I'm writing a review of a movie that's not in theaters, nor is it a new release that hasn't been released. It's a film that was made almost 40 long years ago. Even films this old are worth seeing. They are not yet movies for the oldies. They are films to learn from, to learn how famous directors master their craft and how a film can be made without digital gimmicks and famous stars.
Once Upon a Time in America is one of those films that should not be forgotten. Sergio Leone made this film only a few years before his death. He spent many years preparing it, rewriting the script, and editing it until the film that was his heart's work was made.
Unfortunately, the producers of the film were opposed to cinemas getting the director's vision, so they cut it, shortened it, and created a hybrid that deviated from the director's work. Because of these alterations, the film was a major failure and lost a lot of money. The director's vision can be seen by the general public now.
The carefully assembled mosaic, the story of mob boss Noodles, through his youth, middle age and old age, is just the kind of film fans should expect on the latest Blu-ray. The entire story doesn't play out chronologically in the director's cut, so one doesn't have any clues at the beginning of the film as to what actually happened. Gradually, the discovery of history and its future reveals all the cards. After 4 hours of watching the film, I conclude that this film has everything one should watch if one wants to replicate the filmmaking craft of Sergio Leone.
In the 60s, sex/women/drugs was the name of the game. In the days of American Prohibition, sex/women/alcohol was the main thing. In the character's youth, when America was still young and the Depression was beginning, the main thing was: survive and enjoy. All without any protections, contraceptives, or cures for disease. America was tough and surviving was even tougher.
The film comes to our shores in the director's vision. Martin Scorsese, for example, helped edit this final version. But the film's treatment is highly uneven. 20 minutes of new scenes explaining details in the story were hard to come by, and the Blu-ray edition features new scenes scanned directly from the low-quality source material. By creating the Czech dub before the film's length was extended to over 4 hours, we can only hear these scenes in the original. The picture quality of these new scenes is very poor compared to the whole film. You can see that they were cut right at the beginning of the film's theatrical release, and so the image quality is reminiscent of the films my parents and I shot with an analog 8mm camera.
I'm not opposed to adding new footage to films when we know it was in the director's vision, but I have some reservations about putting the images on a high quality medium like Blu-ray. It's a shame for the picture experience to be spoiled by the image quality of the new scenes. Perhaps in 10 years for the 40th anniversary of the film, all the source material will be scanned, edited and restored again so that all the images are consistent and so that fans can enjoy the story of the film without being distracted by anything.
But every true fan of the film should have this film in their collection. It's exactly the kind of film that lends itself to long afternoons to evenings. From the story of the movie, we learn how things were a hundred years ago and how life was hard back then. Most importantly, it's the last great film by a director who made films with gusto and a love for the period. He left out no details and no taboos, which he loved to break. Not only in the stories, but in the portrayal of the everyday life of the main characters. Including things that 99% of normal films ignore - real sex/bloody murders/juvenile crime. I'm glad the Blu-ray of this film already has its place on the shelf among the other films.
Gallery from the Blu-ray release of the film
Original release of this article January 3, 2023 – Kritiky.cz
