Once Upon A Time In America Extended Director 39;s Cut Download

The centerpiece of the 1930s sequences is the relationship between the adult Deborah (Elizabeth McGovern) and Noodles. Leone eases the audience into a false sense of security as he presents Noodles' no-expense-spared romantic date with Deborah, only to have the night end in a shockingly horrifying and graphic scene. If you were on the fence about liking Noodles up until that point, I think it's safe to say that the end of that sequence will obliterate that fence. The scene is not constructed merely for shock value but makes perfect sense upon studying Noodles as a character: He's used to taking everything by force, why would anything be different this time around?

Spanning four decades, Sergio Leone's final film tells the story of David "Noodles" Aaronson (Robert De Niro) and his Jewish pals, chronicling their childhoods on New York's Lower East Side in the 1920s, through their gangster careers in the 1930s, and culminating in Noodles' 1968 return to New York from self-imposed exile, at which time he learns the truth about the fate of his friends and again confronts the nightmare of his past. Leone's film is both a criticism of gangster-film mythology and a continuation of the director's exploration of the issues of time and history, while the violence and gore that frequent the first half of the film turn into a sad elegy about wasted lives and lost love.

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When 'Once Upon A Time in America' first started playing at film festivals in early 1984, Leone's cut ran north of four hours in length. It was praised, yet Warner Bros. brought in "the assistant editor of 'Police Academy'" (according to James Woods) to trim it down to 139 minutes for its theatrical cut. As you would expect, with nearly half of the film being removed, it was a flop and critical nightmare. After Leone's death, a 229-minute "director's cut" was compiled by the producers and Leone's family that featured as much of the director's original cut as they could find. Over time, more of the original footage has been found, so this new "extended director's cut" runs 251 minutes and is said to be the closest we'll ever get to seeing the filmmaker's original version of the film.

'Once Upon A Time In America' is an all-around perfect film. De Niro gives a stellar performance alongside James Woods, Elizabeth McGovern and many others. Even the young cast, which includes a very young Jennifer Connelly, is top-notch. The writing is genius, highly detailed and unforgettable. The direction is consistent, focused and, for other filmmakers, something to be studied and applied. The director's cut was flawless and the extended director's cut is even more so. Leone's masterpiece is worth owning and re-watching more now than ever.

'Once Upon A Time In America' is a masterpiece in the same vein as 'The Godfather' and other similarly praised classics. It's an indulgent tale that's not afraid to take its time to establish the world in which its amazing characters exist. From the script and direction to acting and music, it's simply perfect. This new extended cut, which contains more footage from Leone's long-lost original cut, creates another reason to revisit it. The video and audio qualities of the new footage ranges from good to very bad (a big chunk of the new footage was remastered from film positives that were never intended to be shown), but the majority of the film features few strong and flaw-free quality. With only one 20-minute special feature, that section of the disc in this edition of the Blu-ray are lacking, so be sure to shell out the extra few bucks for the Collector's Edition if you're looking for more. Either way, the film itself is such a wonderfully perfect achievement that you can't go wrong with. This is a must-own release.

That version was not seen in American theaters, although it is now available on cassette [and DVD]. Instead, the whole structure of flashbacks was junked. The telephone rings once. The poetic transitions are gone. The movie has been wrenched into apparent chronological order, scenes have been thrown out by the handful, relationships are now inexplicable, and the audience is likely to spend much of its time in complete bewilderment. It is a great irony that this botched editing job was intended to "clarify" the film.

Once Upon a Time in America is also a narrative about our loyalties to one another, which more often than not lead to us sacrificing our own desires, wants and needs for the sake of life-long friendships that have become such a crucial part of our being, that giving them up would feel akin to dying. It is a story of a man who at one point comes to a forking in the road, but chooses to follow the path of least resistance and continues living the only life he has ever known, until it catches up with him. It is a tale of a human being who ends up exercising his free will and consciously choosing to believe a false narrative, so as to keep his memories intact, his self-concept alive and the life he wasted feeling remorse from crumbling before his very eyes. It is a complex and elaborately nuanced saga about the trajectories of once marginalized and impoverished people, about the guilt that accompanies betrayal, even when it is done for the purest of reasons, about the incessant passing of time that heals no wounds, when the carriers of said wounds are not looking for healing.

Once Upon A Time In America tells an epic story and is now considered a masterpiece. However, Leone famously had a difficult time editing the project, cutting down around ten hours' worth of material into a six-hour version. While he hoped to release this version in two parts, the producers nixed that concept and he went back to re-cut it again. His eventual 229-minute long cut of Once Upon A Time In America premiered to rave reviews at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival, but after a bad screening of this version in the U.S., the film's distributors insisted on cutting down the Sergio Leone movie to 2 hours and 19 minutes. The removal of around 90 minutes of footage was expressly against Leone's wishes, and Once Upon A Time In America's theatrical cut was met with terrible reviews and bombed.

This film has been with me for many, many years. I was 15 when I saw it and was just blown away by it. It contains my favourite soundtrack of ALL TIME, De Niro in his prime, the volatile James Woods, the first sighting of the beautiful, Jennifer Connelly, the time jumps, the kids, Bugsy, Pesci, Burt Young, opium, gangsters, loyalty, betrayal, New York, Dominic slipping, the cake scene, Elizabeth McGovern, Tuesday Weld, Danny Aiello, the babies scene, going for a swim, Fat Moe, William Forsythe, Treat Williams and the unions all brought beautifully together by the mighty Italian director, Sergio Leone. This was his 10th and final film.

The pace of the movie is incredibly dreamlike, shots are held for a long time, lengthening moments. Take for example the telephone ring at the beginning of the film; it goes on for a long time with extended silences between the rings.

Once Upon a Time in America was the final film from acclaimed Italian director Sergio Leone, starring Robert DeNiro and James Woods. This 1984 gangster epic was critically panned at the time of its release but has enjoyed a great amount of acclaim retrospectively.

Sergio Leone's final film Once Upon a Time in America is a poetic portrait of conflict, love, and meaning through the lens of a prohibition-era gangster film. Despite being lauded as one of, if not the finest work the filmmaker has ever put out, it was at the receiving end of mixed reviews upon its release. It wasn't because Leone's film was polarizing around whether it was a "good" or "bad" picture. Rather, it was because two different versions of the film were distributed in different parts of the world. What was supposed to be the brilliant farewell of one of the greatest filmmakers in history became a box-office disaster in the U.S. The hands of time have since turned Once Upon a Time in America into an undeservedly overlooked picture. Thankfully, another auteur who had looked up to Leone had a hand in rescuing it. Martin Scorsese worked with Leone's family to provide a restoration that got as close as possible to the master of Spaghetti Westerns' original vision.

The release of Once Upon a Time in America was 15 years in the making, as Michael Carlson notes in Sergio Leone: Pocket Essentials. Leone first encountered the story when his brother-in-law read him Harry Grey's novel The Hoods, to which he saw as a fascinating peek into the world of gangsters. In 1968, Leone met Grey, and eventually got the rights to adapt it into a feature film. Leone famously rejected an offer to direct The Godfather around this time, mainly because of his connection to Grey's novel, and his desire to create something of his own mythology. After several re-writes, personnel changes, and several studios' wishes to be involved, principal photography began in June 1982. Howard Hughes notes in Crime Wave: The Filmgoers' Guide to the Great Crime Movies that Leone's initial cut was six hours long, just as the filmmaker intended it to be. Eventually, through conversations with the studio, the film was eventually shortened to the official director's cut of 229 minutes.

That said, the film does admittedly concern itself far more with Noodles and Max (James Woods). Though both of them are good in the roles, the two just never have chemistry with one another. The bad dialogue in their scenes is only part of the problem. They never really convince as being friends. I forget most of the movie at this point because it is too long, but it felt like Max just disappeared forever. The only signs of their friendship being a couple bro hugs and then Max and Noodles paying for sex with the same girl but at different times. Otherwise, they are at each other's throats for the rest of the film with Max wondering openly if he should kill Noodles. By the end of the film, when they are both old, the same thing occurs with both of them just talking past each other and sharing no chemistry with one another. It just never really sold me on this. Many women complain about female friendship depicted through male eyes and how it misses the mark. Male friendship is equally hard to bring to life and one would think a man would be more at-home bringing that to life. Though Leone is a man, he just totally missed the mark here. For friends, they never seem to really click with one another. ff782bc1db