American Myth - Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

"Keep your lovin' brother happy."

I remember the time my dad came home from Costco with the DVD of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. It was a special edition, with a second disc full of features. I'd never seen anything like it: Sergio Leone had a specific vision that many would try, and fail, to replicate. He was the innovator of the so-called "Spaghetti Western." "Spaghetti," because Leone was Italian, and shot most of his movies in Europe and Italy on shoe-string budgets. It is an interesting thing to see this genre filtered through the eyes of a foreigner. His old west became even more fantasized, but not in the idealistic way: his westerns are gritty, larger than life epics that feel more like modern mythology than any John Wayne film ever did. You might think of John Ford as making the Disney-fied version of The American West: they are celebrations of American spirit and determination. But in the dark back corner of the library, you'll find Leone's translations of the The American West: tales of good and evil writ large like hyper-violent operas. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly  had a profound effect on me, as a child. I am not entirely certain why I waited so long to watch what many consider Leone's opus, Once Upon a Time in the West. But yesterday I did watch it. And, wow.

Summary:

A nameless man arrives on a train, only for three men to make an attempt on his life at the station. He walks away. They don't. Jill McBain arrives on another train, eager to join her husband, and his family, on their plot of land. Little does she know that they have all been laid low. Laid low by the same dastardly bastard who sent those men after the nameless man. What follows is a tale of greed, American expansion, and revenge.

Pros:

That Opening Scene: The movie starts with what can only be described as a fifteen minute short film. It has a beginning, middle, and end. It sports well-defined characters. And it is beautifully shot. Leone set the tone early in that run-down train station. He juxtaposes wide shots with tight close ups, and balances his actors in frame with their surroundings in a way that makes every frame look like a piece of art. That this first fifteen minutes of film is largely silent, save for the dripping of water, the creaking of a wind mill, and the buzzing of a fly, is impressive. Leone tells his story through action. It is a distillation of his style as a whole. It could be cut, or edited out, but Leone lets it stand, and that is what contributes to the sense of epicness in his films. He spends fifteen minutes with characters we will never see again, establishing tone, and a creeping sense of dread, mostly as an introduction to another character, who, again, doesn't arrive on screen for FIFTEEN MINUTES. Consider the first fifteen minutes of this film as a kind of filmmaking master class.

Style: Leone was a master filmmaker. He knew when to use vast wide shots, and he knew when to zero in on a pair of squinty eyes. His sight lines draw the viewer's eye, deeper into frame, and often towards some figure in the distance. He feels like John Ford's Italian counterpart: both men knew how to frame shots, establish movement, and their films felt undeniably like a product of their authors. One of Leone's strengths, however, is building tension. He knows that you know that a gunfight is about to happen. And so he builds to the explosion of violence in a way that makes the viewer scoot the edge of their seat.

The Music: You can't talk about a Leone film and NOT talk about Ennio Morricone's score. The two men, and their legacies, are intrinsically linked. Leone's films feel the way they do, in large part, because of Morricone's score. Remember, these are shoe-string budgeted films. They don't have the money for an orchestra. So Morricone improvises. He uses a single brass trumpet; he uses found sounds like snapping whips and lone whistles; and then there's the reverb-laden electric guitar that stings like an angry bee. Morricone made the best of what he had and defined the sound of a generation of genre film. His music is iconic, and you've heard it, even if you don't know that you have. The music in Once Upon a Time in the West is the perfect underscore for Leone's epic vision. I was listening to the soundtrack, on blast, for an hour or so after the movie yesterday. I'm listening to his music, now, as I write this. It is beautiful, deadly, and makes the blood pump. It might well be his best.

The Ultimate Heel Turn: Henry Fonda made his career playing good guys. In the eyes of the American public, he was the quintessential good guy. Which makes his casting as the evil Frank such a coup. Frank, and his gang brutally murder a family of four, including a child, but Leone keeps the gang leader's identity a mystery until he reveals Fonda's, now bloodshot, baby blues. Fonda, an ostensibly handsome man, is, as I noted in my notes, "hideous." His face is covered in muck and scraggle. His mouth is twisted in a sneer, right before he spits out a gob of tobacco. Leone plays on Fonda's legacy to present an ultimate villain: an old west horror show. And Fonda rises to the challenge with aplomb. He was good as Wyatt Earp, but his Frank is terrifying and compelling. Frank is a violent man trying to play business man, and he cannot seem to break away from the simple, deadly methods that built him. It is an interesting arc.

This Movie Feels Like a Novel: This movie feels like a novel, with scenes that feel like chapters in a masterpiece of literature. Leone sets up scenes that take their time, and establish character with action and a minimum of words. He spends great amounts of time with characters that will soon die and never be seen again. Most directors do not take this kind of care, and it's no mystery why: the movie is nearly three hours long, and the initial draft of the script was considerably LONGER than that. If you are of a mind to do it, basking in the glory of a Leone film will drink up an entire afternoon, but, like a good book, you won't be able to look away.

Everyone and Everything is Dirty: It's a tiny detail in Leone's films that really make them feel real: his characters are ALL dirty. Even the beautiful Claudia Cardinale, who somehow manages to make grime work for her. They are covered in dust and beads of sweat and have skin like tanned leather. It's the Old West: OF COURSE PEOPLE WOULD GET DIRTY. Even the costumes are covered in dust: blacks are muted by it, and whites are muddied up. Everything feels used and lived in and like it's just existed for ages. Leone's west is hell, and his characters have been stuck there for eternity.

Show, Don't Tell: Leone loves to show his stories. His characters are not talkers. He leaves a lot in mystery and only ever reveals what you NEED to know. We never really know much more about Harmonica (the silent man played by Charles Bronson), and we don't really NEED a deep dive on his background. We know, by the end, in a masterful stroke of filmmaking, that (spoilers for a fifty year old film) Frank killed Harmonica's brother, by hanging the man, but forcing the older brother to stand on the shoulders of a young Harmonica. Frank then puts the harmonica in the boy's mouth and tells him to "keep your brother happy." The camera pans out, slowly, as either the boy's shoulders give out, or the older brother decides to just get it over with. We don't get bogged down with details like how they got there, or what their names are. We know the Frank killed Harmonica's brother. That's all we need to know. That is part of Leone's brilliance. His characters feel mysterious and mythological.

Interesting Faces: Leone fills his films with people that have interesting faces. And, when Leone decides to lovingly shoot them in close up, their wrinkles and lines make for compelling viewing. This isn't a Hollywood production, where everyone looks slick and beautiful. Don't get me wrong, Claudia Cardinale is a beauty, but, under Leone's lens, we see the dark pools of her eyes, and the slight unevenness of her teeth. We find beauty in her imperfections. The same goes for Fonda's trademark blue eyes: they shine like beacons out of nests of wrinkles. Charles Bronson's face is marked with lines, and each one tells a tragic story. Leone's films are visually lush, not just because of how he frames a shot, but also because of the actors he chooses to people them. Even the side characters who populate the background are distinct and unique-looking.

Cons:

It's Long, Yo: This movie is nearly three hours long. It's going to take you some time to watch it. But, like I've said, and, hopefully, proved: It IS WORTH IT.

In Conclusion:

Sergio Leone, and the Spaghetti Western that he pioneered, helped redefine the western genre in the 60s. What most people think of as a western, nowadays, comes straight back to Leone, in fact. I was watching Steven Universe, a children's show, and a character was roleplaying as a cowboy. They might as well have been roleplaying as Clint Eastwood in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, with crazy twangy guitar music to match. Such is Leone, a foreigner's, legacy: he helped redfine and revolutionize the quintessential American film genre. Once Upon a Time in the West is a masterstroke, and may well be the man's masterpiece.

Should You Watch It?

This is a beautiful film. It needs to be watched.

Miscellany:

- Morricone had a score for the opening scene, but decided to scrap it, and use entirely found sounds to underscore it. I couldn't help but feel like the sounds were building to a kind of musical score, and it's fun to know that that is exactly what Morricone intended.

- Leone offered the role of Harmonica to Clint Eastwood, but Eastwood, after three films with Leone, turned it down. This actually fractured the men's relationship, and they wouldn't reconcile again until the '80s, months before Leone's death.
- Jill wasn't originally in the script, and Leone had to be talked into making his featured character a woman. This is Leone's ONLY film to prominently feature a woman.
- The first draft of the script was 436 pages long.
- The film was selected for preservation  in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2009.
- Leone had no intention of returning to the western genre, having believed he said everything he needed to with the Dollars trilogy. But, when Paramount offered him an increased budget and access to Henry Fonda, one of the director's favorite actors, he could not refuse.
- Bronson was given the part of Harmonica after Clint Eastwood turned it down. Bronson had, in turn, turned down the role of the Silent Man in Leone's Dollars trilogy. Tit for tat, that.
- Morricone wrote the score, under Leone's supervision, BEFORE filming began.