bringing with it not only the workers who will build the future but also the money and technology of a new age, we see in this one image the death of the Old West. By the end of this magnificent movie we have seen some of our characters die, just as their World dies before it's eventual rebirth, and we know that even the survivors will have fade away or adapt.
The workers are painting a new future on that vast, beautiful canvas of the American West as the old ways and especially the old characters that once sat high in the saddle literally ride off into the distance.

The West would never be the same again, and Sergio Leone's movie made sure the Western could never be the same again.