Mountain FogRETROSPECT: ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1968)
March 23rd 2009 08:19
The death of the Western is meditated upon in Once Upon a Time in the West.
Despite the major success of his Dollars trilogy, by 1967 Sergio Leone was tiring of the Western and desired to leave the frontier behind for more modern projects. All the studios wanted from him, however, was another trip into Winchesters and dustcoats and, reluctantly, Leone agreed to a Paramount deal to travel back to the Old West one more time. The result was Once Upon a Time in the West, an epic meditation on death, industrialisation and the rise of the matriarch in frontier mythology. While it was greeted lukewarmly in the United States upon its initial release, Once Upon a Time in the West proved a hit in Europe and is now often regarded as the creative highpoint in Leone’s resplendent career.
For a film that spins with themes and motifs, clocking in at 160 minutes, the story that drives Once Upon a Time in the West is a deceptively straightforward one. Crippled railroad baron, Morton (Gabrielle Ferzetti) longs to complete a railroad connecting the east and west coasts of the United States. Living in a plush private rail car, Morton’s dream is to see the Pacific Ocean before he is overcome with sickness. To continue the railroad’s progress, however, Morton needs to gain control over the property of Sweetwater, owned by Brett McBain (Frank Wolff) and the only reliable source of water in the region. To get his hands on the prime railroad land, he hires a bunch of thugs, led by the blue-eyed sadist Frank (Henry Fonda) to intimidate McBain. Frank and his men instead wipe out the McBain family, not counting on the stubbornness of McBain’s new bride, Jill (Claudia Cardinale), who arrives shortly after the murder and inherits the land.
Soon, both outlaw Cheyenne (Jason Robards) and the mysterious Harmonica (Charles Bronson) arrive at Sweetwater, taking it upon themselves to look after Jill, thus thwarting Morton and Frank's plans to seize her land. Cheyenne, framed for the McBain murders, is driven to clear his name, while it soon becomes clear that Harmonica is motivated by an altogether more pure strand of vengeance, related to Frank’s crowded personal history of murder and brutality. As the inexhaustible progress of the railroad brings it ever closer to Sweetwater the stakes begin to climb and alliances mutate, leading to an inevitably violent reckoning among the central characters.
While Once Upon a Time in the West has a clever and straightforward story as its backbone, it is also dripping with theme and subtext. With Leone’s planned departure from a genre he was tired of, the Italian director wanted to make a film that was essentially the last Western. In its tale of the march of progress (symbolised by the unstoppable expansion of the railway) that even the frontier couldn’t avoid, Leone communicated the death of the lawless West, the capitulation of the old cultural heroes to the ordinary man, the rise of the matriarch and ultimately the exhaustion of the genre itself (an aspect that made it one of the first post modern films to be funded by a major Hollywood studio). Appropriately, therefore, Once Upon a Time in the West has a starkly sombre and funereal tone as it captures the sweeping changes and rapid industrialisation that overtook the wind swept frontier.
Harmonica (Charles Bronson) searches for revenge against Frank (Henry Fonda) in Once Upon a Time in the West.
This matching of a strong, straightforward story to rich theme and developed almost by accident, such was the odd way in which Once Upon a time in the West came to be written. Leone initially recruited two film critics, Bernardo Bertolucci and Dario Argento, to help him develop the film. The three men spent month upon month watching and discussing numerous classic Westerns such as High Noon, The Iron Horse, and The Searchers, constructing a story made up almost entirely of references to other classic American Westerns. However, Leone eventually tired of Bertolucci and Argento’s intellectual approach and, taking the themes, references, characters and set-pieces laid out by the two critics, he turned to Sergio Donati, who had, uncredited, rewritten much of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Donati had a knack for producing commercially viable scripts and he managed to round out the characters arcs before cramming all of Leone, Bertolucci and Argento’s ideas into a workable screenplay.
In taking the script to the screen, Leone’s style of direction is suitably operatic, and he and cinematographer Tonino Delli Colli’s attention to detail almost outrageous. Eschewing the up-tempo quirk of the Dollars trilogy, Leone slowed things down with Once Upon a Time in the West; characters move themselves like chess pieces around the story and when the action comes, it sizzles with fire and death, a cathartic release from incalculable tension built beforehand. Modern filmmakers would do well to study the opening scene, where seemingly nothing happens for the first five minutes, yet the crisp desert skies might as well be filled with an electrical storm, such is the anxiety in the air. It’s brilliant stuff, driven along with the slow unstoppable force of the 19th century steam locomotives that feature so prominently in the story.
Henry Fonda's 'baby blues' are turned from a symbol for good into an intimidating force of evil in Once Upon a Time in the West.
Of course, a large part of the film’s success is owed to the highly effective cast. Jason Robards’ unsettling charisma was put to good use with the fiercely egalitarian Cheyenne, while Charles Bronson is inscrutable as the granite-faced Harmonica, a man who Leone famously and tellingly described as “knowing just how long to wait.” Claudia Cardinale is quietly brilliant as Jill, a woman who refuses to be a pawn and eventually illustrates her iron will by outliving the men who surround her. But most telling of all in this tale of death and deception is the sublime casting of Henry Fonda as an antagonist. Fonda truly inhabits the character of the sadistic Frank, taking his famous ‘baby blues’ away from their more traditional role as a symbol for goodness, and making them a vehicle for evil and brutality. Frank crackles with vile enmity but his misguided ambitions will have fate call upon him by the time the final reel rolls out.
Once Upon a Time in the West still proves to be bracing and brilliant stuff, guided by Leone’s steady hand and only made all the more involving by Ennio Morricone’s stirring score, which is by turns playful and dramatic, providing different themes for each of the major players before running them through with one all-encapsulating major musical motif. A film that barely seems to age, Once Upon a Time in the West is one of the most fascinating examples of its genre, certainly the greatest Spaghetti Western and probably the greatest Revisionist Western of all time. This is visionary filmmaking, and while Sergio Leone remains best known for his Dollars trilogy, it’s this epic meditation on death that will perhaps forever define the highpoint of a remarkable career.
Check out the trailer for Once Upon a Time in the West below:
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Comment by David O'Connell
Screen Fanatic
Watching Henry Fonda play against type was the big surprise for me the first time I saw it. 12 Angry Men is probably my most watched film ever and to see him in something so contrary was a real eye-opener.
It certainly has that epic, operatic feel to it, and Morricone's score is as grand and operatic as anything he ever composed as well. Easily one of the greatest scores of all time.
And a truly landmark piece of cinema.
Comment by Matt Shea
20/20 Filmsight
Henry Fonda is such a great bad guy and Jason Robards is up there with Lee Marvin as one of my favourite actors ever.
And thanks for reminding me of 12 Angry Men - I've never seen it and have wanted to for a long time; off to Network Video!!
Comment by Movie Mall
Movie Catcher
The Invisible Sky
Only saw it for the first time the other week.
I've been watching one of these Leone 'Spaghetti Westerns' each Saturday afternoon.
Once Upon A Time absolutely blew me away!
You summed it up perfectly. There are so many levels in a pretty simple story. The images are amazing. The music ... goes without saying, plays a huge part.
Love how Bronson's 'Harmonica' is a kind of Angel of Death. Just brilliant.
Comment by Matt Shea
20/20 Filmsight
Comment by James Rickard
unlucky_ fishermen.com
Angling Fish
Check this out...
Comment by Matt Shea
20/20 Filmsight
And you're right - the opening scene is fantastic. Just tension you could cut with a knife - and awesome sound design for that scene also, with the squeaking windmill etc.
Comment by Cibbuano
Hunt Famous
Orble Post of the Day
Fat Cult
Techbreak
Absolutely, one of my favourites... I watched it on DVD, unfortunately, but then again with the director's commentary, which was these giants of filmmaking talking about the influences, themes and symbols.
An intellectual's western - long, but engrossing. Does it get better?
I can't even imagine a time when you could just get Argento and Bertolucci to just 'help out'...
Comment by James Rickard
unlucky_ fishermen.com
Angling Fish
Check this out...
Comment by Matt Shea
20/20 Filmsight
Comment by Morgan Bell
Science News
Deep Pencil
Business News
Movie Train
Artist Quirk
i havent seen the film but i can tell you put in the time to do it justice when writing this article!
Comment by Matt Shea
20/20 Filmsight
Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
Does it seem redundant to call this one of the greatest, if not the greatest western of all time?
From my own review:
"Paced in the words of the Director, “to create the sensation of the last gasps that a person takes before dying…a dance of death”, Once Upon A Time In The West is an operatic vision of the old West.
Stylized, atmospheric and set against a massive landscape, the memorable score seeps in and out. Every scene feels like a mini epic in scope and execution.
Populated with larger than life figures that embodying menace, danger and undeniable cool strut in trench coats and spend there lives squinting into the hot sun. "
If your interested you can read my review HERE
Comment by Matt Shea
20/20 Filmsight
Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
From Johnny Guitar and Warlock to Dead Man and Lone Star, Howard Hawkes and John Ford to Delmar Davies and Anthony Mann there are so many angles taken in the western from contemplative to out right action it is hard to cite an absolute #1...personally Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch and Richard Brookes The Professionals are two that nearly always make my top 10 when in a drunken state I go on a westerns rant.