Once Upon a Time in the West, 1968.
Directed by Sergio Leone.
Starring Claudia Cardinale, Henry Fonda, Jason Robards, Charles Bronson, Gabriele Ferzetti, Woody Strode, Jack Elam, Lionel Stander, Paolo Stoppa, Frank Wolff, and Keenan Wynn.
SYNOPSIS:
Sergio Leone’s timeless classic Once Upon a Time in the West makes its 4K Ultra HD debut as part of the Paramount Presents line-up. A pair of new bonus features were commissioned for this one, along with a new 4K film transfer. A Blu-ray and a code for a digital copy are included too.
Confession time: I’ve never been a big fan of westerns. I know, they’ve been a huge part of Hollywood’s history, and movies like Star Wars and TV series like Firefly owe the genre a debt, but they just don’t do it for me. I appreciate the genre, of course, and I don’t mind watching westerns. It’s just not a genre I naturally gravitate toward; I’m not sure why.
So keep that in mind with this review of the 4K Ultra HD debut of Once Upon a Time in the West, Sergio Leone’s classic western that many people laud as one of the best in the genre, if not one of the best movies ever made, period. If you’re one of those folks, great, although you may want to exercise caution before buying this edition (more on that later).
Set during the age of aggressive railroad expansion, Once Upon a Time in the West features a layered story with a top-flight cast that includes Henry Fonda as the main bad guy, Frank (playing against type, of course); Claudia Cardinale as Jill, the newly widowed owner of land with valuable water rights; Jason Robards as Cheyenne, a wandering bandit who is framed for the deaths of Jill’s family; and Charles Bronson as the mysterious man known only as Harmonica, who has his own reasons for getting mixed up in the conflict between Frank and Jill.
Like Leone’s other westerns, this one is full of beautiful, sprawling shots of vistas, along with tight close-ups of characters at crucial moments in the story. There isn’t much exposition offered, so the viewer needs to pay close attention to understand each characters’ motivation for their actions.
If you’re a Leone fan, I imagine you’ve seen this one and have strong feelings about it, so I won’t bother with a recitation of the full plot. Suffice it to say that the characters’ intersecting paths create plenty of scenes with palpable tension, and the reveal at the end regarding Harmonica’s past is a great way to close out a western.
Regarding that bit about exercising caution when buying this film: I thought the new 4K restoration looked fine on my TV, but others online have differing opinions, so your mileage may vary, as they say. My understanding is that the Blu-ray included in this package is also sourced from the same remaster, and I should note that both copies of the film are the longer restored version, not the original theatrical cut.
All of the extras are found on the Blu-ray. Paramount commissioned a pair of new bonus features for this entry in their Paramount Presents line-up. Here’s what you’ll find:
• Audio Commentary by Jay Jennings and Tom Betts: The hosts of the Spaghetti Westerns Podcast were brought in for this new commentary track, and, as you might imagine, it’s a great listen. Hearing from people who live and breathe the kinds of movies they’re talking about it always a treat.
• Audio Commentary by Sir Christopher Frayling and Dr. Sheldon Hall, hosted by Lancelot Narayan: Frayling and Hall are film historians with the relevant Leone-related credits, and this discussion is guided by Lancelot Narayan, who has produced quite a few home video extras. It’s a solid discussion that’s interspersed with comments by star Claudia Cardinale as well as directors John Carpenter, John Milius, Alex Cox, and Bernardo Bertolucci. The others were recorded separately, but the overall flow is pretty seamless.
• A Look Back with Leonard Maltin (5.5 minutes): The well-known film critic hosts the other new extra, which is a pretty quick overview of Once Upon a Time in the West and its legacy.
• An Opera of Violence, The Wages of Sin, and Something to do With Death (66.5 minutes): These are separate featurettes, but I’ve bunched them together here because they’re basically three parts of one longer documentary. The first part looks back on Leone’s career leading up to this movie, the second one walks through the production of the film, and the third part is a discussion of the director’s collaboration with Ennio Morricone on the soundtrack.
• Railroad: Revolutionizing the West (6 minutes, 22 seconds): This is a quick overview of the way the railroad changed the western part of the United States.
• Locations Then & Now (4.5 minutes): As the name implies, we get a comparison of the film’s shooting locations between the late 1960s and the early 2000s, which this featurette was created for a DVD edition.
A gallery of production images, the theatrical trailer, and a code for a digital copy round this one out.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★/ Movie: ★ ★ ★
Brad Cook
