Monday, June 29, 1998 - Once Upon A Time

Rented "Once Upon A Time In The West" this weekend. Now that is an excellent film. Most films I rent and say, "That wasn't so good", or, "I could do that", but this one is inspirational. The pacing, the character development, the framing, everything. Nearly a three hour movie that doesn't get the least bit boring. And there really isn't a whole lot of dialogue. Leone makes full use of the camera. Awesome.

I especially like the times where the camera kind of pulls back from the specifics of what's going on and shows the scene in this historical context, aided by the music of course. Leone took advantage of this in "Once Upon A Time in America" and "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly". It was especially striking in "TGTBATU", since it kind of came from out of the blue. (Haha.) The two films that preceeded it, "A Fistful Of Dollars" and "For A Few Dollars More", didn't seem to have any of that in them.

Okay, enough rambling about Westerns...

-George