Sergio Leone's "dreams" – by Davide Borruto

Artes

By Maria Teresa Liuzzo

5/1/2025

Sergio Leone's "dreams"

Edited by Davide Borruto

 

After inventing that spaghetti-western that would give so much fortune to Italian cinema for about two decades, Sergio Leone decided to change genres, despite the fact that the dollar trilogy had yielded takings beyond all rosy expectations and the producers pressed for the great Roman director to still direct films dominated by gunslingers, conspicuous loot and epic music. Enticed by the idea of being able to direct two big names in western cinema Henry Fonda and Charles Bronson, whom he had tried in vain to hire already at the time of A Fistful of Dollars but who had declined the offer out of distrust of the then anonymous director thanks to the means put in place by a major studio such as Paramount, Leone began working on the project of what would have been Once Upon a Time in the West, the first chapter of his second trilogy, known as the time in reference to the titles of the films that compose it (precisely, Once Upon a Time in the West, Duck You Sucker whose working title was Once Upon a Time in the Revolution  and Once Upon a Time in America). Another way to indicate these three films could be the trilogy of dreams, since the dreams, project, ambitions and desires of the characters who alternate on the scene dominate their respective plots. Not that in the previous trilogy, where the venal aspect is undoubtedly (and inevitably) prevalent (think of the lust for hegemony of the two families, Baxter and Rojo in A Fistful of Dollars, the robbery of the El Paso bank and the bounty for Indio in For a Few Dollars More, and the search for Bill Carlson's fabulous loot in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) there is not, to some extent, space for these themes as well: the revenge against Indop who arms the hand of Colonel Mortimer, the corrupt relations between Tuco and his brother or, again, the loyal friendship that is established between Silvanito and the foreign protagonist of A Fistful of Dollars, without forgetting the use of the flashback expedient, always in For a Few Dollars More, to which the author will make increasing use in the three films, to get to Once Upon a Time in America, where the flashback constitutes the most conspicuous part of the story. Not that in the previous trilogy, where the venal aspect is undoubtedly (and inevitably) prevalent. 

Starting from the feeling of revenge, it is this that moves the actions of one of the protagonists of Once Upon a Time in the West, the nameless character who traces, to some extent, the role embodied by Clint Eastwood in the first trilogy, of a mysterious and silent hero.

If the placement of Once Upon a Time in the West appears easy, the same cannot be said of the next, troubled, work, namely Duck You Sucker. Conceived to be directed by Sam Peckinpah, when the latter refused, Leone decided to take care of it himself.

The film focuses on the Mexican revolution (so much so that, as already mentioned, the title Once Upon a Time in the Revolution was thought of, which remained for the French edition, while in English-speaking countries the film was baptized A Fistful of Dynamite, just to link it to the director's previous titles) and blends westerns, drama, political and social criticism, adventure, with some flashes of humor and history of Mexico (in fact, key figures of the revolution such as Villa, Madero, Huerta and Zapata are mentioned). If Bronson's Harmonica seems to recall the nameless man of the first Leonian

The Trilogy embodied by Eastwood, Rod Steiger's Juan Miranda seems an evolution of Tuco (Eli Wallach in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly), and certainly not only for the use of the same voice actor (the actor Carlo Romano, a legend of Italian dubbing) for the two characters. The beginning of the film is clearly western, with a classic robbery of a large stagecoach that ends with the appearance of the other protagonist, Sean (played by James Coburn), who, however, does not arrive on horseback (like Eastwood), but by getting on a motorcycle. Having understood John's talent for explosives, Miranda sees in him the key to open the door to an old family dream: to rob the fabulous bank of Mesa Verde. But Sean’s dreams are higher and deeper than that of the chicken thief Juan, being a bomber who fights alongside the revolutionaries (first Irish, now Mexican). The paths of the two seem irreconcilable, even more so since Miranda hates revolutions, but events will lead the robber to collide with reality: the revolution has destroyed his dreams (the bank of Mesa Verde has been transformed into a political prison no longer full of money, but of an army of starving people and his family made up of his elderly father and his six children, all from different mothers as he is keen to clarify is massacred in an ambush by government troops) leading him to the same disillusionment as Sean who, due to the betrayal of his best friend (who, as we see from the flashbacks, sold him and his companions, having them arrested and it is not clear whether he also took away the woman or their friendship was such as to lead them to peacefully share the same partner) now believes only in dynamite. Left without family and ambitions, Miranda tears the cross from his neck (in response to the fact that God, to whom he had recommended his children before the ambush, did not save them) and goes to his death, being saved at the last moment by Sean, with whom he has now established a relationship of sincere friendship, as the final scenes of the film will testify.

Once Upon a Time in America is a project dating back to at least fifteen years before its realization. Although several high-caliber names have been tried and hypothesized, Leone had chosen Robert De Niro as the protagonist in the role of Noodles since the seventies, so much so that he had discussed the film with the actor already at that time. Leone's latest work is perhaps his most ambitious, long-winded, the most strongly desired and also the longest lasting film (the director's cut, released in 2012 following painstaking restoration work, comes to a good four hours and ten minutes). If from a commercial point of view it was not a success (the takings of the dollar trilogy will be far higher than those of the trilogy of the time), over time critics and audiences have also consecrated this latest effort by the Roman director, which is once again a mixture of genres. The dreamlike dimension of Once Upon a Time in America is such as to induce the audience to wonder if the events narrated really happened or are the result of a hallucination induced to the protagonist by opium (although it appears for various reasons to be a theory all in all to be rejected). The author seems to return, at least in part, to the theme already dealt with in Once Upon a Time in the West, with reference to the advance of interests until they prevail over the honor and classic values of the heroes of the West (it is in fact interests and lust for power that contaminate the dream long shared by Noodles and Max played by James Wooods. But this work goes further, telling the almost entire existence of the two protagonists, united by the desire not to have to bow their heads in front of any master (a bit like the young Vito Corleone who rebels against Don Fanucci in The Godfather Part II) but divided by different passions, in particular Noodles' almost obsession with Deborah (Elizabeth McGovern), another dream of his, broken this time by his own hand by the violence to which he subjects her to yet another refusal to start a life together despite admitting to loving him.

A heterogeneity of genres and performers of the trilogy of the time (in spite of the homogeneity found in the dollar trilogy guaranteed by the presence on the scene of a hard core of performers such as Eastwood, Volontè. Van Cleef, Brega) is accompanied, therefore, by a convergence and continuity of contents: no longer money (or cigars) but, precisely, the dream, is the real protagonist.