Once Upon a Time in America

Once Upon a Time in America (Italian: C'era una volta in America) is a 1984 epic crime drama film co-written and directed by Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone, and starring Robert De Niro and James Woods. The film is an Italian-American picture produced by The Ladd Company, Embassy International Pictures, PSO Enterprises and Rafran Cinematografica, and distributed by Warner Bros. It was the final film that Leone directed before his death in 1989. The film explores many key themes including childhood friendships, love, lust, greed, betrayal, loss and broken relationships, together with the rise of mobsters in American society.

The film was infamously re-edited by The Ladd Company and chopped down to 139 minutes. All the scenes were rearranged in chronological order, destroying the narrative and poetic beauty of the film. As a result of the film's critical and commercial failure, Leone became so depressed that he never directed another film again before his death from a heart attack in 1989 at the age of 60.

However, the film's original 229-minute-long European cut has since been released on VHS, DVD and Blu-Ray, resulting in the film becoming universally regarded as a cinematic masterpiece and one of the greatest gangster movies of all-time. In 2014, a 251-minute-long "extended director's cut" was released on Blu-Ray to even further critical acclaim.

Plot
The film is based on the novel The Hoods written by Harry Grey and tells the stories of lifelong gangster friends David "Noodles" Aaronson (De Niro) and Maximilian "Max" Bercovicz as they lead young Jewish individuals into the world of criminal activities in New York City. In the story, the characters face many issues including betrayal, lust, corruption and unlawfulness.

Why It Rocks
Note: These reasons refer to the original 229-minute-long European cut and the 251-minute-long extended director's cut.


 * 1) A beautiful, poetic, saddening and haunting Shakespearian story.
 * 2) Stunning cinematography that makes for the most visually beautiful gangster movie ever made.
 * 3) An absolutely beautiful, somber, haunting and mesmerizing score by Ennio Morricone.
 * 4) Phenomenal direction by Sergio Leone.
 * 5) Amazing characters like Noodles and Max, with great performances from Robert De Niro and James Woods.
 * 6) The period details are so stunning that the viewer feels as though they are right there back in the 1920s, 30s and 60s when the events occur.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The out-of-sequence jumping in time to the 1920s, 1930s and 1960s can be confusing to a first-time viewer.
 * 2) Some plotholes, like how Max finally managed to find Noodles after 30 years.
 * 3) Max's explanation to Noodles on how he wasn't able to recognize his body out of grief was dumb.
 * 4) The rape scenes, specifically the one where Noodles rapes Deborah, were very controversial.
 * 5) As mentioned above, this film was infamously re-edited without Leone's consent by The Ladd Company into a 139-minute-long cut for American audiences, resulting in the film becoming a critical and commercial failure.

Critical reception
When the film was originally released, its critical reception was polarized due to the different versions that were released worldwide. The original European cut was well-received, but critics slammed the 139-minute-long American theatrical cut, which wound up becoming a critical and financial disaster. Some critics compared the American theatrical cut to shortening Richard Wagner's operas, saying that works of art that are meant to be long should be given the respect they deserve. Roger Ebert wrote in his review that the original European cut was "an epic poem of violence and greed", but was critical of the American theatrical cut and described it as a "travesty". Gene Siskel considered the original European cut of the film to be the best film of 1984 and the American theatrical cut to be the worst film of 1984.

It was only after Leone's death and the subsequent wide release of the original European cut that critics began to give it the kind of deserved praise displayed at its original Cannes showing. When Ebert wrote his review of The Untouchables, he called the original European cut of Once Upon a Time in America the best film about the Prohibition era. James Woods, who deemed it to be Leone's finest film, stated in the DVD documentary that one critic who called the American theatrical cut the worst film of 1984 saw the original European cut years later and deemed it the best film of the 1980s. The film currently holds an 86% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes with a critic consensus that reads "Sergio Leone's epic crime drama is visually stunning, stylistically bold, and emotionally haunting, and filled with great performances from the likes of Robert De Niro and James Woods".

Once Upon a Time in America is widely considered to be one of the best gangster films ever made. In 2002, Sight & Sound magazine asked UK critics were asked what their favorite films of the last 25 years were and the critics stated that it was Once Upon a Time in America, which was ranked at number 10. On Time Out 's list of the 50 best gangster films of all time, it was ranked at number 9.

Although the American theatrical cut was near-universally panned, the original European and extended director's cuts have led to the film becoming widely regarded as a cinematic masterpiece and being deemed as being one of the greatest gangster movies ever made alongside the likes of The Godfather, The Godfather: Part II and Goodfellas.

Box Office
Once Upon a Time in America opened at #6 on its opening weekend with a domestic gross of $2,698. The total domestic gross later reached to $5,321,508. In foreign markets, it made $254,140. Overall, it made $5,575,648 against its $30 million budget, making it a box office bomb.

Trivia

 * In the Soviet Union, the film was shown theatrically during the late 1980s with other Hollywood blockbusters such as the two King Kong films. The story was rearranged in chronological order and the film was split in two, with the two parts shown as separate movies, one containing the childhood scenes and the other comprising the adulthood scenes. Despite the rearranging, no major scene deletions were made.
 * James Hayden, who played Patrick "Patsy" Goldberg, fatally overdosed on heroin shortly after filming wrapped.
 * The American theatrical cut was widely considered to be a "lost film" until 2020, while footage from a limited VHS rental release was uploaded onto the Internet Archive.

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