Once Upon a Time in America
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Sergio Leone, maestro of the spaghetti Western, spent sixteen years developing what was to be his final work—the gangster epic Once Upon a Time in America(1983). This "testament film" has a special place in Leone's oeuvre because it marries the directors typically flamboyant, expressionistic style to a story full of profound melancholy and regret. Tracing the lives of a gang of Jewish hoods from their childhood in the New York streets of the 1920s, through Prohibition and union racketeering, to the 1960s, Once Upon a Time in America centers on the relationship between Noodles (Robert De Niro) and Max (James Woods)—an intense friendship destroyed by time, the shifting tides of political history, and mutual betrayal.
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As well as detailing the film's genesis, its production history, and its different versions, this study considersOnce Upon a Time in Americain the context of Leone's evolution as a grand cinema stylist. It illuminates his themes, his method, and his aesthetic, and judges his enormous impact upon subsequent generations of filmmakers the world over.
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