Once Upon a Time in America (1984)

Fat Moe: “What have you been doing for all these years?”

Noodles Aaronson: “I’ve been going to bed early.”

Noodles (Robert DeNiro) may have been going to bed early, but one gets the feeling that he hasn’t been sleeping well. He left his life as a gangster in New York behind after surviving a gang war and disappeared into the ether, re-emerging only when he receives a mysterious phone call that summons him home. From this setup, Once Upon a Time in America ostensibly begins as a mystery; as the film reveals more events from Noodles’ life, however, Once transforms into a sorrowful meditation on the nature of memory and the transformative power of time through its masterful use of a non-linear (and perhaps imagined by Noodles) narrative.

Once Upon a Time in America‘s production amazes because Noodles is no more than a “two-bit thug,” as the love of his life, Deborah (Elizabeth McGovern) describes him: a man who has killed for money and for passion, who has raped women and stolen pocket watches, money, and the innocence of Deborah. The combination of visual elements is therefore all the more remarkable because the final shot inspires the utmost of sympathy in the viewer for Noodles. This effect is aided by Ennio Morricone’s stirring score, a collection of disparate instruments (a pan flute accompanying a soprano singer!) and musical ideas that meditate on the film’s themes, then revisit those motifs throughout the nearly four hours of screen time, adding new concepts and resolving them with Deborah’s Theme, an all-time great Morricone composition that captures the melancholy that permeates everything the viewer thinks about when they consider what they have seen in Once.

The best revenge is a life well-lived; by embodying that proverb, Noodles rises above his humble street beginnings – a life symbolized by hitting the man who hit you – to a more noble ethos. Inversely, Noodles’ friend Max (James Woods) steals Noodles’ life, living a life of leisure and comfort, complete with power and influence, and yet his betrayal negates any attempt he makes to rise above the streets. Max becomes the two-bit thug and wants Noodles to succumb to the depths that they plumbed together as youths-in-crime. Noodles declines and ascends to a kind of sainted status, peering through time and his memories, trying to put together the pieces of his life’s narrative.

Which brings the viewer back to the final shot – what Leone suggests with this final composition is that the desire to make things right is powerful in the mind precisely because that mental space, separate from reality, allows a person to tie things together neatly, something that life will almost never permit. Noodles doesn’t allow himself the happiest of endings; rather, he sees his life as a calm acceptance of what has happened and a dedication to moving on. This desire and the visions that accompany it rarely translate into action, but beauty lies in the believing that closure is possible.