"Cockeye's Song"
Once Upon a Time in America is a 1984 Italian
epic crime film co-written and directed by
Sergio Leone and starring
Robert De Niro and
James Woods. It chronicles the lives of
Jewish ghetto youths who rise to prominence in
New York City's world of
organized crime. The film explores themes of childhood friendships, love, lust, greed, betrayal, loss, broken relationships, and the rise of
mobsters in American society.
Leone adapted the story from the novel
The Hoods, written by
Harry Grey, while filming
Once Upon a Time in the West. The film went through various casting developments and production issues before filming began in 1982.
The original version by the director was 269 minutes (4 hours and 29
minutes) long, but when the film premièred out of competition at the
1984 Cannes Film Festival,
[1]
Leone had cut it down to 229 minutes (3 hours and 49 minutes) to
appease the distributors. This was the version that was to be shown in
European cinemas. However, for the US release on June 1, 1984,
Once Upon a Time in America
was edited down even further to 139 minutes (2 hours and 19 minutes) by
the studio and against the director's wishes. In this short version,
the
flashback
narrative was also changed, by re-editing the scenes in chronological
order. Leone was reportedly heartbroken by the American cut, and never
made another film before his death in 1989.
In March 2011, it was announced that the original 269 minutes version
was to be re-created by a film lab in Italy under the supervision of
Leone's children, who have acquired the Italian distribution rights, and
the film's original sound editor, Fausto Ancillai, for a premiere in
2012 at either the
Cannes Film Festival or the
Venice Film Festival.
[2][3]
The new restoration of the film premiered at the 2012 Cannes Film
Festival, but due to unforeseen rights issues for the deleted scenes,
the film's new restoration actually ended up being 245 minutes.
[4][5] However,
Martin Scorsese
(whose Film Foundation helped with the film's restoration), stated that
he is helping Leone's children get the rights to the final 24 minutes
of deleted scenes to make a complete version of Leone's original 269
minute version.
[6]
From
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia