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| Once Upon a Time in America |
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  (9/10)
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Runtime: 227 |
| Public Rating: 9.47 (111 votes) |
Director: Sergio Leone |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Crime/Drama/Thriller |
Year: 1984 |
| Writer(s): Harry Grey (novel), Leonardo Benvenuti |
| Reviewed by: Paul Coughlin |
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"Once upon a Time in America" was Sergio Leone’s final film and represented a change of genre for a filmmaker who mostly worked within the confines of the Western. Here he is examining the gangster genre, re-presenting the familiar conditions of the genre and reworking them to create an intricate and detailed investigation of a world of big-time aspirants with small-time capabilities.
Fundamentally Once upon a Time in America is the story of Jewish gangster David “Noodles” Aaronson (played as an adult by Robert De Niro), his childhood in the slums of New York, his brief rise to a place of prominence within the fertile world of prohibition America and his eventual old-age in which he loses everything, including the belief he has had in his life. The narrative plays out in three section– 1921, 1933 and 1968–and explores the relationships Noodles cultivates with various people and importantly examines the relationship he destroys with his childhood love Deborah (played as a young girl by Jennifer Connelly and then by Elizabeth McGovern as a woman). Noodles seems to believe he has a right to Deborah’s love but almost every action he takes or movement he makes blocks his opportunity to ensure his dream will be realised. Leone constructs the narrative in a series of flashbacks and flash-forwards which serve to disrupt the comfortable flow of events. The film operates like a hallucination or a dream; jump cuts, extreme violence and gross betrayal recall the impression of a nightmare. Yet, as cynical and despairing as Leone’s film is, it is ultimately a celebration of the value of friendship and devotion and it’s lyrical moments–many between the young Noodles and Deborah–offer an incontestable promotion of humanity.
Leone strategically employs the gangster genre so as to undercut its usual concerns. Gangster fiction has had a tradition of strong-willed likeable criminals whose illegal affairs have held a special attraction for the viewer. Paul Muni and Al Pacino both played variations on the Scarface character but they both had one thing in common, a charm and charisma borne of unbreakable confidence. The gangsters of Once Upon a Time in America are quite simply losers. When Noodles returns to New York after a self-imposed thirty-five year exile he tells his old friend Moe: ‘You can always tell the winners at the starting gate - the winners and the losers.’ Noodles then assesses himself as a loser and his estimation is absolutely appropriate. Robert De Niro’s performance as the adult incarnation of Noodles in Once Upon a Time in America is a perfectly pitched encapsulation of a dejected born-loser. Leone’s film is set clearly in a modern world where the ways of the mythical hero of his earlier Dollars Trilogy is impossible. With Once upon a Time in America Leone examines a world that surveys political corruption, institutionalised violence and bloody betrayal.
Betrayal and friendship is the axis on which Leone’s film twists and turns back and forth in time. It is the friendship between Noodles and his long-time associate Max (James Wood plays the adult Max) which chiefly concerns Leone. Companionship is a key element in each of Leone’s previous films and with Once upon a Time in America he represents it as a binding and unbending human connection which survives all manner of torment and deception. Ultimately Noodles and Max will fall out and each will betray the other in one way or another but their friendship and the kinship on which it was founded remains intact. In the film’s penultimate sequence the two elderly friends come together and discuss, in veiled terms, the bond they once shared and how it now ties them together despite the impossible predicament they are now in. Although it is not spelled out this scene demonstrates Leone’s thesis, that friendship can endure anything.
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