Once Upon a Time in America

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Once Upon a Time in America is a 1984 epic drama crime film written and directed by Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone and starring Robert De Niro and James Woods. The film is an Italian-American company produced by The Ladd Company, International Embassy Image, PSO Enterprises, and Rafran Cinematografica, and distributed by Warner Bros.. Based on Harry Gray's novel The Hoods, it tells the lives of David's best friends "Noodles" Aaronson and Maximilian "Max" Bercovicz as they lead a group of Jewish ghetto boys who became famous in New York City's organized crime world. The film explores the themes of childhood friendship; love, lust, greed, betrayal, loss, broken relationships, along with the rise of the mafia in American society.

This is the last film directed by Leone before his death five years later, and the first film he directed in 13 years. This cinematography was made by Tonino Delli Colli, and the film score by Ennio Morricone. Leone initially targeted two three-hour movies, then one version 269 minutes (4 hours and 29 minutes), but was assured by the distributor to shorten it to 229 minutes (3 hours and 49 minutes). The American distributor, The Ladd Company, shortened it to 139 minutes, and rearranged the scenes into chronological order, without Leone's involvement. The short version is a critical and commercial failure in the United States, and critics who have seen both versions strongly condemn the changes made. The original "European cuts" remain a critical favorite and often appear in the list of greatest gangster movies of all time.

Video Once Upon a Time in America

Plot

Gangsters enter the Chinese puppet theater, looking for the man marked. The owner goes into a hidden opium nest and warns a man named "Mie", but he does not notice. In a flashback, he saw police move three defective bodies from the street. He manages to kill one of the three thugs who chase him but finds out that the thug has killed his girlfriend while searching for him and finds that someone else has stolen his money. He left town.

David "Noodles" Aaronson fought as a street kid in Manhattan Lower East Side in 1920. He and his friends Patrick "Patsy" Goldberg, Philip "Cockeye" Stein, and little Dominic committed minor crimes under the supervision of local Bugsy's boss. Plotting to rob a drunk when the passing truck hides them from a policeman, they are thwarted by older Max Bercovicz, who jumps out of the truck to rob the man himself. Mie confronts Max, but a crooked policeman steals the watch they are fighting over. Later, Max's camera allows them to blackmail the police, who have sex with a teenage girl, and thus start their own separate gang from Bugsy, who had previously enjoyed the police's corrupt patronage. The boys set up a suitcase money, which they hid in a locker at the train station, giving keys to Fat Moe, a trustworthy friend who was not part of the operation. Mie falls in love with Fat Moe's sister, Deborah, who aspires to be a dancer and actress. One day, Bugsy ambushed the boys and shot little Dominic, who died in the arm of Noodles, Mie then stabbed Bugsy to death and injured a police officer who tried to intervene. Mie was arrested and sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Adult Noodles was released from prison in 1932 and re-acquainted with his old gang: Max, Patsy, and Cockeye, who is now a major player in the shoe-making industry during Prohibition. Noodles reunites with Deborah and tries to rekindle their relationship. Meanwhile, during the robbery, the gang meets Carol, who soon becomes Max's boyfriend. The gang evolved from bootlegging under Ban, providing muscle for union boss Jimmy Conway O'Donnell. Mie tries to impress Deborah on a fancy date, then rapes her on her way home with a limo, after which she becomes apologetic.

The financial success of the gang ended with the lifting of the Prohibition, when Max considered suggestions to govern what union of Teamsters, which Mie refused and left. Max chases him and they go to Florida together. While there, Max suggests robbing the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, but Mie sees it as a suicide. Carol, who also worries about Max's life, convinces Noodles to call the police to a friend for minor offenses, just to get him jailed for a short time. Noodles do this at the ban ban party. Shortly after, Max, who follows him into the office, drops his stupor for calling him crazy. Regaining consciousness, Mie finds that Max, Patsy, and Cockeye have been killed by police, and feel guilty for making a phone call that leads to the movie's initial scene. Noodles is then seen riding the first bus to leave New York, going to Buffalo, where he will live hiding under a fake identity for the next 35 years.

In 1968, Mie received a letter informing her that the grave where her friends were buried had been sold and asked her to make arrangements for their burial. Realizing that someone had inferred his identity, Mie returned to Manhattan and stayed with Fat Moe over his open restaurant. While visiting the new cemetery, Mie finds it there, seeming hanging to carry it, the locker locker train ever kept by the gang, and further notes the plate of cars that follow it there. Opening the locker, he found a suitcase full of cash, as it was stored there and taken away, now with a note saying the money was a down payment for the next job. Noodles heard of bourgeois treasures Secretary Bailey, a contested political figure whose name has been mentioned in news reports about the car boom that killed the DA.

Noodles visits Carol, who lives in a nursing home run by the Bailey Foundation. She tells him that Max instilled the idea of ​​Carol and Noodles telling the police because he wanted to die rather than go crazy like his father, who died in a mental hospital. He fired on the police to ensure his own death. While at home, Noodles sees a photo of Deborah in the dedication of the institution. Mie traced Deborah, now a successful actress. She questioned him about Bailey's secretary, telling him that he had accepted an invitation to a party at Bailey's house. Deborah claims she does not know much about Bailey, but Noodles already knows they've been living together for years. In the end, Deborah tells him that Bailey was a hungry immigrant who married a very wealthy woman who died in childbirth. She begged him not to go to the party but went through the back door instead of the main door of the locker room, where a young man named David was waiting for him. The noodles leaf through the main door and Deborah explains that the boy is the son of Bailey's Secretary, named David (who is also named Mie). David has a real resemblance to Max as a young man (and played by the same actor), implying that Bailey's Secretary is Max.

Bailey's secretary was revealed to be Max. Mie meets with Max in her private room at the party. Max explains that corrupt police help him forge his own death so he can steal gang money and steal the love interest of Noodles, Deborah, to start a new life as Mr. Bailey, a man with contacts to the union. Now faced with the devastation and scourge of Teamster's murder, Max asks Mie to kill him. Mie refused though Max's permission and goading, because, in his eyes, Max died with the gang. When Noodles left Bailey's house, he heard a garbage truck show up and look back to see a man standing at the entrance of the truck entrance. As he started walking toward Mie, the truck passed between them. As the truck passes by, Noodles sees his auger over the garbage, the man is invisible.

In flashback, the young adult noodle enters the opium's nest after the murder of his gang, taking medication and grinning broadly.

Maps Once Upon a Time in America

Cast

The players also included Robert Harper as Sharkey, Mario Brega as Mandy, Paul Herman as Monkey, Marcia Jean Kurtz as Mother Max, Estelle Harris as Peggy's Mother, and Richard Foronji as Whitey. Louise Fletcher appeared in a 2012 restoration when Noodles's funeral director visited in 1968.

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Production

Development

During the mid-1960s, Sergio Leone read Harry Gray's novel The Hoods, a pseudonym for the former gangster who became an informant whose real name was Harry Goldberg. In 1968, after shooting Once Upon a Time in West, Leone made a lot of effort to talk to Gray. After enjoying the Leone Dollar Trilogy, Gray finally responds and agrees to meet Leone at the Manhattan bar. After that initial meeting, Leone met with Gray several times throughout the rest of the 1960s and 1970s to understand America through Gray's point of view. Intend to make another American trilogy consisting of Once Upon a Time in the West , Duck, You Sucker! and Once Upon a Time in America , Leone declined an offer from Paramount Pictures to direct The Godfather to pursue her beloved project.

Casting

Leone is considered to be a lot of actors for films during the long development process. Initially, in 1975, GÃÆ' Â © rard Depardieu, who was determined to learn English with a Brooklyn accent for the role, was chosen as Max, with Jean Gabin playing the older Max. Richard Dreyfuss plays the role of Noodles, with James Cagney playing the older Mie. In 1980, Leone talked about casting Tom Berenger as Noodle, with Paul Newman playing the older Mie. Among the actors considered for Max's role are Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, Harvey Keitel, John Malkovich, and John Belushi.

Beginning in 1981, Brooke Shields was offered the role of Deborah Gelly, after Leone saw the Blue Lagoon, claiming that "she has the potential to play mature characters." The writer's reprimand delayed the project, and Shields resigned before the audition began. Elizabeth McGovern plays Deborah and Jennifer Connelly as her younger self.

Joe Pesci is one of the many people who auditioned for Max. He got a smaller role than Frankie, partly as an aid to his friend De Niro. Danny Aiello auditioned for several roles and eventually served as a police chief who (coincidentally) shared his last name. Claudia Cardinale (who appears in Once Upon a Time in the West ) wants to play Carol, but Leone is afraid she will not convince her as a New Yorker and refuse her.

Filming

The film was taken between June 14, 1982, and April 22, 1983. Leone tries, as he did with A Fistful of Dynamite , to produce a movie with a young director underneath. In the early days of the project, he invited John Milius, an enthusiastic fan of the idea; but Billy is working on The Wind and the Lion and scripts for Apocalypse Now and can not commit to the project. For the visual style of the film, Leone is used as a reference of artist paintings such as Reginald Marsh, Edward Hopper, and Norman Rockwell, and (for 1922 sequences) photographs of Jacob Riis. Novel F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby affects Mie's relationship with Deborah.

Most of the exteriors were shot in New York City (as in Williamsburg along South 6th Street, where Fat Moe based restaurants, and South 8th Street), but some major scenes were shot elsewhere. Most of the interior was shot in CinecittÃÆ' in Rome. The beach scene, where Max revealed his plans to rob the Federal Reserve, was shot at Don CeSar in St. Louis. Petersburg, Florida. The "Grand Central Station" scene in New York in the flash of thirties was filmed at Gare du Nord in Paris. The interior of the posh restaurant where Mie brought Deborah on their date was shot at the Excelsior Hotel in Venice, Italy. Joe's gang attack was filmed in Quebec. The view of the Manhattan Bridge shown in the movie poster can be seen from Washington Street in Brooklyn.

The shooting script, completed in October 1981 after many writer delays and strikes between April and July of that year, was 317 pages long.

Editing

At the end of the filming, Leone has a recording of eight to ten hours. With his editor, Nino Baragli, Leone trims this for almost six hours, and he initially wants to release the movie in two parts, each three hours. The producers refused, partly due to the commercial and critical failure of Bertolucci's two parts 1900, and Leone was forced to retract it further. The film was originally 269 minutes (4 hours and 29 minutes), but when the inaugural film was out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival 1984, Leone had cut it to 229 minutes (3 hours and 49 minutes) to appease distributors, whose version featured in cinema- European cinema. However, a wide American release was edited further down to 139 minutes (2 hours and 19 minutes) by the studio, against the wishes of the director.

Music

The music score was composed by Leone's longtime collaborator, Ennio Morricone. The long film production resulted in the completion of most of Morricone's soundtracks before many scenes were filmed. Several pieces of Morricone were played during the filming, a technique Leone used for Once Upon a Time in the West. "The Deborah theme" was written for another film in the 1970s but was rejected; Morricone dedicates the piece to Leone, who was initially reluctant to include it, considering it was too similar to Morricone's main music title for "Once Upon a Time in the West." This score is also important for the merger of Morricone music Gheorghe Zamfir, who plays the pan flute. Sometimes this music is used to convey dhikr, at other times of terror. Zamfir's flute music is also used for the haunting effect in Peter Weir's Picnic in Hanging Rock (1975). Morricone also collaborated with vocalist Edda Dell'Orso in terms of scores.

The soundtrack album was released in 1984 by Mercury Records. This was followed by the release of a special edition in 1995, featuring four additional songs.

In addition to original music, the film uses source music, including:

• "God Bless America" ​​(written by Irving Berlin, performed by Kate Smith - 1943) - Contrived over the credit opening of the radio in Eve's room and briefly at the end of the film.
• "Yesterday" (written by Lennon-McCartney - 1965) - Muzak's version of this work was played when Noodles first returned to New York in 1968, checking himself in the train station mirror. The instrumental version of the song is also played briefly during the dialogue scenes between Mie and "Bailey" towards the end of the movie.
• "Summertime" (written by George Gershwin - 1935) The instrumental version of the aria of opera Porgy and Bess is played softly in the background as a Noodle, just before leaving, explains to "Bailey's Secretary" why he can never kill his friend.
• "Amapola" (written by Joseph LaCalle, American lyrics by Albert Gamse - 1923) - Initially an opera, some instrumental versions of the song were played during the film; a jazzy version, played on a gramophone danced by young Debora in 1922; a similar version played by jazz band Fat Moe in speakeasy in 1932; and string versions, as long as dating Noodles with Deborah. It has been suggested that Leone uses this section after hearing that version in Carnival Knowledge , although this has not been confirmed. Both versions are available on the soundtrack.
• "La gazza ladra" overture (Gioachino Rossini - 1817) - Used during the infamous baby-switching scene at the hospital.
• "Night and Day" (written and sung by Cole Porter - 1932) - Screened by jazz bands during a beach scene before the beach visitors receive the ban words, and during a party at the "Bailey Secretary" home in 1968.
• "St. James Infirmary Blues" is used during "funeral" ban in speakeasy gangs.

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Release

Once Upon a Time in America premiered at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival on May 23 and received a 15 minute standing ovation. In the United States, the film received a wide release in 894 theaters on June 1, 1984 and grossed $ 2.4 million during its opening weekend. It ended gross box office sales of more than $ 5.3 million with a budget of $ 30 million, and was labeled a box office failure. The financial and critical disasters of America's release almost made The Ladd Bank bankrupt. Eventually, the film premiered in the original Italian Leone outside the competition at the 41st Venice International Film Festival in September 1984. That same month, the film was released widely in Italy on September 28, 1984 in a 229 minute version.

Version

Several different versions of Once Upon a Time in America have been shown. The original European release version (1984, 229 minutes) is shown internationally.

US excision

The film is featured in limited releases and for film critics in America, where it is slightly trimmed to secure a "R" rating. Pieces are made for two rape scenes and some of the more graphic violence in the beginning. The noodle encounter with Bailey in 1968 was also cut. The film received a mediocre reception at several premieres in North America. Due to this initial audience reaction, the fear of its length, graphic violence, and the inability of the theater to have many performances in a single day, the decision was made by The Ladd Company to make many edits and cut through the whole scene without Sergio Leone's supervision. This widespread American release (1984, 139 minutes) is drastically different from that of European releases, since non-chronological stories are rearranged into chronological order. Other large cuts involve many sequences of childhood, making the adult portion of 1933 more prominent. The 1968 noodle meeting with Deborah was cut, and the scene with Bailey ended with him shooting himself (with gunshots from the screen) rather than the garbage truck's conclusion of the 229 minute version.

USSR

In the Soviet Union, the film was shown theatrically in the late 1980s, with other Hollywood films such as two films of King Kong. The story is rearranged in chronological order and the film is divided into two, with two parts displayed as separate films, one containing childhood scenes and other scenes comprising adult scenes. Despite the rearrangement, no removal of the big scene was created. It was rated "16" by Goskino.

compilation TV

The network television version was shown in the early to mid 1990s with nearly three hours of running time (excluding advertisements). While maintaining the original non-chronological order of the film, many key scenes involving violence and abandoned graphic content. This version is a one-time show, and no copy is known to exist.

Original recovered

In March 2011, it was announced that the original version 269 minutes from Leone would be recreated by a film laboratory in Italy under the supervision of Leone's children, who had obtained the Italian distribution rights, and the original film sound editor, Fausto Ancillai, for the premiere of 2012 at the Cannes Film Festival or the Venice Film Festival.

The restored film is aired at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, but due to an unexpected rights issue for a deleted scene, the restoration has only 251 minutes. However, Martin Scorsese (whose Film Foundation helped with the restoration) stated that he helped Leone's children get the last 24 minutes of the deleted scene to create a complete restoration of the Leii 269-minute version imagined. On August 3, 2012, it was reported that after the premiere of Cannes, the restored film was withdrawn from circulation, pending further restoration work.

Home media

In North America, an edited 139-minute version was made available on DVD in the late 1990s. This was followed by the release of a special two disk edition on June 10, 2003, which featured a 229 minute movie version. This special edition was relaunched on January 11, 2011, both for DVD and Blu-ray. On September 30, 2014, Warner Bros. released a two-time Blu-ray disc and DVD from a 251-minute restoration featured at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, dubbed the Cut Director Extended . This version was previously released in Italy, on September 4, 2012.

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Critical reception

The initial critical response to Once Upon a Time in America is mixed, as different versions are released worldwide. While internationally the film is well received in its original form, American critics are much more dissatisfied with the 139-minute version released in North America. This shortened version is a critical and financial disaster, and many American critics who know Leone's original pieces attacked the short version. Some critics compare the shortening of the film to shorten opera Richard Wagner, saying that the intended work of art should be long should be given the respect they deserve. Roger Ebert wrote in his 1984 review that an uncut version is "an epic of violent poetry and greed" but depicts the American theater version as "parody". Ebert's television movie critic Gene Siskel considers the version not to be cut into the best movie of 1984.

It was only after Leone's death and the restoration of the next genuine version, the critics began to give the kind of praise displayed in the original show of Cannes. The original movie that has not been cut is considered far superior to the edited version released in the US in 1984. Ebert, in his review of Brian De Palma's The Untouchable , called the original cut version of Once After Time in America the best film depicting the Prohibition era. James Woods, who considered him the best film from Leone, was mentioned in a DVD documentary that a critic dubbed the film the worst movie of 1984, only to see the original pieces years later and call it the best in the 1980s. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports an 86% approval rating with an average rating of 8.6/10 based on 50 reviews. The website's consensus reads, "Sergio Leone's epic drama is visually stunning, bold, and emotionally haunting, and filled with great performances from the likes of Robert De Niro and James Woods."

The film has since been classed as one of the best films of the gangster genre. When Sight & amp; Sound asked some British critics in 2002 what their favorite movie of the last 25 years, Once Upon a Time in America was placed at number 10. In 2015, the film was ranked 9th list Time Out ' of 50 greatest gangster movies of all time.

Interpretation

When the film begins and ends in 1933, with Mie hiding in an opium magazine of the hitmen syndicate, and the final image of the film is Mie in a smiley, opium-soaked position, the film can be interpreted as having become drug-induced dream, with Mie remembering her past and imagining the future. In an interview by NoÃÆ'½ Simsolo published in 1987, Leone affirmed the validity of this interpretation, saying that the scene created in the 1960s can be seen as a Mie opium dream. In DVD commentary for films, film historian and critic Richard Schickel states that opium users often report clear dreams, and that this vision has a tendency to explore the users' past and future.

Many people (including Schickel) assume that the 1968 Frisbee scene, which has a direct cut and does not provide further resolution, is part of a longer sequence. Ebert stated that the purpose of the flying disc scene was to establish a 1960s time frame and nothing more.

Accolades

Despite its modern critical success, early American releases did not go well with critics and did not receive an Academy Award nomination. The film's music was disqualified from Oscar considerations for technical issues, as the studio inadvertently removed the composer's name from the credit opening as it cut its running time for an American release.

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See also

• The movie list cuts the opposition of the director

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References

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Bibliography

• Hughes, Howard (2002). Crime Wave: Filmgoers' Guide to a big crime movie .

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External links

• Once Upon a Time in America on IMDb
• Once Upon a Time in America at Rotten Tomatoes
• Once Upon a Time in America in Box Office Mojo
• Once Upon a Time in America at AllMovie
• Unofficial movie site

Source of the article : Wikipedia