Astor Theatre has taken the liberty of showing – in crisply restored 35mm vision – Sergio Leone’s ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’ (1968) for two weeks straight, from November 22nd to December 5th, 2009. Sadly, today is its penultimate showing. I did, however, have the pleasure of checking out Leone’s lasting classic twice during its tenure up in St. Kilda.
There was something amazing about the experience on both occasions. Yes, Leone tells a tale about a railroad dispute, a man out for vengeance and a widow’s coveted property. His narrative is rich, one of my favourites, a lasting classic in the canon of Western cinema. The theatre environment, however, made the experience more. Is it the nostalgia that comes with Astor Theatre’s 1930s décor that made the film experience rich (like all the other films shown there)? Was it the warmth of the matinee crowd that made Leone’s film so memorable upon first viewing of the film at the theatre? Or, upon second viewing, was it the sheer reality of seeing an epic tale so well-crafted on the big screen, late at night, in good company? Whatever it was, the experience was engulfing.
The narrative, naturally, made my experience at the festival rich too. Charles Bronson as Harmonica – after all of these years – still effectively delivers the bitterness of the brooding cinematic vigilante. His melancholic, anonymous, intense and silent pursuit for justice still hits home. Then, there is Jason Robards as Cheyenne: the mischievous outlaw with a comical tongue and weary shooting aim. Audiences continue to laugh with the bearded antihero (both sessions I attended were proof). Then, of course, there is Henry Fonda as Frank: a cold, cutting killer, completely inhumane, ruthlessness ad nauseam. His performance, I believe, is the most impressive in Leone’s cast, since it is such a strong deviation from Fonda’s more heroic on-screen portrayals in films such as ‘The Ox-Bow Incident’ (1943) and ‘Mister Roberts’ (1955). Finally, there is Claudia Cardinale as Jill McBain: broken, promiscuous, sold short. Cardinale is still breathtakingly beautiful after so many years after its release. Man, what was Cristaldi thinking when they divorced?
Leone’s desolate landscape is subliminal, a space in cinema that still remains fascinating to audiences over four decades on. The myth of the West may have had its day in film, but it still resurfaces itself in different guises. We can see this revival in 1990s Hollywood retakes on the Western genre – such as ‘Tombstone’ (1993) and ‘The Quick and the Dead’ (1995) – as well as in Australian outback cinema today, with such films as ‘The Proposition’ (2005) and ‘The Horseman’ (2009) emerging as odes to past narratives of geographical and moral wilderness. Leone’s collaboration with other Italian film heavyweights on the project, such as Dario Argento and Bernardo Bertolucci, was destined to pay off. When you agree to work creatively with men involved in such projects as ‘Il Conformista’ (1970) and ‘Suspiria’ (1977), you know that the end result will be magnificent, like the theatre in which the film is shown.
(4.5/5)
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