Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

Once Upon a Time in the West (“C’era una volta il West”)
Directed by Sergio Leone
1968/Italy
Finanzia San Marco/Rafran Cinematografica/Paramount Pictures
Repeat viewing
#479 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Jill: What’s he waiting for out there? What’s he doing?
Cheyenne: He’s whittlin’ on a piece of wood. I’ve got a feeling when he stops whittlin’… Somethin’s gonna happen.

The Random Number Generator came through this week with a really special movie.  I’m not usually a fan of violence and this is plenty violent.  But the images and music are so beautiful and the staging is so stylish that this is a favorite.  I still don’t understand some of the plot points but that doesn’t matter too much to me either.

It is the time of the construction of the transcontinental railroad.  A railroad baron has hired Frank (Henry Fonda), a sadistic killer, and his gang of thugs to terrorize landowners so he can acquire land for the railroad cheap.  Frank and his men massacre Brett McBain and his family who own the land where a station will be built.  They don’t know that McBain has married and his wife Jill (Claudia Cardinale) is on the way.

Jill meets “Harmonica” (Charles Bronson), a loner with a vendetta against Frank, and Cheyenne (Jason Robards), the leader of a bandit gang.  They protect her and go after Frank and his men.  Of course, there are numerous gun battles and other mayhem along the way.

In common with many classic Hollywood westerns, this is really a story about the end of the Old West due to the encroachment of “civilization” via the railroad.  The railroad is represented as corrupt and, in fact, its head is a physical as well as a moral cripple.  The mood is elegiac and almost operatic.  Scenes play out slowly and deliberately but always with a flair that keeps one’s interest.  The camera work is just amazing, with awesome close-ups and awe-inspiring vistas.

At the same time that he plays homage to several different American westerns, Leone is sending them up.  I actually laughed out loud a couple of times during the movie’s opening with Jack Elam and the fly and Woody Strode and the water dropping on his hat.  The dialogue is also vintage Leone and endlessly quotable.

Trailer