Rating: NNNNN
ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (Sergio Leone, 1969) pits Charles Bronson’s vengeful drifter against Henry Fonda’s remorseless killer in the amazing landscapes of the American Southwest. This has one of Ennio Morricone’s most remarkable scores, and for once Leone got to film in actual American settings. In a moment as astonishing as the cut in Lawrence Of Arabia from a freshly extinguished match to the blazing desert sun, Claudia Cardinale drives a buggy out of a train station — plainly in Cinecittà studios (look at the extras gesturing like Italians) — and then the camera rises on a crane to reveal her riding into John Ford’s Monument Valley. Leone’s trademark is his combination of grandiosity and intimacy — faces like landscapes, the camera so close that the twitch of an eyelid is as big as an explosion. If Kubrick had filmed The Wild Bunch, it might have looked something like Once Upon A Time In The West. A rare theatrical screening, and not to be missed. NNNNN (November 7, Revue)
