Once Upon a Time in America (Italian: C’era una volta in America) is a 1984 epic crime drama directed by Sergio Leone, marking his final film before his death in 1989. Based on Harry Grey’s novel The Hoods, the film serves as the grand culmination of Leone’s thematic “Once Upon a Time” trilogy (following Once Upon a Time in the West and Duck, You Sucker!).
The filming of Leone’s 1984 masterwork was a legendary multi-continental production that took over 13 years of development and 10 demanding months of principal photography. Unlike almost all modern film productions where music is composed and recorded post-filming, Ennio Morricone composed and recorded the film’s iconic score before shooting began.
Leone insisted on setting up large loudspeakers on set during filming to blast Morricone’s haunting score, such as “Deborah’s Theme” and “Cockeye’s Song,” while the camera rolled. Because the film was shot without live sound recording, the actors moved, walked, and paced their performance directly to the rhythm of the music.
To prepare for the older 1968 version of Noodles, De Niro requested a private meeting with real-life crime figure Meyer Lansky to study his mannerisms and body language. Lansky declined, but the request was classic De Niro method preparation.
Leone spent weeks casting child actors who possessed exact physical mannerisms matching their adult counterparts. During rehearsals, he made the older actors study footage of the younger actors, and vice versa, to synchronize their body movements. Makeup artist Manlio Rocchetti spent hours applying fine latex appliances on De Niro and Woods for the 1968 sequences to achieve natural-looking aged skin rather than heavy prosthetics.
Leone originally envisaged two three-hour films, then a single 269-minute (4 hours and 29 minutes) version, but was convinced by distributors to shorten it to 229 minutes (3 hours and 49 minutes). The American distributors, The Ladd Company, further shortened it to 139 minutes (2 hours and 19 minutes), and rearranged the scenes into chronological order, without Leone's involvement.
The US edit was a critical and commercial flop in the United States, and critics who had seen both versions harshly condemned the changes made. While sometimes considered one of Leone’s most overlooked films, the original European cut of Once Upon a Time in America has remained a critical favorite and frequently appears in lists of the greatest films of all time, especially in the gangster genre.
0 comments:
Post a Comment