New Cut Of Sergio Leone’s ‘Once Upon A Time In America’ On The Way With 40 More Minutes
Holy shit. Tremendous news.
and now…the pain of waiting…
Wow, as if the movie wasn’t already epic enough.
Is Leone in charge of the new cut?
This movie definitely stands as an undeniable masterpiece,sadly overlooked and ignored by the moviegoers when it premiered in 1984.To me ,Once upon a time in America has the same epic proportions ,visual strength ,somptuous cinematography and topnotch performances to rank in the same league as classics such as The Godafther.But strangely enough,even filmcritics seem to forget about the greatness of this movie,because i never see it appear on all-time favourite movie lists!And let’s not forget Ennio Morricone,who wrote one of his most beautiful scores ever,which blends perfectly with the wonderful images!
I cannot wait for the long version to come out,doing right and showing respect to Leone’s film legacy.
Link kind sir.
Lol Jirin, at least I hope that was in good/bad humour?
yes, daniel, you’re so right. this movie was masterpiece of Leone but unfortunatelly it’s his biggest pain. May be his early death was about that.
Hope there’s more Tuesday Weld in the 40 minutes.
Wow, this is exciting news. I think the film is a masterpiece as it is, but if the new footage will add to it’s greatness then I’m all for it. The restoration should be good too.
Burcu Tatlises, thanks for posting this, welcome news indeed. Do you have a link for this? Now if I could just get Raffaella to release Leone’s (rumored) personal cut of Once Upon a Time in the West I would be thrilled.
here is the link about this new Gojira:
http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/archives/new_cut_of_sergio_leones_once_upon_a_time_in_america_on_the_way_with_40/#
I didn’t realize it was possible to make this film longer… I think we need the extended takes of the boy eating the cupcake – that scene isn’t long enough. Or when James Woods is sitting in his new throne and the men are standing around stirring their tea… that scene isn’t long enough.
I’m joshing, really, I like the film very much… but after the dollars trilogy, Leone made films which were something different than perfectly concise… almost experimental in their emotional ambition, I’d say.
I do love Leone… really…
If they add some scenes with Eastwood, Van Cleef and Wallach, I’ll be very, very happy.
Hi there,
I thought I would share these two articles from an excellent but short-lived British movie mag of the early 90s called “Movie Collector”. You can tell their age because they’re talking about Laserdiscs! :P The first is about the themes running through the loose trilogy that consists of “Once Upon a Time in the West”, “Duck, You Sucker” and “Once Upon a Time in America”. The second explores the dream theory of …America which is referred to in this forum: http://mubi.com/topics/7507
I’m sorry, my scanner is not the best but if you zoom in you should be able to make sense of these:-
http://i52.tinypic.com/ip34b8.jpg
http://i52.tinypic.com/20z7er5.jpg
http://i52.tinypic.com/29v14qc.jpg
http://i54.tinypic.com/dpdeop.jpg
http://i51.tinypic.com/2wf4xud.jpg
http://i56.tinypic.com/25turs3.jpg
http://i52.tinypic.com/v3ej5j.jpg
Enjoy! :)
thanks for uploading the dream theory. imo it’s the only way the film really makes sense. i believe i read leone himself endorsed it
I’m giddy.
This is great news.
great, great news
BUT if leone filmed an estimated 10 hours of footage, what are the odds his heirs will add 20 mins or so every few years just to sell more dvds?
Well, I mean is the new cut based on Leone’s intentions? Is it based on his creative legacy, or is the studio just adding in extra footage to justify a new release?
…although a five-hour version edited by Leone including cut scenes with Louise Fletcher has been seen on German and Italian television.
Okay, I am trying to add something here and it’s screwing up when I try and post; you only got the last sentence up above, and it should be in quotation marks. It’s from the first of the two articles I linked to above. I don’t think it follows that just because Leone has been dead and buried for 20 years we can assume this new version of his movie bears no relation to his intentions. As I was saying, Leone himself personally supervised an even longer cut of the film than the new 269 minute re-edit we have been promised in the near future, clocking in at 5 hours!
This is a rare example of what a masterpiece that it gets better and better with aditional minutes, aditional hours, and no one can’t complain that is too long. I want to see this new version.
Well, 269 minutes is 4 hours and 29 minutes. You say that the german and Italian tv version clocked in at 5 hours, well was it truly 300 minutes of film, or is that 5 hours of tv time, including commercials? If that is the case, then this 269 minute cut may include all of that footage, and there is a chance that it could include more.
Usually movies on tv will take at least 8-10 minutes of commercial breaks, per hour; and so if there was a 5 hour cut, its actual running time may be closer to 250 minutes….
RUBY STEVENS, if they put it out, I will gladly buy it.
Yes, Jason, that issue about the commercial breaks had occurred to me also, as has something else which would affect the running time: framerate. I’m guessing these Italian and German broadcasts would have been in the PAL format, running at 25 frames per second – one frame per second faster than the standard film projection rate of 24 frames per second. Obviously, I have no idea whether the writer of this article compensated for this discrepancy, but if he didn’t, when you adjust the running time back to 24 fps, even allowing for the generous 50 minutes of commercials you suggest, the time creeps back up to 260 minutes. Hopefully, therefore, this new cut will be similar or identical to the version shown on European television :)
I agree with the “it’s better than The Godfather” group. An incredible epic crime film.
@ VIC PARDO
DeNiro, Woods, Pesci, Eastwood, Van Cleef and Wallach in the same film…not even the word “epic” would be able to cover something like that.
I’m so excited by this! There’s a few places in the film where it feels like something is still missing – most notably the ‘frisbee’ transition when 1960’s Noodles is walking under the bridge and the scene cuts to 1930s Noodles coming out of prison and being met by Max
Burcu Tatlises
“Leone’s children, Andrea and Raffaella Leone, have snagged the Italian rights and will be teaming with Bologna Cinemetheque L’Immagine Ritrovata to digitally restore the film, adding forty more minutes. Starring a massive ensemble lead by Robert De Niro and James Woods, the film has arrived over the years in number of different edits. Initially, Leone wanted to release it as two separate three hour movies, but the film’s producers didn’t want to take that expensive gamble. It first arrived in theaters in a butchered 134 minute version that was taken out of Leone’s hands and put in chronological order. A three hour TV version showed up on the mid-90s and finally, there is the 229-minute version that is widely available today (such as on the aforementioned BluRay)—it’s the version that premiered at Cannes in 1984.
There’s no word yet just what will be added but there is plenty to choose from, as Leone shot nearly ten hours worth of footage over the year long shoot. Fausto Ancillai, the original sound editor, will be supervising the restoration and the plan is to premiere the new 269-minute film in 2012 at either the Cannes or Venice film festival. Talks are already underway for the new version to go on VOD or get a theatrical release in Italy and we’re sure more territories will follow eventually, and we’d presume a fresh BluRay release will come along at some point as well"