MOVIE REVIEW : Virtues of Leone’s ‘America’ Evident in Original Version

Like the indestructible Man With No Name in his celebrated spaghetti Westerns, Sergio Leone’s 3-hour, 47-minute version of “Once Upon a Time in America” refuses to die a quiet death. Brutally slashed by an hour and 40 minutes for an abortive release in the summer of 1984, given an almost unnoticed re-release at its intended length later that same year and then all but forgotten, “America” is now back for a week at the Nuart with all its considerable virtues intact. To see it is to be swept away by the assurance and vitality of a great director making his final statement in a medium he adored.

“America’s” story covers nearly 50 years, from the early 1920s to the late 1960s, in the lives of a group of hoodlums. Led by David “Noodles” Aaronson (Robert De Niro) and his buddy Max (James Woods), they progress from toddler crimes to bootlegging and murder before too much violence takes its inevitable toll.

Though both De Niro and Woods give excellent performances, “America” is preeminently a director’s movie. What Leone (who had a hand in the screenplay) did was create a marvelous, expansive meditation on the pull of violence and the strength of memory. His film slips easily back and forth in time, often making the connection between eras by means of brilliant cuts that defy explanation but work beautifully on screen. To turn this film into an A to Z narrative, as the truncated version did, is to cut out its magic and eviscerate its soul.

Aside from these experiments in time, the great glory of “America” is its impeccable look. Photographed by Tonino Delli Collin in the pale sunlight of half-remembered reverie, “America” is a meticulous re-creation that manages at the same time to convey an eerie unreality.

Whether using real locations, like the area around the gauntly elegant Williamsburg Bridge, or creating scenes out of imagination, like a dazzling gunfight in a feather factory, Leone tries to have it all ways.

He wanted to make a film both artificial and naturalistic, excessive as well as tightly controlled. “Once Upon a Time in America” remains a tribute to how well he succeeded.