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By Ron Evangelista
July 13, 2023
There might be some debate on whether Once Upon a Time...
in the West is Sergio Leone's finest Western, but there is no doubt that it is
in this feature that Charles Bronson delivers the performance of a lifetime.
Bronson delivers the perfect balance between subtlety and machismo with
Harmonica, an enigmatic cowboy out for vengeance. There is an unexplainable
nuance to his performance, heightened only by the mastery of Leone's direction,
and the notes so perfectly composed by Ennio Morricone. While it was originally
intended to be portrayed by Clint Eastwood, casting Bronson was the best move
Leone could have made, and the gravitas of his enduring turn exemplified the
filmmaker's choice.
From his first moment onscreen, viewers could already sense that there was something different about Bronson and his characterization of the mysterious man from the Old West. Yes, he had the signature virility he always carried, but there was a certain spirit in the way he approaches things here. Once Harmonica arrives at the old town of Flagstone, he is greeted by three goons sent by Henry Fonda's Frank (Fonda goes from Hollywood hero to vicious monster) and asks if they brought a horse for him, to which they respond that they are shy one horse. Harmonica mercilessly responds "you brought two too many." In one fell swoop, he beats them to the punch and kills all three of them.
In only the opening sequence, Bronson manages to present glimpses of his past by only uttering a few words. The magic is in his eyes, one that the film constantly harkens back to. The faux innocence in his initial curiosity and the shattering fear his eyes deliver already informs us that this is a man on a mission. Harmonica probably got wronged by someone in the past, most probably by the one who sent these unfortunate souls. It is the patented Leone movie trademark to deeply focus on his characters' faces and features. However, Leone's brush strokes take only half of the cake. Bronson and his unforgiving glare make it whole and get everyone glued to their seats. There is no nonsense to this man's approach, and the lines on his face dictate that this was a long time coming.
As the narrative progresses and unfolds, the spectator's
initial guesses about Harmonica slowly become based on truth. He starts to
become enveloped in Jill McBain's (Claudia Cardinale) quest to take Sweetwater,
the land she inherited from her husband. Frank, who wants to take the land for
himself, had Mr. McBain killed while also framing gang leader Cheyenne (Jason
Robards) in the process. Harmonica and Cheyenne team up to help Jill, and to
discover the truth about the occurrences. Harmonica, while spying on Frank on a
train, is eventually captured and questioned. In response, the mysterious
cowboy only blurts out a bunch of names, who we soon find out are those whom
Frank has killed over the years.
The mystique that he carries from the opening parts of the picture continues and is strengthened by the audience's yearning to know who he truly is. They get some sort of confirmation here, but there is no final answer. He is as unrelenting as he is mysterious, and the unknown depths from which his actions come are still to be explored. Much like the plot, Bronson's face shows a blankness, stoically traversing the lines between what is true and what is not. For all everyone knows, he's just a rogue who might even be on Frank's side when it comes down to it.
When Frank lets him live to tend to more pressing matters, he is rescued by Cheyenne, and the tides of the fight for Sweetwater change. Jill is forced by Frank to auction the land, while his goons use intimidation to dictate the action in his favor. Harmonica suddenly appears, and wins the bid and gets the property. In the name of money, Frank's associates turn on him and ambush him in the street, but in a surprising twist of events, are aided by Harmonica. The seeds planted by Bronson and his ambiguous portrayal have baited the audience. The questions keep on coming, which will be answered in the coming events, where the full talent of Charles Bronson is unleashed in spectacular fashion.
After a few choice encounters where every single man of Frank is killed, Cheyenne heads back to Sweetwater to rest and regain his strength. After seeing the aftermath, Frank does the same and finds out that Harmonica was waiting for him. He didn't save Frank in their previous encounter, despite what had just transpired. Rather, he just wanted him to die by his own hands. He is challenged to a duel, and perhaps the greatest sequence in Leone's filmography begins to take shape. As Morricone's music once again fills the air, we see the two men who were at separate times at odds, and on the same page, aching to know who would come out on top.
One particular sequence shows the patented Leone zoom
closing in on his eyes, and the audience is treated to a flashback, revealing
his true intentions. Frank killed his brother in front of him, and to add salt
to the wound, was asked to keep his loving brother happy by sticking the
harmonica to his mouth. His eyes, which were previously unmoving, without a
shred of fear, now subtly drooped. The visual is powerful and transports both
us and his character back to his past. For a brief moment, he was his younger
self, and he remembers the painful death of his brother. It is nostalgic and
painful, which acts as the trigger for him to finally draw his gun quicker than
his opponent. With one perfectly placed bullet, Frank is on the ground, dying
of agony. As he motions through his last moments of life, Bronson begins to
revert to his old emotionless self to put the harmonica in Frank's mouth,
finally revealing who he is.
All the trouble is done, and he drifts off into the sunset. It is simply a masterclass of acting where less is more, and the simplicity of facial expressions trump dozens of lines of dialogue. In five measly minutes of superb drama, the spectators are treated to a story within a story, where the ultimate payoff is granted, all thanks to the unostentatious performance of a once-in-a-lifetime actor. The iconic gunfight has arguably solidified Charles Bronson as a fine actor, one that shouldn't ever be considered one-sided.
Yes, he was amazing in The Great Escape, and was
prospectively even more iconic in the Death Wish series. However, in Once Upon
a Time...in the West, he was simply an artist who managed to paint masterpieces
of discussion through his acting. His face was like a canvas, filled with both
melancholy and vindication. Sergio Leone did make one of the greatest Spaghetti
Westerns of all time when he completed this picture, and most of the credit
deservedly goes to his magnificent artistry. Nevertheless, he was successful
because of the most potent tool at his disposal: the immense talent of Charles
Bronson to portray a character filled with the subtlety and determination of a
man out for reckless vengeance.
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