Guilty, i’m guilty, how could i forgot to mention in this post my alltime high movie Once Upon a Time in America and the beautiful soundtrack by Ennio Morricone. Listen to the brilliant Theme featuring Zamphyr’s panflute.
Once Upon a Time in America (Italian title C’era una volta in America) (1984) is the last film by director Sergio Leone, and features Robert De Niro and James Woods as Jewish ghetto youths who rise to prominence in New York City’s world of organized crime.
The way the movie was cut is also the reason why a lot of Americans don’t think this movie is very special. There are three versions, but only the European version is how the director imagined it to be. He didn’t want his movie to be shown in chronological order (1910’s - 1930’s - 1960’s), but wanted to mix these three periods of time. The studio cut the movie in chronological order, loosing a lot of its originality and therefor getting a lot of bad critics. If you want to see this film the way Sergio Leone saw it, you have to make sure you get the director’s cut.
The second reason why this movie is so great is the music. Ennio Morricone, who is seen as the greatest writer of film music ever, did an excellent job. Together with the images, the music speaks for itself in this movie. From time to time there isn’t said a word, but the music and the images on their own tell the story. He understood perfectly what Sergio Leone wanted and composed most of the music even before the movie was shot.
Noodles: You see, I have a story too, Mr. Bailey. I had a friend once. A dear friend. I turned him in to save his life. He died. But he wanted it that way. Things went bad for my friend, and they went bad for me too.
Sounds interesting? Then view the trailer or read this brilliant analysis by Dana Knowles.
