Once Upon a Time in America
| Once Upon a Time in America | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Sergio Leone |
| Written by | Sergio Leone (screenplay) |
| Produced by | Arnon Milchan |
| Starring | Robert De Niro James Woods Elizabeth McGovern Burt Young Tuesday Weld Jennifer Connelly |
| Music by | Ennio Moricone |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
Running time | 229 minutes |
| Budget | N/A |
Once Upon a Time in America (original title C'era una volta in America) (1984) is director Sergio Leone's last film. Robert De Niro and James Woods star as two Jewish ghetto youths who rise to prominence in the New York City organized crime world.
Set as an expansive and hypnotic film experience, the story explores the ideas of time, memory, love, violence, and betrayal. It is renowned for its beautiful cinematography, the detail of its three historical settings and its intricate, open-ended narration and was, as almost all Leone films, first released in the United States in a heavily edited version almost ninety minutes shorter than the version released in Europe. The short version also eliminates the flashback structure of the film, instead placing the scenes in chronological order.
The film premiered at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival at its original running time of 229 minutes (3 hours 49 minutes).
Source-Novel and Plot-Summary
The Hoods
The film was inspired by an autobiographical novel called The Hoods, written by Harry Gray (a pseudonym) The novel itself depicts only the first two-thirds of the movie's chronology. The 'contemporary' scenes (which many believe to be a prolonged dream/fantasy sequence) were entirely the work of Leone. Leone had wanted to make the film since before The Good, the Bad and the Ugly but had great difficulty in securing the rights to the novel, and in arranging a meeting with its reclusive author.
Once Upon A Time In America
The story interweaves three different eras in American history: 1968, the early 1930s, and the early 1920s. The film appears to show an elderly Noodles (De Niro's character) looking back on his life and beginnings of his mob career. However, in the DVD commentary, Richard Schickel presents the notion that everything is an opium-induced dream which the main character has in 1933, containing memories from the past and contemplations on the future. This so-called "Dream Theory" is popular among many fans of the film, and is often the cause of heated debate.
NOTE: A more in-depth plot-summary needs to be written.
Alternate Versions
The Unfilmed Title Scene
Originally, the transition from 1933 to 1968 was to be much more elaborate, but finally the scene simply proved to be too difficult. From the original shooting script:
"We hear the roar of the its wheels and the wail of a train's whistle, and the view across the tracks is blocked by the engine, the tender and the cars - car after car laden with Model T's or whatever Ford was turning out in 1933... The train keeps passing, but the cars are no longer laden with 1933 Fords. They've become 1968 models in pink and turquoise and emerald green, announced by a title that fills the screen: ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA. The train disappears, taking it's rattle with it, and the barriers rise. But we are no longer staring out over open countryside. We see instead an endless row of high-rises, a cement City of Oz. Heading the row of cars that face us at the crossing is a 1960 Chevy. The is in his sixties too... Noodles, forty years later."
Deleted Scenes
The original shooting-script, completed in October 1981, was 317 pages in length.
At the end of filming, Leone had about 8 to 10 hours worth of footage. With his editor, Nino Baragli, Leone trimmed this down to about 6 hours, and wanted to release the film in two, three-hour parts.
The producers refused (partly due to the commercial failure of the Bertollucci's two-part Novecento, and Leone was forced to further shorten the length of his length, resulting in a completed (ie. scored, dubbed, edited, etc.) film of 229 minutes.
Leone has said that, ideally, he would have liked the film to be "between four hours ten minutes and four hours twenty-five minutes" (250 minutes to 265 minutes,) and that such a cut would mainly have served to restore scenes developing Noodles' relationships with women.
Important scenes which failed to appear in the 229 minute cut:
These scenes were all shot, and the footage still exists. However, it is in a very raw state, not dubbed and not edited.
- Young Noodles returns to his tenement, discovering his parents at prayer, and no dinner on the table.
When his parents criticise him for being 'godless,' Noodles retorts that money is his god.
- Shots of a black limousine tailing Noodles.
- An ominous garbage-truck, used as a link between 1933 and 1968.
- Senator Bailey arguing with an older Jimmy O'Donnel about a pensions scam (just before Noodle's climactic meeting with Bailey.)
- An opium-induced flashback of Noodles and the gang as children.
- Scenes of Louise Fletcher as director of the Riversdale cemetery.
- Noodles first meeting with Eve, and many other minor scenes with Eve.
In the original shooting-script, this occurs after the rape of Deborah (which happens at night, rather than early morning,) a very drunk Noodles meets Eve in a speakeasy and goes to bed with her, calling her 'Deborah'
- Scenes of Noodles watching Debra performing a Busby Berkly musical-scene (at a nightclub, just before their date,) and scenes from Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra (on the DVD's picture-gallery, there is an image of Elizabeth McGovern, dressed as Cleopatra, holding a snake.)
- A scene of Noodles talking to the cab-driver, before his date with Debra. There is clear enmity between the two characters, highlighting the way in which Jewish gangsters are perceived by their fellow Jews.
- An older Carol (Tuesday Weld) revealing to Noodles that Max had syphilis.
In the original shooting-script, this scene (occuring between the beach scene, and the scene with Carol and Noodles outside the Federal Reserve) Tuesday Weld also tells Noodles about Eve's death: "Oh, how she waited, but you never showed up... She shut the windows and locked the door, and nobody bothered to check. She was in there all the time, with her little capsules... there was nobody at the funeral but me" (The latter part of this scene may never have even been filmed, since Eve's death is depicted very differentally in the final film.)
Leone and his editor wanted to finish these scenes for a later release, but were prevented by Leone's death.
There have been rumours of longer cuts appearing on Italian television, however, according to Christopher Frayling's authoritative book Sergio Leone - Something To Do With Death these rumors are false, and the longest completed version is the 229 minute version shown at Cannes and now available on DVD.
Note: PAL editions of the DVD have a running time of 219 minutes (and 48 seconds) This is due entirely to PAL Speedup
Shortened Versions
There are two abridged versions of the film, neither of which are currently available.
The 227 minute version - When the 'complete' film was shown in America, it still had to be trimmed slightly to secure an 'R' rating. Cuts were made to the two rape scenes, and some of the violence at the beginning.
The Infamous 144 minute version - This was the version given wide release in America. Heavily cut by the Ladd Company, against Leone's wishes.
DVD Release
The film was not released on DVD until August 2003. The result has been hailed as having excellent image-quality (partly due to the high bit-rate, which places this on a level with most superbit DVDs. However, it has been criticised for it's limited extras and the fact that, being spread out on two double-layer disks, Disk 1 ends very abruptly, during an action sequence. (The films 'Intermission' doesn't occur until 40 minutes into Disk 2, so placing the disk-break later, would have meant compressing Disk 1 far more heavily.)
External Links
- Aboutfilm.com's in depth analysis of the film
- Fistful-of-leone.com
- [http://www.littlereview.com/goddesslouise/articles/frayling.htm/ Brief article and picture on a Louise Fletcher fanpage, discussing one of the deleted scenes.