Once Upon a Time in the West

My love affair with the films of Sergio Leone is surprisingly recent. I just got the Man with No Name trilogy in December, knowing full well that I should have seen it a long time ago. Things like this used to embarrass me. When I was in high school, I would even occasionally lie and say I had seen certain movies, just because it was expected of me. It's a good thing people didn't press further.

Anyway, last year sometime, I read about a special screening of Evil Dead 2 held by Scott Pilgrim vs. the World director Edgar Wright (his name comes up from time to time in this blog, doesn't it? hmmmm...) When he asked the audience if anybody hadn't seen Evil Dead 2 before, some people in the audience raised their hand. They got JEERS from the rest of the audience, as if to say, "what are you, an IDIOT? How could you not have seen Evil Dead 2?" Edgar Wright then hushed these people and chastised them, saying that there's nothing wrong with not having seen an amazing film before, and think of how great it would be to see Evil Dead 2 for the first time in the theater with a huge, loving audience?

Anyway, what I'm getting at is, that story stayed with me, and helped me get past any embarrassment I would have once felt about not seeing The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. I've been having so much fun over these last few months watching all these classic movies that I've missed and telling you about them from a fresh-eyed perspective.

So, Sergio Leone's next film after The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly was another Spaghetti Western: Once Upon a Time in the West. It was his boldest statement on the American western yet. He was even able to shoot scenes in Monument Valley, the Utah location where so many John Ford movies were shot.

The movie follows the G, B, and U formula with Charles Bronson filling in for Clint Eastwood as the Man with No Name, Henry Fonda playing completely against type as the villain, and Jason Robards as the roguish-but-likable third. Also, for the first time in a Leone film, a woman has a prominent role with Claudia Cardinale as the hooker-turned-widow upon whom the entire story hinges.

Leone's films are all very slowly and deliberately paced, and this is the slowest one I've seen yet. That's not at all to the movie's detriment, mind you. He trusts in his audience's patience, and rewards them with some of the most memorable and iconic scene payoffs they ever will see. His sequences form a dialogue with us, and give us some of the most engaging viewing experiences in film history. His tight close-ups on his actors pick up every minute detail of their faces, and every little twitch they make speaks volumes.

Charles Bronson, who apparently was born at the age of 75 and died at 150, is full of machismo and bad-assery as the ghostly protagonist. He was also made of old, rain-damaged shoe leather, judging by his skin. We don't at first know who he is, or what's in his past, but he's haunting the cold-as-ice Henry Fonda character for some evil deed that Fonda himself can't even remember. His presence is always signaled by a few melancholy notes on the harmonica he carries with him everywhere.

Speaking of the harmonica, let's talk for a minute about Leone's greatest collaborator, composer Ennio Morricone. His scores in Leone's films are an utterly unique experience. Strange, otherworldly instruments mix with 60's surf guitar riffs, and dance with the images on the screen. I feel like the music has as much dialogue as the characters do.

The ending of Once Upon a Time in the West, as Leone's films always do, features a duel. With each film, his duels got longer and more intense. Time stretches on and on and on, as we see every tiny movement the characters make, every thought that goes through their minds, and then, suddenly, they draw, and it's over just like that. I think if Leone were still making films today, they would just be three and a half hours of 16 guys standing in a circle squinting at each other, and then in the last five seconds they all shoot and 15 of them fall. And it would still be compelling.

I think you know I liked this movie. It's a classic. A.