Interpreted as an opium induced hallucination by many a film critic, director Sergio Leone's Once Upon A Time In America (1984) makes perfect sense. In fact, it remains perhaps the most sublimely understated indictment on organized crime and the early immigrant experience ever put on film. Unhappy chance for Leone that after an exuberant premiere abroad, North American audiences were instead subjected to two bastardized and severely truncated versions of his masterpiece - both re-edited by the studios without Leone's consent in a vain attempt to create a linear narrative out of what is essentially a non-linear tale. Neither of these North American releases caught on with audiences' tastes. But more about that later in this review. Leone, who had established a dark revisionist mood with his spaghetti westerns starring Clint Eastwood was heartbroken by this film's critical and financial failure in the U.S. For many years this fact alone was enough to keep Once Upon A Time In America off movie screens and home video. But time does strange things to true art, and in 1997 Once Upon A Time In America was re-screened in limited release, and, in its original edit to thunderous audience applause and near universal critical praise.
Viewed today, the film has all the celebrated trapping associated with Leone's best work; a superb script based on Harry Grey's novel 'The Hoods'; brilliant performances by Robert DeNiro and James Woods, stellar production values and an utterly evocative score from Ennio Morricone (unjustly overlooked for even an Oscar nomination at the time of the film's general release).
For the purposes of this review, the film's plot will be summarized in a linear fashion even though in the film itself Leone liberally breaks with that time honoured structure of the classic Hollywood narrative to jump back and forth from events taking place in the 1920, 30s and late 60s. The screenplay by Leone and a litany of writers including Franco Arcalli, Leonardo Benvenuti, Piero De Bernadi, Franco Ferrini, Ernesto Gastaldi, Stuart M. Kaminksy and Enrico Medioli, typically begins in the middle of our story circa mid-1930s, with the character of David 'Noodles' Aaronson (played by Robert De Niro) hiding out from Mafia hit men in an opium den. Inducing a drugged stupor, Noodles goes through a series of either flashbacks or flash forwards (if we are to believe the theory that this initial opium usage is responsible for the rest of the story).
The narrative regresses to the early 1920s where Young Noodles (now played by Scott Tyler) is a ruffian living in squalor inside New York's Jewish ghetto community. Noodles and his fellow mugs, including Patsy (Brian Bloom), Cockeye (Adrian Curran), Domenic (Noah Moazezi) and Fat Moe (Mike Monetti) work over drunks for a local hood until they inadvertently meet up with Max Bercovicz (Rusty Jacobs) - a bigger operator on every level.
Max convinces the boys to go independent and together they manage a minor crime spree that sets them up financially with fancier clothes. However, it also places the fledgling organization in direct opposition to Bugsy (James Russo); a ruthless Mafia player who murders Domenic in cold blood. This assassination sets off Noodles, who not only stabs Bugsy to death in an act of revenge, but also wounds Police Officer Whitey (Richard Foronji) who attempts to break up their confrontation.
Noodles, who previously had an unrequited love for Moe's sister, Deborah (Jennifer Connelly) now spends the rest of his youth incarcerated for murder as a juvenile. Upon his release in the early 1930s, Noodles (again played by Robert DeNiro) discovers that Max (now played by James Woods) has been steadily escalating his involvement in organized crime and that, true to their friendship, Max has made him a partner by proxy. Noodles rejoins the rest of his friends at a speakeasy that is the essential front line for all their lucrative cash flow. He is reintroduced to Deborah (now played by Elizabeth McGovern) who is as distance and aloof as ever and has spent her time establishing a career as a modest dancer/actress of respectable merit.
The boys are hired by big time Mafioso Franki Manoldi (Joe Pesci) to assist his mobster brother, Joe (Burt Young) in smuggling some diamonds in from Detroit. Noodles is not entirely certain that Max should partake in the venture; a suspicion confirmed when the exchange of money for diamonds at an abandoned ship's graveyard turns bloody and murderous. Following the assassination of Joe and all his men, Max confides to Noodles that he was told in advance by Franki to murder Joe and collect the diamonds for himself.
From this point onward, Noodles and Max steadily grow apart; their interests diverging on a basic ideology. Noodles believes that as an operation they should work for themselves and remain small but their own men, while Max believes that the only way to rise to the top is to organize with bigger criminal masterminds further up the ladder of success. Max takes up with Carol (Tuesday Weld); a sadomasochistic creature who previously helped the boys rob a jeweller, then encouraged Noodles to beat and rape her as part of the rouse to prove to her bosses that she was not in on the fix.
Solvent for the first time in his life, Noodles decides to pursue a romance with Deborah; an ill fated folly that almost immediately sours when - after wining and dining Deborah in regal style - she confides in Noodles her plans to depart the next afternoon for Hollywood. Her confession turns Noodles affections to rage and he brutally rapes Deborah in the back of his rented limo as the driver looks on - unable to even fathom why she would resist his sexual advances.
The last act of the Leone's saga plays even more fast and loose with the narrative timeline, but ultimately takes us to a botched stick up job on the U.S. Federal Reserve - the aftermath only briefly glimpsed in the film's early prologue with the charred remains of presumably Max, Cockeye and Patsy lying on the cold wet pavement in body bags. Prior to this grizzly end, Max and Noodles had taken a vacation to Florida where they learn that prohibition has been repealed, thereby putting their speakeasy out of business. The narrative fast tracks to 1968.
Having discovered a briefcase containing a million dollars of stolen treasury money, Noodles, now a middle aged man, reunites with Deborah backstage. She has become a successful film and Broadway star and in their interim separation has married Secretary Bailey - a man currently suspected of city corruption. Noodles tells Deborah that he has been invited to Secretary Bailey's home for a party, but Deborah pleads with Noodles not to go. Instead, Noodles learns that Deborah has a son, also named David (also played by Rusty Jacobs who played young Max).
Arriving at Bailey's lavish Long Island estate, Noodles learns that Secretary Bailey is actually Max. Having escaped the Federal Reserve holdup, he has lived a public lie for half a century, exploiting his contacts higher up in organized crime to obtain his current rank. But now Max's house of cards is about to cave and Max - unable to accept his demise - encourages Noodles to shoot him in his study, even providing a foolproof plan of escape so that the crime can go unpunished.
Instead, Noodles refuses the offer - recognizing that if he were to comply with Max's request he would forever destroy the second half of his life as surely as the first half has been turned to excrement by their association. Walking away from the estate in the dark, Noodles takes notice a garbage truck parked nearby. The truck begins to follow him and from behind it there emerges a shadowy figure - presumably, though perhaps not entirely - Max (Leone was particularly evasive about answering the question of Max's demise). As the truck passes Noodles, the shadowy figure is momentarily blocked from his view and afterward has altogether vanished. If this figure is Max, then we must assume he has thrown himself into the rear compactor as a final act of insane self-destruction.
We return to the opium den once more, in the scene that began our story. Set in the mid-1930s, Noodles arrives one dark night and is shown a bed by the proprietor who helps him ingest large quantities of opium smoke into his lungs. Noodles reclines on his back with a queer, faintly disturbing grin splashed across his face. The story has come to a mysterious and inconclusive end.
The only way the narrative works is if one assumes that it is entirely the product of Noodles opium induced hallucinations. Having seen the original truncated and re-edited North American print on its initial theatrical release in 1984, I recall how nothing about the film seemed to make any sense at all then and how the narrative contained what I then misperceived as very sloppy, major and rather glaring omissions in continuity that rendered the plot utterly incoherent.
Thus, when I re-screened the original Leone cut some years later I was taken aback by how integrated the narrative became. Everything fits, neatly and tightly, generating a nightmarish landscape that is probably truer to the immigrant experience than most other American movies would like to admit. As a dream, the audience is not entitled to have all the pieces of the story, rather, just the ones necessary to loosely connect the dots between the narrative's past, present and future.
Originally, Sergio Leone had planned to make a gangster trilogy in the same way he had created 'The Man With No Name' western trilogy starring Clint Eastwood. Leone even turned down Paramount Pictures offer to direct The Godfather to pursue what ought to have been his dream project. Instead, the film ran into one financial snag after the other and a revolving roster of casting choices that came and went as quickly as did Leone's slew of writers on the project. Some interesting early choices included Richard Dreyfuss as Noodles and James Cagney as the elderly Max. Briefly, Brook Shields was also considered for the part of Deborah.
In the end, Leone compromised ever so slightly to bring his dream to life. But the strain proved too great for his heart and Once Upon A Time In America remains the first instalment in an, as yet, incomplete trilogy.
Warner Home Video's Blu-Ray release is a marked improvement over its original two disc DVD. The harsh digital look of the DVD has been eradicated for a relatively smooth presentation on the Blu-Ray. Film grain that registered as digital grit on the DVD is refined and more natural in appearance on the Blu-Ray. Image sharpness and fine details both take a quantum leap forward.
However, all is not right with this Blu-Ray presentation. While most of the image is brightly contrasted with sharp imagery, occasionally the visuals become softly focused. This is more problematic after the intermission and one can only suspect that it is probably the result of trying to compress a 225 minute movie on a single Blu-Ray disc - with a litany of extra features no less! A film of this length ought to have been split at the intermission across two discs to take full advantage of Blu-Ray's superior compression rates. (Aside: the DVD presentation was split across two discs but oddly enough 'NOT' at the intermission: rather during the showdown sequence at the ship's graveyard.)
Edge enhancement still exists, though hardly to the extent that it did on the DVD. Colours are the most curious and perhaps the biggest disappointment herein. Flesh tones continue to be either very orange or very pink in tone - even when taking into account the stylized sepia palette with which Leone chose to represent the 1920s and 30s in the film.
The audio has been given a lossless upgrade but exhibits all the inherent shortcomings of a dated soundtrack recording. Ennio Morricone's score is the real benefactor here. Extras are all direct imports from the DVD release and include Richard Schickel's audio commentary and a featurette that reunites various cast and crew to reminisce about their experiences working with Leone. Recommended.
FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
4
VIDEO/AUDIO
3
EXTRAS
2
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