Made Once Upon a Time – Still the Best

24Apr08

Picture this: A family being slaughtered by gunmen (in a straight homage to The Searchers) in a breathtaking sweep of landscape and a lone kid is alive after his family has been gunned down. The villain is contemplating whether to shoot the kid and one of his assistants says “What are we gonna do about this one, Frank?” and he replies “Now that you’ve called me by name”… and shoots the kid without any remorse. What makes matters worse is Frank happens to be Henry Fonda, the archetype good guy. He was the same actor who was Lincoln, the lone dissenting voice in 12 Angry Men who wanted to save a life and who made a career out of playing idealist good guys. It’s then that you realise it’s a casting masterstroke by Sergio Leone.

Apparently Henry Fonda was reluctant to play the cold blooded Frank and Sergio Leone flew to New York and convinced him: “Picture this: the camera shows a gunman from the waist down pulling his gun and shooting a running child. The camera pans up to the gunman’s face and…it’s Henry Fonda.” — wikipedia

Once Upon a Time in the West is a masterpiece. A visual spectacle which is taken to unforeseen heights by the music of Ennio Morricone and the stellar ensemble cast of Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards and Gabriele Ferzetti.

After making his Dollar Trilogy Leone came to USA and was looking for producers for his gangster epic ‘Once Upon a Time in America’. The studios having seen what he did with the western genre wanted him first to make another western. Despite believing he has told whatever he has to tell or show in the Dollar Trilogy never wanted to make another. He decided to make a movie and pay homage to all the great Westerns made in USA, High Noon, 3:10 to Yuma, The Searchers, The Magnificent Seven, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Shane and a lot more.

The movie starts with a breathtaking and extended 8 minute wait by three men for Harmonica. A Sergio Leone trademark is the delay of the imminent violence. Where as a Sam Peckinpah will show some gruesome violence and shoot outs, Leone will prolong the inevitable and create a tense atmosphere, which makes it really nervous for the viewer and then finish the shootout in a second. Tarantino has so well picked this technique of a master. It’s not the violence but the slow build up that is riveting.

So the three men wait and wait and wait some more and we are sucked into a world of dusters, landscapes, wide angle shots, extreme close-ups, gruff and unclean / unshaven men and their quirky behaviours. The opening shot creates an anxiety in the viewer about why the three people are waiting so quietly and suddenly when a train arrives they forget about everything and get ready for the job at hand. The sounds of the windmill, leaking water and the buzz of a fly brilliantly heighten the anxiety. You know something’s gotta give and the prolonged wait is followed by a brief shootout where in Harmonica shoots down the three men we learn that he was expecting someone named Frank instead of the three men of his.

Then we see the heartbreaking but brilliantly picturised killing of an entire family at ‘Sweetwater’ when the family was waiting for someone named Jill whom McBain, the father of the family, had married a month ago. The build up to the carnage is sensational with brilliant use of background sounds of chirping birds. The carnage that follows is brutal to say the least.

Essentially the movie is about the ownership of a tract of land owned by McBain through which a rail line is supposed to pass but various characters have their own agenda and seamlessly their stories merge with the main plot.

Harmonica is looking for revenge and wants to settle an old score with Frank, old school. There is the crippled rail tycoon Morton (Gabriele Ferzetti) who wants to own that piece of land and Jill who wants to stay at ‘Sweetwater’ as the rightful owner.

Boy what a movie. Frame for frame, shot for shot it is IMHO the greatest western ever made. The wide angle shots and extreme close-ups have always been a part of Leone’s repertoire but here they increase the effect manifold. The climactic duel between Frank and Harmonica is a moment to treasure. They circle and circle and circle some more. A flashback is shown. The music just rips you apart and then we see the extreme close-ups of Bronson and Fonda. Through their eyes we foresee the inevitable. Old, withered and wrinkled skin; those unmistakable blue eyes of Frank and the vengeful eyes of Harmonica – pure cinematic LSD. And then the inevitable gunshot which seals the fate of Frank and Harmonica has his revenge.

But then on second thoughts, is the movie about Harmonica’s revenge or Jill getting her town back or Frank coming to his impending doom or is it about the end of the outlaw culture, the wild gunmen (“An ancient race” as Harmonica tells Frank) and beginning of the railroad – dawn of a new civilisation or how water and the struggle for it will played an important role in years to come (Jill giving water to the workers).

The cast was born to play the characters they played. Claudia Cardinale as Jill, the ex-whore, who will do anything to save her skin, Henry Fonda as the remorseless Frank, Jason Robards as the good natured Cheyenne and the gruffy but mysterious good guy Harmonica played by Charles Bronson (he is never named in the movie and its only Cheyenne who calls him Harmonica in a possible dedication to Eastwood’s character in his Man with the no name movies.

Another character which I haven’t mentioned earlier and is more important than anyone in the movie is the epic score by Ennio Morricone, a Leone regular. While Morricone’s music has always been great and always used brilliantly by Leone, in this movie it’s at another zone. An essential part of the story here where all major characters have a signature theme, the music is the leitmotif throughout the entire movie.

A best in the genre and certainly Leone’s very best.

Filed under: Entertainment, Hollywood, Movies, Review   |  1 Comment
Tags: Charles Bronson, Cinema, Claudia Cardinale, Ennio Morricone, Henry Fonda, Movie, Movies, Sam Peckinpah, Sergio Leone, Tarantino, Violence, Western, Wild West