Tripwire Reviews Once Upon A Time in The West 4K UHD

A Fistful Of History

Tripwire’s editor-in-chief Joel Meadows takes a look at Once Upon A Time In The West 4K Ultra HD out now in Blu-Ray…

Once Upon A Time In The West 4K Ultra HD
Director: Sergio Leone
Stars: Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards

Sergio Leone was the master of the spaghetti western, and by the time this horse opera hit screens, he was already a veteran with the Fistful trilogy under his gun belt. Spaghetti westerns propelled the form from the classic but more moribund standards like Rio Bravo and High Noon to a more pulpy but ambitious widescreen genre. Leone had always shown that he wanted to do more with the genre in films like The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, but Once Upon A Time In The West took things to a whole other level. Opening with that wonderfully taut sequence featuring the gunfighters waiting at the station, Leone expands the genre using modern and post-modern concepts. For example, its villain, the malevolent railroad baron Morton, played with vigour and real menace by Gabriele Ferzetti, has his base of operations on a train which feels almost like a dust-covered James Bond adversary’s headquarters. Furthermore he depicts a Western town that’s being built as the story progresses, providing necessary context. Visually, OUATITW is also leagues ahead of the work of directors like Howard Hawks and John Ford, as Leone draws upon the impressive canon of Japanese samurai movie master Akira Kurosawa to increase its scope and  impact.

Cardinale plays Jill McBain, the widow of Brett McBain (a brief but intriguing role played by regular spaghetti fixture Frank Wolff), who returns to Sweetwater seeking to get back what she feels is rightfully hers. But her story isn’t quite as clear-cut as it seems and she also has to face the malevolent Frank (Fonda), a man in the employ of the railroad. She is assisted by the mysterious figure known simply as Harmonica (Bronson at his coolest and deadliest) and fellow gunslinger Cheyenne (Robards) who is also not quite what he seems either. The plot is a simple one at first glance but Leone is such a wonderful onscreen technician that he lends it real style and panache.

The film uses the building of the railways as a symbol of the changing and evolving West, with its gunslingers outmoded by this technological development, forced to adapt or die.

Visually, there are moments which transcend the Western genre and make the film a truly cinematic experience, like the overhead shot over the town when Jill McBain gets off the train. There is a lyricism here that cinemagoers hadn’t seen before. Shooting some of this in Monument Valley in the US is Leone’s nod to films like The Searchers and these scenes offer an interesting visual counterpoint to the sequences filmed in Italy.

I would be remiss too if I neglected to mention the cast. Fonda, perhaps for the only time in his career playing against type, is wonderfully sinister while Robards displays a warmth and range that few other contemporaries could pull off. Cardinale is magnetic onscreen and is essentially the heart of the movie.

With a running time of just under three hours, OUATITW never flags in its pacing, capturing the viewer’s attention throughout. The 4K restoration here brings the film an even greater clarity, while the colour palette is even richer than in previous versions.

In addition, there are a plethora of extras which provide background and history to this celebrated work. We learn that Leone wanted to cast Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach in the opening sequence, and we see just what an obsessional perfectionist both the filmmaker and his production crew were to get every detail here just right.

Once Upon A Time In The West is a one of the all-time best Westerns – a stylistically bold piece which mines other cinematic forms and is blessed with an inspired cast. This film restoration is a must-buy for cineastes and Western aficionados alike.

JOEL MEADOWS