Fifth viewing.

The Greatest Gangster Film Ever. I’m Not Kidding. I Seriously Think This Is Far Superior To The Godfather.

I’ve been sitting at my keyboard for approximately an hour, and I haven’t been able to type a single letter until now. I have recently re-watched what I consider to be possibly my favourite film of all time, Once Upon a Time in America. I have assigned myself with the nearly impossible task of reviewing the film. How can I even begin to express the strange beauty of the film? The nostalgia? The sadness of Ennio Morricone’s theme? How can I begin to explain how genius the story is?

When I first saw Once Upon a Time in America my…

Whoa.

Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America, with no exaggeration, is one of the most moving and potent cinematic experiences that I have ever had. It's a combination of everything that made me love the cinema: Immaculate cinematography, wonderful direction, a tight and free-flowing screenplay, underlying themes woven throughout the film, pitch-perfect editing, incredible performances......

This film has EVERYTHING.

Simultaneously a gangster story, a coming-of-age fable, and an ode to aging; the film cuts between these three feelings and time-periods, all with the same characters but with each of them in different stages of development. Both physically and emotionally, the audience gets a grasp of their lives throughout the 3hr and 50 minute run-time. For most of the…

I kinda hate gangster films. This isn't a new idea to me, but this film more or less crystalized what I hate about them. In short, gangsters are not Robin Hood. They do not rob from the rich to give to the poor. They do not empower the poor; they feed off of them. They do not fight injustice disguised as law; they simply treat the law as coincidental. The closest argument you have is that they gave immigrant populations recourse to power in a system that hated them, and that is certainly true. But you rarely see them wield that power toward anything but assimilating into the system in a backward sort of way. While some gangster films have…

.... a Godfather parody from Sergio Leone?

This film tried so hard to be something great and turned into anything but. So many were terribly miscast, from Noodles Jr. to adult Deborah, and the intricate weaving of past & present did nothing to engage me. Certain setpieces and acts of violence were too heavy-handed. There wasn't nearly enough Joe Pesci. The characters themselves were uninteresting and often times laughable ('.... you're crazy'.... 'don't SAY THAT!!!' ). Only a few things kept me around for the long 230 minute runtime: the abundance of beautiful shots, the score from Morricone that was perfection when it worked (like the instrumental version of Yesterday), the presence of the great actors themselves, and a hope that…

Erm...I dunno guys.
This is up there with the most confusing watches I've ever had, critically and emotionally.
Let's go over the definitive good:
Essentially everything people have talked about over the years:
- DeNiro's performance.
- The cinematography
- The score
- The scope
Beyond these, everything else needs more careful analysis than I am willing to give. The brutality of the Film less advances the plot and more reveals Leone's own issues (the Two, count em, rapes, the ungodly bloody violence) and just coming from the first half of the film, does not seem to be his intention. I try not to judge a film on the personality of the director, but Leone in particular makes it excruciatingly…

Ich hau mal einen raus: Die berühmten Filme von Sergio Leone wären ohne die Jahrhundertsoundtracks von Ennio Morricone nur die Hälfte wert. Zieht man die epischen Melodien und Arrangements des Maestros ab, blieben ja in erster Linie langatmige Szenen, haarsträubende Dialoge, Zooms auf Augenpartien und vor allem viel Gewalt übrig, davon überdurchschnittlich viel Gewalt gegen Frauen. Es wird oft und gerne vergewaltigt in den Filmen des Sergio Leone.
Auch in seinem fast vierstündigen Gangsterepos (und letzten Film), das schon im Titel den Anspruch erhebt, eine ganz große Geschichte zu erzählen, darf Hauptfigur Noodles (Robert deNiro, ähnlich wie in Bertoluccis "1900" ganz offensichtlich im Unklaren darüber, was für einen Charakter er da eigentlich spielt) die beiden wichtigsten Frauen der Geschichte misshandeln,…