Screened as part of NZIFF 2010

Once upon a Time in the West 1968

C’era una volta il West

Directed by Sergio Leone

Charles Bronson, Henry Fonda, Claudia Cardinale, and Morricone in the Everest of Italian westerns. Superb new CinemaScope restoration of the 1968 classic. “Magnificent… the antiquated genre’s triumphant final masterpiece.” — Slant

Italy In English
165 minutes CinemaScope

Director

Producers

Fulvio Morsella
,
Bino Cicogna

Screenplay

Sergio Leone
,
Sergio Donati. Based on a story by Dario Argento
,
Bernardo Bertolucci
,
Sergio Leone

Photography

Tonino Delli Colli

Editor

Nino Baragli

Production designer

Carlo Simi

Costume designers

Antonella Pompei
,
Carlo Simi

Music

Ennio Morricone

With

Henry Fonda (Frank)
,
Claudia Cardinale (Jill McBain)
,
Jason Robards (Cheyenne)
,
Charles Bronson (Harmonica)
,
Gabriele Ferzetti (Morton)
,
Paolo Stoppa (Sam)
,
Woody Strode (Stony)
,
Jack Elam (Snaky)
,
Keenan Wynn (sheriff)
,
Frank Wolff (Brett McBain)
,
Lionel Stander (barman)
,
Al Mulock (Knuckles)

Festivals

London, Tribeca 2008; San Francisco 2009

Elsewhere

Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West is the Everest of Italian westerns, featuring the greatest movie score Ennio Morricone ever composed and the most glorious CinemaScope camerawork to ever grace a western. Forty years on it’s recognised as one of the definitive big screen movies. Its hallucinatory splendour towers again in this stunning restoration. We couldn’t be more pleased with ourselves for securing these screenings for the giant screen. — BG

“Let’s celebrate… and appreciate the opportunity to see a gorgeous new restoration of a ‘classic’ that’s still one of the most enjoyable movies ever made: Bronson, Cardinale, Fonda, and Robards; Morricone’s unforgettable score; images of Monument Valley that rival John Ford’s. Right from the opening sequence – a quintet for three gunslingers, a fly, and a creaking windmill – it’s clear we’re being told a story whose familiar elements will appear in a new way…

This unusual film was born in an unusual way. After the financial success of his first three spaghetti westerns, Leone decided to try something more personal, so he invited two young filmmakers – Dario Argento and Bernardo Bertolucci – to… ‘dream together’. Agreeing that the western is the cinematographic genre par excellence, they discussed the American movies they loved, Hollywood dreams, and historical reality. The extraordinary film that resulted is a unique blending of popular fiction, the primal ‘once upon a time’ impulses common to all storytelling, and the Marxist ideas so in vogue in the late 60s. And ‘something to do with death’.” — Peter Scarlet, Tribeca Film Festival