Once Upon a Time in the West

Crazy old Mr Harveson turned his hose on the troublesome neighbourhood kids. 'Meddlesome young fools!' he yelled, shooing them away from his prize roses.

The things that make the first twenty minutes of Once Upon a Time in the West so spectacular...

Every image is gloriously framed; Leone has such a painterly eye. People, doorways, buildings, backdrop—they're all deployed on the screen with the same care a painter places images on a canvas. And the depth of the images! Look how many times Leone, even in the film's opening stanzas, has figures moving simultaneously in the foreground, midground, and background. Which is important. Because with such minutely 'composed' scenes, there's a danger they'll come across as tableaux, just a series of static images. Leone, though, sidesteps this with his use of movement and perspective.

It's also the longest credit sequence in the history of cinema. And that's another strength of Leone: the way he prolongs things. Like the showdown in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. In a normal film, with a normal director, this sequence of shots would last thirty seconds, maybe. Less probably. By the time Leone's stretched this scene out to a minute, you're thinking: "This is really silly." But he has the courage of his convictions: he keeps stretching and streeetching. And it works. It seems to last forever, but it pushes through silliness and risibility until it acquires a weird, operatic grandeur. Unexpected potency results from elephantine length, repetition, and emphasis.

Ya gotta love it.

-- Hans Fruck