Once Upon a Time in America

Stereotypical Sergio Leone film with endless waitings and sight crossings. One of the performances that made Robert de Niro de actor he is and an interesting way of telling a story and the evolution of America during the years of the alcohol prohibition.

**It's an excellent film, which proves the importance of good post-production, and how bad editing can ruin the whole thing.** There are certain films that impress us so much when we see them that we are really surprised when we discover how ignored they were by the great awards. This film is one of them: I was really shocked to find that it wasn't even nominated for an Oscar or a Golden Globe… and I had to read a bit to understand why that happened. The film is perhaps one of the best in Sérgio Leone's extensive filmography, and is often compared to other great gangster films such as…

Told by way of a really potent (and well scored by Morricone) retrospective, this sits us down and takes us through a forty year period in the life of the now down-at-heel "Noodles" (Robert De Niro) and of the development of the city of New York. The contents of an old briefcase serve as an aide memoire as the retrospective illustrates just how he and three of his childhood friends decided that the gutter was not for them, and that using the "system" to get on was the only way. Prohibition, violence, crime, brutality were the currency back then and "Noodles" learned not to have scruples…