Why does this movie fair so poorly with audiences?

[uncknown]

i repeat: because it isnt very good
the story just doesnt cut it
if only he had stuck to the story of immigrant jews, told so masterfully in the childhood sections, instead of his half-baked gangster soap opera.....
sigh

[The Firecracker]

Again.

Even if Woods' mug got on the news, wasn't Noodles pretty convinced Max had died in that fire?
I think he'd write Bailey off as a look alike.

[cigar joe]

true

[dave jenkins]

I must be Jonathan Livingston.

Seagull?

[Dust Devil]

Seagull?

Who else.

[Senza]

I guess some people have the patience to watch lengthy movies like this. For me, this is one of the ones that can pull it off, there are some like Lawrence Of Arabia which struggle to keep me entertained with their length.

[stanton]

OUTA was comparatively successful in Germany in the uncut version. The # 9 of that year. Sold more tickets than Romancing the Stone or Footloose, much more than Dune.

[dave jenkins]

OUTA was comparatively successful in Germany in the uncut version. The # 9 of that year. Sold more tickets than Romancing the Stone or Footloose, much more than Dune.

Thank you for that. I've never liked the premise of this thread. It assumes a fact not in evidence.

[drinkanddestroy]

I've never liked the premise of this thread. It assumes a fact not in evidence.

I agree with you. The opening post, by some dumbass who is happily no longer with the board, can basically be summed up with 'I have no intention of watching this movie cuz of it's "gloomy length" and the fact that I read reviews of people that people don't like it, and that cihgar joe says he prefers other Leone movies to this.  


Sure, the butchered version of OUATIA did awful with audiences -- as it well should have -- but by now, now that the 229 minute version is widely available, it has an incredible following. (For whatever it's worth: imdb users have rated it the 78th greatest movie ever, making it imdb's the third most popular Leone movie [behind GBU and OUATITW]. There has been significant interest from around the world in the new restoration; and, for some anecdotal evidence, one of the ushers at Film Forum told me it was packed all week when it showed twice a day in December; and that was not even the new version; it was the 229-minute version available on dvd and blu ray.

Of course, it's a travesty what happened to OUATIA upon its initial American release. But for someone to state that 'this movie fair so poorly with audiences,' that's simply wrong, by any barometer.

[drinkanddestroy]

i repeat: because it isnt very good
the story just doesnt cut it
if only he had stuck to the story of immigrant jews, told so masterfully in the childhood sections, instead of his half-baked gangster soap opera.....
sigh

It's true that the scenes of the Jewish Lower East Side in OUATIA are amazing, and the greatest of any movie that has ever attempted to depict that. But this is not a story about immigrant jews. (It's not the Jewish equivalent of The Godfather Part II. In fact, to the extent that the Jewish stuff is mentioned, it's mentioned in the context of the kids breaking away from the traditions of their parents, as is evident in a deleted scene where Noodles is seen rejecting his parents' religion, expounding upon his earlier mocking of "my old man is praying...". By the time the gang is grown up, the fact that they are children of Jewish immigrants is not very important to the movie).

This movie is a story about gangsters, and a gangster returning to his old neighborhood, as far as the literal plot goes. On the deeper, thematic level, it's a movie about Time, Dreams, Cinema, etc. It is simply not a movie about the story of immigrant Jews (or, more precisely, immigrant Jews' children).

Of course, you may believe that the childhood scenes are the best, and that the later scenes aren't nearly as good. That's a matter of opinion. (I believe, though I am not certain, that Elizabeth McGovern said in in an interview something about how the magic of those childhood scenes wasn't captured in the later scenes; maybe she agrees with you).
But saying you wish the movie "had stuck to the story of immigrant Jews," is saying you wish this had been a completely different movie. This movie was never a story about the lives of immigrant Jews. There are a million and one other movies about poor children growing up on the Lower East Side, but this is not one of them.

[dave jenkins]

It's true that the scenes of the Jewish Lower East Side in OUATIA are amazing, and the greatest of any movie that has ever attempted to depict that. But this is not a story about immigrant jews. (It's not the Jewish equivalent of The Godfather Part II. In fact, to the extent that the Jewish stuff is mentioned, it's mentioned in the context of the kids breaking away from the traditions of their parents, as is evident in a deleted scene where Noodles is seen rejecting his parents' religion, expounding upon his earlier mocking of "my old man is praying...". By the time the gang is grown up, the fact that they are children of Jewish immigrants is not very important to the movie).

This is actually a really, really good point.    Btw, where did Ebert say this?

[dave jenkins]

I've never liked the premise of this thread.

Which is not even to mention the fact that the wrong "fair/fare" is used.