The Big Picture
Sergio Leone’s
Once Upon a Time in America
was heavily edited for its U.S. release, resulting in a loss of the film’s nonlinear storytelling and spirit.
Martin Scorsese played a crucial role in restoring the film to its original vision, working with Leone’s family, and finding lost footage.
The restoration of this cinematic masterpiece is significant not only as a tribute to Leone’s legacy but also to highlight the importance of film preservation and restoration in the industry.
Sergio Leone’s final film Once Upon a Time in America is a poetic portrait of conflict, love, and meaning through the lens of a prohibition-era gangster film. Despite being lauded as one of, if not the finest work the filmmaker has ever put out, it was at the receiving end of mixed reviews upon its release. It wasn’t because Leone’s film was polarizing around whether it was a “good” or “bad” picture. Rather, it was because two different versions of the film were distributed in different parts of the world. What was supposed to be the brilliant farewell of one of the greatest filmmakers in history became a box-office disaster in the U.S. The hands of time have since turned Once Upon a Time in America into an undeservedly overlooked picture. Thankfully, another auteur who had looked up to Leone had a hand in rescuing it. Martin Scorsese worked with Leone’s family to provide a restoration that got as close as possible to the master of Spaghetti Westerns’ original vision.
Once Upon a Time in America
A former Prohibition-era Jewish gangster returns to the Lower East Side of Manhattan 35 years later, where he must once again confront the ghosts and regrets of his old life.
Release Date May 23, 1984
Director Sergio Leone
Runtime 139
The U.S. Release of ‘Once Upon a Time in America’ Was Heavily Edited
The release of Once Upon a Time in America was 15 years in the making, as Michael Carlson notes in Sergio Leone: Pocket Essentials. Leone first encountered the story when his brother-in-law read him Harry Grey’s novel The Hoods, which he saw as a fascinating peek into the world of gangsters. In 1968, Leone met Grey, and eventually got the rights to adapt it into a feature film. Leone famously rejected an offer to direct The Godfather around this time, mainly because of his connection to Grey’s novel, and his desire to create something of his own mythology. After several re-writes, personnel changes, and several studios’ wishes to be involved, principal photography began in June 1982. Howard Hughes notes in Crime Wave: The Filmgoers’ Guide to the Great Crime Movies that Leone’s initial cut was six hours long, just as the filmmaker intended it to be. Eventually, through conversations with the studio, the film was eventually shortened to the official director’s cut of 229 minutes.
Upon its off-competition screening in Cannes in 1984, Once Upon a Time in America received rave reviews and a lengthy standing ovation. It was not without its critics, however, with records from the American Film Institute Catalogs detailing how some reviewers called it “confusing” and “lacking in clarity and purpose.” However, when distributing the film in the United States, the movie encountered bigger problems. Based on a test screening in Boston which garnered negative reactions, The Ladd Company suggested Leone employ drastic cuts, stating that the gangster epic was too long for audiences. Leone outright refused this, which led the production company to hire its own editor. Almost an hour of footage was removed from Leone’s cut, and the story rearranged in chronological order, losing the spirit of the film which was nested in its non-linear storytelling.
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Rafaella Leone, Sergio’s daughter, states that her father never really considered it as a version of his film, and it looked like a sour ending to the filmmaker’s legendary career. Despite several screenings of the European cut being released in the U.S. within the same year, the damage was already done. Sergio Leone died five years later, presumably still with the heartbreaking thought that Once Upon a Time in America was a blemish on his near-perfect filmography, at least for the United States audience.
How Is Martin Scorsese’s ‘Once Upon a Time in America’ Restoration Different?
While a four-hour version with commentary was released by Warner Bros. for home video in 2003, an interesting development came in 2011 when Sergio’s daughters, Andrea and Raffaella Leone, acquired the rights to Once Upon a Time in America. Martin Scorsese’s entry into the mix officially gave Once Upon a Time in America a new lease on life. Scorsese’s The Film Foundation, together with Gucci, funded the endeavor and worked with Leone’s children, Cineteca di Bologna, and Regency Enterprises to reconstitute a new 251-minute cut of the film. The LA Times reports that some footage from Leone’s initial six-hour cut was found by his family, albeit in terrible condition. They were in the form of small reels, rather than complete prints, with the negatives believed to have been fully lost.
These include a sequence where Noodles (Robert De Niro) encounters a mysterious cemetery director played by Louise Fletcher, as well as a stage-play performance by Deborah (Elizabeth McGovern) as Cleopatra. Scorsese’s personal print, conserved at the Museum of Modern Art, was used as a basis for the color correction for the restored version. Despite a few issues with rights which were eventually resolved, the restored picture was shown at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, and was released on Warner Home Video in 2014 as Once Upon a Time in America: Extended Director’s Cut.
Why Is ‘Once Upon a Time in America’s Restoration Important?
The restoration of Sergio Leone’s swan song is significant for many reasons. For one, it is a fitting testament to one of the pillars of the industry. Once Upon a Time in America is a cinematic spectacle, and is perhaps the most complex and layered of all of Leone’s films. Restoring it with today’s technology provides movie lovers the opportunity to appreciate a piece of art that grows on viewers each time they watch it. James Woods, who plays Max in the picture, went as far as claiming that Leone died of a broken heart, particularly due to the reception of the film in the United States.
Having a filmmaker’s work be significantly changed without his consent is nothing short of a travesty, and it is only right that his final work be given the reverence it truly deserves. More than a tribute, it is also a significant event for movies in general. Film restoration is perhaps one of the noblest endeavors in cinema, a mission that Martin Scorsese has continued to pursue since the establishment of The Film Foundation in 1990. Restoring a classic like this and releasing it on home video could bring more eyes to the importance of keeping film history intact. As Scorsese mentions in an impassioned letter to filmmakers, if we cannot realize how essential film restoration is, everything that they are doing right now means absolutely nothing.
Once Upon a Time in America is available to stream on Paramount+ in the U.S.
Watch on Paramount+