Once Upon A Time In The West (C'era Una Volta Il West) @ BFI

The BFI should always be commended, but the extended run of Once Upon A Time in the West may be a new high in my experience at the cinema. The film demands to be seen on the big screen. In fact I would argue if you haven't seen it on the big screen you haven't really seen it. Before the experience I counted it the greatest Western ever made. And now I'm in no doubt. Sergio Leone's masterpiece is a monumental achievement of mesmerising beauty and brilliance which literally takes the breath away, and doesn't return it until the closing credits.

The film stars Claudia Cardinale, as one of the most beautiful, powerful females roles I can remember, as Jill McBain, the widowed former whore, Henry Fonda playing against type as the villianous gunslinger turned businessman Frank, Charles Bronson as the quiet, harmonica wiedling, revenge driven hero and Jason Robards as the world weary, comical bandit Cheyenne. Each of them wants something, and all of their lives will cross.

The story centres around a piece of land which capitalist prospector Morton (Gabriele Ferzetti) wants in order to expand his railroad and reach the pacific coast. Morton is a tragic villain, dying from turberculosis and resigned to living in his beautifully furbished traincar; he can not walk without the aid of crutches and uses money to get his way. He fancies himself as a gunslinger, but has neither the mentality nor the skill. After the death of the McBain family, one of many brutally violent scenes in the film, Morton faces a set back when Jill arrives to start her new life as Mrs McBain.

The film works wonderfully in setting up its first act. Three extended, drawn out sequences, including an opening scene which may be the best use of sound design ever commited to screen, introduces the all the major characters and gives us an idea of the journey on which the characters will travel. Once Upon a Time is a film about death, and the characters experience and face it almost immediately in some form or other. As Frank, Harmonica and Cheyenne tussle for a place in the new world, as capitalism encroaches, it becomes clear not only to us, but to them that they are a dying breed. The final shot is of development, modernism approaching and the rise of Capitalism. This theme is evident in almost every shot of Leone's exquisitely directed film. The only character capable of surviving in this world is Jill, as she reveals to Frank, she is prepared to do anything to survive, and its this which seperates her from her male counterparts, who cling to the old, or try to shed their past, knowing deep down that neither path will lead to prosperity.

The film also delivers Ennio Morricone's most sumptuous and captivating score. Less showy than the dollars trilogy, here the film settles on a few simple thematic scores representing each character, from Harmonica's harp infused hypnotic tune the Jill's loving, softer theme which becomes the central motif. Morricone has the ability to elevate bad films to good and good films to great but here there may never have been a better collaboration than Sergio Leone's direction, Tonino Delli Colli cinematography and Morricone's score in the complete history of cinema.

The treatment was written by Bernardo Bertolucci and Dario Argento before a script by Leone and Sergio Donati which was aparently written in just under a month. The film was devised as a combination of all the elements of Western, as Leone said in a interview with Christopher Frayling "I wanted to present a homage to the Western at the same time as showing the mutations which American society was undergoing at that time. So the story was about a birth and a death".

Once Upon A Time in the West is a special piece of cinema. It may have been underrated upon its initial release and even now is perhaps regarded higher in Europe and by Cineastes but for me it is truly one of the most incredible works of cinema. It affects you on an emotional level like no other Western ever made, and is a story told almost entirely through visuals and sound. The film contains barely any dialogue and that which it does, is sharp and witty. Few films ever achieve this level of genius, and it is probably one of the best directed films ever commited to celluloid.