Remastered Screening at BFI Southbank London

[Mr.Cho-Cho]

 Just to let you know this is being screened from Friday 24th July for 2 weeks at the BFI on Southbank. I'm going with a couple of friends. It's also being shown at a cinema in Mayfair, and will be shown in Edinburgh at the end of August. This will be the first time I've watch a movie at the cinema that wasn't during it's first release. I always wanted to do it with GBU, but have always forgotten to go when shown.

[Colonel Günther Ruiz]

Man I'm jealous.  Have fun!   

[Mr.Cho-Cho]

Man I'm jealous.  Have fun!   

Thanks, I will!  I haven't watched OUATITW in about 3 years now. I watched it about 4 or 5 times though in the space of 4 years before that though. I'm tempted to go and watch it a couple of times at the BFI, just to make up for lost time. Plus the wait is killing me.

Here's a link to the BFI website if anyone's interested: http://www.bfi.org.uk/

[cigar joe]

Enjoy!

[Jordan Krug]

Ok guys, this is our chance to find out what exactly this "scorcese restored version" has that's different from the previous versions (i.e. does it have harmonica rising from the platform, does it have morton's chess pieces falling over, is the music at the end right etc). Can we put together a list for Mr. Cho Cho?

[Mr.Cho-Cho]

I really need to brush up on my knowledge of this film, as my memory is quite hazy. I remember trying to find out about the differences between the alleged cut years ago, but now my memory of even my DVD version is in doubt.
 The only version I've seen is the International Release 165min (Region 2- UK). I'm very interested to see this edit, but at the same time a bit worried I maybe unable to recognise some of the difference. I'll try to watch my DVD version after the screening.

[Jordan Krug]

Well, below is a pretty comprehensive list that explains the differences from the "italian" (recent dvd) and the "american" recent dvd. The 3 most important debates concern harmonica rising from the dead off the platform (which should only appear in the american version- it was added because the stop at the bar in the desert was originally cut from american prints), but for some reason is included in the longer italian cut), a lot of extended shots in the opening sequence, (italian) a really cool shot of one of morton's chess pieces falling and him catching it (italian) and the placement of the music at the end (cheyanne's theme comes in too early in the american version)

Basically Cho-Cho, I'm trying to figure out which version they recently restored, or if it combines the two versions etc. The recent restoration was headed my Scorcese, and they've been touring the print for the last year or so, but so far I don't think we've had a solid answer on which version it is....if you could at least let us know about the "rising from the dead" and the falling chess piece (it's a little metal soldier), whether they are included....thx!

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/dvdcompare/onceuponatimeintheest/ouatitw-ext.txt

[Mr.Cho-Cho]

OK, I'll try my best. I remember the rising from the dead, and Farewell to Cheyenne at the end of the movie. I hope this version doesn't have a clear picture of Frank when Harmonica's brother is hanged, one of my friends hasn't seen this before. It would destroy the ambiguity of Harmonica's appearance.

 I would think that anything I haven't seen before I would notice, but then again it was one of those films where I notice more things on further viewings anyway.

[Novecento]

From the UK Times today:

For a lesson in how to resuscitate a dying genre, you could do worse than Once Upon a Time in the West, Sergio Leone’s masterpiece from 1968. Leone makes his subversive intentions clear when a gunman shoots a small boy in the back and the camera curves round to reveal that the man in the black hat is none other than Henry Fonda.

The story was partly devised by Bernardo Bertolucci and the film might qualify as the first Marxist Western. Fonda isn’t the only legend to be toppled. The plucky homesteader who soldiers on after her family is gunned down turns out to be a former prostitute — a ripe and resplendent Claudia Cardinale — and the frontier town is revealed to be a Hobbesian dystopia in which ruthless predators compete for limited resources.

“Forget what you’ve heard about the Old West,” Leone seems to be saying. “This is how it really was.”

The irony, of course, is that in seeking to debunk one set of myths Leone created another. From the film’s opening scene, in which three gunmen are waiting to kill a man at a railway station, we’re plunged into an atavistic, dream-like world in which everyone is motived by either greed or revenge. This is drama at its most primitive and it unfolds like a Greek tragedy.

If you can endure the glacial pace, this newly restored 165-minute version is a must.

15, 165mins

[Mr.Cho-Cho]

 OK well to me the film seemed pretty much exactly the same, the only bit that seemed different was the opening 20 minutes, they may have added extra shots, but I'm not sure. When Harmonica gets shot, he gets up again. The part about the chess piece is not in it, as for Farewell to Cheyenne it plays as he leaves the station, then the Finale is played, before the credits appear and Cheyenne's Theme is played once more.

 I went with 2 friends, 1 who had never seen it before, the other whose father regards it as the greatest film ever. My friend who had never seen it, loved it, which I was pretty sure he would, but there's always that element of doubt. Another thing we agree on was that we needed to visit a whorehouse in New Orleans. 

 It was the first time I'd been to the BFI Southbank, and it's an amazing cinema, I now have annual membership £20, and recommend it to anyone who lives in London. The theatre was more than half full and I think me and my friends were pretty much the youngest there (24, not that young). I thought Tarantino or Frayling might be there too because Tarantino's new film premiered here last night, and Frayling lives in the area and is a Governor at the BFI. I didn't see them, but I didn't look too hard, as the film pretty much started immediately and I left immediately. All in all a great night, I'm half tempted to go and watch it again.

[Colonel Günther Ruiz]

Cool!  Thanks for telling us.   

[Jordan Krug]

Thanks man!

[dave jenkins]

From the UK Times today:
the frontier town is revealed to be a Hobbesian dystopia in which ruthless predators compete for limited resources.

Completely untrue. Another example of the reviewer seeing only what he wants to see.