Once Upon a Time in the West Review:

The Film

There’s not much to say about Sergio Leone’s undisputed classic that hasn’t already been said. His imperious western epic is a definitive masterpiece, fans have just been waiting for a collector’s edition DVD to ride into town which does it justice.

The film itself revels in the digital format, looking superb, sounding spectacular and effortlessly hooking the viewer with its awesome, almost dialogue-free, 14-minute opening sequence, which has become legend. Rife with the director’s trademarks (Ennio Morricone’s music, a propensity for close-ups, hyper-real sound) it’s essentially the story of a corrupt railroad and its ruthless displacement of innocent people as it bulldozes its way across the landscape.

This involves the use of nefarious scare tactics (employing gun-for-hire outlaws) to get rid of the less obliging residents. Chief bad guy is Henry Fonda, whose sensational casting against type as a vicious killer (the first thing he does is slaughter several generations of an Irish immigrant family) stunned audiences when the film was released in 1968.

Out to bring him down (mainly because Fonda was the sadist who hanged is brother) is Charles Bronson, a harmonica-playing vengeful gunman who makes a sublimely operatic entrance during that seminal opening sequence. Always managing to look completely unruffled, his note perfect man-with-no-name act is one of many outstanding performances, with the ravishing Claudia Cardinale drawing sumptuous praise as a woman who refuses to be intimidated out of her home. Watch very closely and it becomes clear that she’s the only main character who knows, deep down, that she’ll make it through to the end credits still breathing.
Blazing gunfights, billowing duster coats, tense face-offs, railway carriage shoot-outs, revenge, greed, hate, sex, it’s all in there in shimmering widescreen, Leone treating everything with a trademark stylistic flourish and even assigning distinct musical themes to each of the leading players.

Untouchable.

Extras

Brimming with the sort of quality extras you’d expect to accompany such a classic movie, the features on the double disc package are satisfyingly impressive.

Built around a classy animated menu, there are four info-packed featurettes totaling over an hour which together make up a feature-length documentary on the movie. If there is a criticism, it’s that some of this content overlaps with what’s discussed on the commentary. The interview with Sergio Leone himself is also painfully short.
Elsewhere there’s also a stills gallery contrasting the locations in the film with how they look now, the theatrical trailer, production photos and cast biographies.

But what about that commentary? Well, it doesn’t disappoint. With contributions from historians Christopher Frayling and Dr Sheldon Hall, along with directors John Carpenter, John Milius and Alex Cox, not to mention Bernardo Bertolucci, it’s a veritable goldmine of information.

Frayling is particularly insightful, discussing Leone’s determination to cram in hundreds of references to Hollywood westerns and offering a fascinating analysis of the iconic opening credits sequence (which he refers to as “sonic art”), while Bertolucci (one of the film’s writers) talks about his memories of working with the director and Carpenter generally marvels at his genius.

It’s great stuff, but Leone’s own input (he died in 1989) would have made it truly indispensable.

David Lichtneker

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