Once Upon a Time in America (1984)

Third viewing; previously viewed on October-November, 1984 and on April 24, 2014.

Story of some New York gangsters from childhood into old age who ride the Prohibition wave and then take separate ways.

Here's my April 24, 2014 review, as published on this blog:

* begin quote*
Based on the novel The Hoods, by Herschel Goldberg (as Harry Grey), first
published in 1952.

The story of four friends growing up in New York City during the 1920s, then
becoming gangsters during Prohibition. Another section set in the 1960s is
interspersed with the earlier time frame.

An imperfect film, but a strong one. The tone is clearly pulpish, and very
Italian in style. Maybe it has to do with a taste for the grotesque, which seems
to be alien to Anglo-Saxon sensibilities. It is hard for me to make a strictly
rational sense of the movie in all its details. I think the basic point is how
when you are a child there is a purity of emotion that gets screwed in a
thousand ways as you grow old. A psychoanalytical interpretation wouldn't be too
off, 'Max' perhaps being a pure Id version of 'Noodles', a la Jekyll and Hyde. I
misinterpreted the ending on both viewings, and even the IMDb FAQ gets it wrong,
in my opinion (the 'contract on Noodles' hypothesis seems very far-fetched).
After I read a statement from a Leone interview I think I got it right (it is
supposed to be a murder, not a suicide). But this is not clear on the screen, so
I suppose anyone may think what he pleases.
*end quote*

I don't know what I meant by 'imperfect'. I guess I simply wouldn't put it on these terms nowadays. I would also replace pulpish with juvenile. Leone was incapable of an adult sensibility, and acknowledged that at one occasion. Some people compare this with The Godfather and I think the films bear comparison, but there is a difference, which to some may appear subtle: The Godfather glamourized crime, whereas Once Upon a Time in America sentimentalizes it. I don't have much to say about it without further thought (which probably will not happen), but a curious angle is the leitmotif of faking death. As children, it was done as a prank, and in adulthood it gets done for real, so to speak. Another recurring motif is a motor vehicle on the street as a means of concealing something on the other side. First, there is Max on his moving carriage which conceals a petty theft and near the end there is the garbage truck which conceals the fate of the same Max.

Rating: 71 (unchanged)