As Jill McBain (Claudia Cardinale) rides the train west to join her new husband at the start of Once Upon a Time in the West, he is gunned down by the notorious Frank (Henry Fonda), a ruthless villain after McBain's considerable fortune. Upon arrival, she learns the gruesome details of the murder and desires nothing more than to sell her inheritance at an auction controlled by Frank. But an unlikely team of Harmonica (Charles Bronson) and Cheyenne (Jason Robards) work together to block Frank's power grab.
At first glance, this seems to be a somewhat standard plot for a western, but in reality it isn't. What's written above is the Cliff Notes version, condensed and simplified for your convenience. The actual plot, as it unfolds during the course of the film, is a great deal more complicated. The alliances of the three men in regards to each other or the woman are constantly in flux, never approaching a state where you can definitively say who is in cahoots with whom.
Naturally, this tends to be a point of confusion that isn't helped by Sergio Leone's unwillingness to provide any more backstory than is absolutely necessary. So the audience spends a lot of time trying to figure out who's going to kill whom, which depending on your point of view is either a brilliant choice by Leone or a terrible one. If you view it as brilliant, then the argument is probably that in the wild west allegiances are always in flux, no one is to be trusted, and it adds to the general suspense of the film. All of these things are true. At the same time, this leaves Leone free to ignore basic things like character development and dialogue for his specialty - wide, beautiful landscape shots with a transition to a close-up of someone's eyes.
And there are a lot of close-ups of people's eyes, usually complimented by squinting. Call it the Clint Eastwood effect.
Article comments
1 - Scott Butki
Another excellent review, Lucas.
you know, if you list out which movies from the
100 list you are doing next - maybe the next 3 to 5 - I'll try to watch those too and we can compare notes.
2 - Lucas McNelly
scott,
today, as part of my annual 4 July quest to do nothing American, i watched Andrei Rublev, so that might be next, or it might be Closely Watched Trains, but it really depends on my mood. i don't really have a set order. those will probably be 2 of the next 3, i'd guess.
3 - Scott Butki
Ok, enjoy.