2,200 words
Sergio Leone’s final film, Once Upon a Time in America (1984) is often touted as one of the all-time great mafia movies. I beg to differ. I think Leone’s Westerns are masterpieces. But Once Upon a Time in America is a terrible movie: boring, distasteful, and dumb.
However, I let myself be persuaded to rewatch it, on the grounds that there are multiple versions of the film, and surely the film I hated was the massively cut and rearranged American version that Leone had disowned. If only I would watch the 3 hour, 49-minute version shown to thunderous applause in Europe, then I would appreciate that this too is a masterpiece. Well, I watched it, and to be perfectly frank, I sympathize with the American distributors who cut it.
And to think that Sergio Leone actually turned down the chance to direct The Godfather because he wanted to work on this project instead. But maybe Godfather fans should be grateful that Leone didn’t ruin that story as well. Imagine the opening scene of The Godfather broken in the middle by Vito Corleone scraping a spoon around the inside of a coffee cup for two minutes while everyone in the room exchanges nervous glances.
As an Italian, Leone was annoyed that Hollywood (a largely Jewish industry) was making movies about Italian gangsters while—for some reason—ignoring the Jewish ones. To set the record straight, Leone decided to make an Italian movie about the Jewish mafia.
