So I was taking my Editing Asthetics class, we eventually went on to take a look at the genre of westerns. And in the eyes of my teacher, there was little to no better western to show us then the one that is said to be the last great western before the genre was replaced by Star Wars; Once Upon a Time in the West.
Plot: A former prostitute named Jill comes to a town called Flagstone to meet her new husband and his family. But she learns that the whole family has been killed by hired gunman and thus is the owner of her husband's land. Eventually, she finds out that a railroad tycoon is behind hiring the men that killed her husband and his family and ends up allying with a bandit named Cheyenne and a mysterious gunman whom she calles 'Harmonica' to find out why he had them killed and stop them.
Okay what can I say about this movie that probably hasn't been said to death from people who've seen this movie years before I did? Even if it probably is longer then it should be by today's standards, they make all the moments where there's hardly any dialogue work with all the emotions from the actors and the music that's playing throughout the film. It has some of the known cliches in westerns such as the hero wearing white and the villain wearing black, but the actors do an excellent job in giving us reason to root for them. It's my understanding that this is the only time Henry Fonda is a villain where he's a hero in just about everything else he is in, and while I can't say I'm familiar with his career, it's clear to me that he does a great job in showing that his character is a cold-blooded killer. My teacher particularly praise Claudia Cardinale a lot for her performance as Jill, and I have to agree that she did give some very good acting moments...even when her goals and alliances seemed rather fuzzy at times. And while, this movie didn't exactly have a ton of action, it still gave us some exciting moments at the time where we did have gun fights. And finally, this movie had some great cinematography and was very well edited. Again, it may be considered too long today, but it's clear that they made it work with what scenes they had that made it so long.
And that's my review for Once Upon a Time in the West. I admit that I'm not so knowedgable about westerns to begin with that I can agree with what is commonly said about it, or about Henry Fonda, but with what my teacher explained and what I found for myself, it is a very good western that has great acting, wonderful cinematography, and good action that may justify the claim that it really is the last great western before Star Wars. If you haven't seen it, I'd say it's worth a shot to watch and get to know what many filmmakers/geeks before me love so much about it.
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