Friday, December 14, 2007

Once Upon A Time In America 1


from Wikipedia:
Once Upon a Time in America is a 1984 crime film directed by Sergio Leone, starring Robert De Niro and James Woods. The story chronicles the lives of Jewish ghetto youths who rise to prominence in New York City's world of organized crime. The film explores childhood friendships, loss, broken relationships, and the appearance of mobsters in American society.
The film is made up of two extended flashback sequences (in 1921 and 1933, respectively), along with a framing device set in 1968. Summoned back to New York after thirty five years in hiding, David "Noodles" Aaronson is forced to confront his past as he searches for the person who tracked him down.
The movie begins and ends in 1933, with Noodles hiding out in a Cjinatown opium den from Syndicate hitmen. Since the last shot of the movie is of Noodles in a smiling, opium-soaked high, some (as mentioned above) interpret the film to have been a drug-induced fantasy or dream, with Noodles remembering his past and envisioning the future. In his commentary for the DVD, film historian and critic Richard Schickel states that opium users often report vivid dreams and that these visions have a tendency to explore the user's past and future. In the documentary "A Fistful of Sergio Leone", it is reported that Leone himself hinted at this theory to a cinemagoer who had just seen the movie.

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