ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1968)
Directed by Sergio Leone
Paramount, PG-13 (nudity, language, violence)
★★★★★
Did you ever notice that foreigners get American history better than the products of American schools? That's especially the case with Westerns, which American directors treat as star-studded documentaries rather than the legends they really are. Robert Altman was a rare exception, but think of how Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain or Jane Campion's magisterial The Power of the Dog surpass the cowboy junk that littered TV and theaters in the past seven decades. (Lee is Taiwanese; Campion a New Zealander.)
“Spaghetti Westerns” were among the first to shoot the sheen off of Westerns and few did it better than Italy’s Sergio Leone. One of the best was his Once Upon a Time in the West, a certifiable gem. It's something of a spaghetti splatter film as well, but it remains a powerful film whose subtext that the West was more about profiteering than glory is close to the truth.
It starts with a literal bang. Three thugs are sent to an in-the-middle-of-nowhere railway station to make sure that Harmonica (Charles Bronson), its departing passenger doesn't live to ride away. Bringing him down would take more than three! Harmonica will soon learn that the dusters they wear were designed to make others think Cheyenne (Jason Robards) is behind the attempt, though the true culprit is Frank (Henry Fonda), who is preoccupied with slaughtering Brett McBain (Frank Wolff) and his three children.
Meanwhile, enter Jill McBain (Claudia Cardinale), who Brett married a month earlier in New Orleans. Frank didn't find what he was looking for on McBain's land–gold presumably–and is determined to do so. Cheyenne is sniffing around as well, but he has no beef with Frank or Harmonica, so named because he uses one to unnerve those who try to kill him before he sends them to their unjust rewards. We learn that Frank is a gun for hire for crippled businessman/banker Morton (Gabriele Ferzetti). Not that he needs encouragement; Frank is thoroughly amoral.
The plot has nothing to do with gold nuggets or hearts of gold. It builds toward a showdown between Frank and Harmonica with lots and lots of collateral damage interspersed. There's also the matter of trying to figure out which side characters are on, Leone's sly way of deflating American individualism. It's one of many ways in which Leone took standard Western movie devices, turned them on their heads, and left viewers to ponder where the mythical West had gone. (Answer: It was never there in the first place.)
A film like this required topnotch acting from those who could simultaneously play to and against type. Claudia Cardinale made irresistible bait for such a fishing expedition. Is Jill a wronged woman or the high-class whore Frank calls her? Maybe both? Is she ready to settle into domestic bliss with Cheyenne? (Is he ready?) Or is she, in her own way, just as ruthless as Morton or Frank? She's certainly eye candy, which helps keep her alive.
It would be hard, though, even for Jill to be as conniving as Frank. Henry Fonda made a lot of Westerns, but he never before made one in which his blood ran as icy as his blue eyes. Frank has no redeeming qualities and he makes sure everyone he encounters knows that—if he lets them live. Is Frank on anybody’s side? He is, after all, the one who pulls the trigger on a nine-year-old boy.
The biggest surprise is the granite-faced Charles Bronson. He made his reputation as a B-movie hack, but he is note perfect in Once Upon a Time in the West. To call him a man of few words is an understatement. His eerie glassy harmonica notes are alone enough to induce fear, though the purest terror comes when he crinkles his eyes and his face morphs into a slow-motion Mona Lisa smile. That's the moment to make sure your affairs are in order. It was such a stunning performance that it might have garnered an Oscar nomination had it been in a more conventional film.
If you've never seen this film, do so. Make sure to avoid the PG version which was sanitized to reduce the violence and cover Cardinale's body. Nothing should be kept from view in a film that will never allow you to see a John Ford or Howard Hawks Western the same way again. It took an Italian to do that.
Rob Weir
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