Once Upon a Time in the West

Prior to seeing this film, Mr Pinky was under the impression that it was one of those poorly dubbed comedic spaghetti westerns. How wrong could this little porker be.

Making its debut in 1968 this amazing and haunting film offers a brutal and frightening view of the mythologised American west. Italian director Sergio Leone's decision to cast cinema's Mr Nice Guy Henry Fonda as the film's murderous villain is just one example of how he was able to turn the western genre on its head. Right from the film's opening, in a long dialogue-less scene, Leone is able to create a scene of almost unbearable tension purely through his astonishing visual sense and use of sound.

Leone once said "the rhythm of the film was intended to create the sensation of the last gasps that a person takes just before dying" and that " all of the characters in the film except Claudia Cardinale are conscious of the fact they will not arrive at the end alive" As bleak as that sounds, what Leone has done is to imbue a previously tired genre with a poetic individuality of its very own. Definitely worth a spin on a big widescreen tv. I can only imagine how good it looks in a cinema!