My Favorite Closing Shots: Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America and Danny Boyle's Trainspotting

Artist and Muse #7

Sergio Leone and Claudia Cardinale on the set of the astonishing Once Upon A Time In The West. Head over to http://www.claudiacardinale.co.uk/menu.htm for a lovely tribute to one of the most beautiful actresses in screen history.
Once Upon A Time In The West is available in a fine double disc special edition dvd from MGM for under ten dollars. Rumor has it that Leone's Fistful Of Dollars and For A Few Dollars more will finally be re-released as special editions later this year.

Bjork On The Fountain

While I am attempting to formulate a halfway intelligent post on THE FOUNTAIN I thought I would share a couple of quotes from Bjork on the film. I came across these on a great discussion going on about the film over at the Criterion forum. One is from a Stylus magazine feature and another is from an interview with Aronofsky at The Guardian. Links for both interviews will be provided below. Apparently Bjork really took the film to heart and it influenced her newest album, the very fine and exciting VOLTA.

Question (Stylus): "You’re clearly an “artist” as much as a musician—what are some of the more affecting pieces of artwork or film or design or theater you’ve seen in the past few years that might’ve given Volta some of its shading?"

Answer (Bjork) "I was really impressed with [Darren Aronofsky’s film] The Fountain. It was refreshing to see someone expressing visually their inner spirituality without it being full of organized religion. There was more personal spirituality, which is how I feel we are all on the inside."

Then the added thoughts from The Guardian:

Björk says: "With Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain, maybe it was a relief to see him portray a spiritual world that was so idiosyncratic at a time when I feel so overwhelmed by religion. It's so strange that the inner- most secret place in a person is their spiritual belief, and something as mass-produced as organised religion can just storm in there. The Fountain is not Christian or Jewish or Muslim -it's areligious; not against or with it. It's just alternative."

...
The spirituality in THE FOUNTAIN is one of the main things I respond to so it was really nice to see an artist I respect as much as Bjork express these thoughts.

Finally in an interview with New York magazine Aronofsky listed his own personal influences in making THE FOUNTAIN. They are:

David Bowie’s “Space Oddity”

Comic artist Moebius’s 40 Days in the Desert

The Popol Vuh (The Mayan sacred text)

Bernal Díaz del Castillo’s The Conquest of New Spain

Uruguayan journalist Eduardo Galeano’s “Memory of Fire” trilogy

Werner Herzog’s Aguirre, the Wrath of God

Alejandro Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain

Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America

Early hip-hop group E.S.G.’s “U.F.O.”

Diego Velázquez

Regular readers of this blog will no doubt recognize some of my favorites are on there. THE HOLY MOUNTAIN connection seems pretty obvious but I was very thankful to see ONCE UPON IN AMERICA pop up. This isn't a connection I would have made but the structures of the films are similar in the way that the past, present and future are all closely connected, plus the main characters sense of guilt and memories of a lost love.
I hope to be posting my own thoughts of THE FOUNTAIN soon, it is a film that I am feeling very close to so I don't want to throw out just a casual post on it.

The discussion at the Criterion forum shows perfectly just how much this film is dividing people and it is extremely interesting reading.

Here are the Stylus and Guardian links:
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,2065823,00.html
http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/interview/bjork.htm


Bjork's new album is now available and is a fine addition to one of the most innovative catalogues in popular music.

Sergio Leone's Last Great Discovery

ONCE UPON IN AMERICA (1984) is my favorite Sergio Leone film and, to go even further, is one of the finest films I have ever seen. It is a film that has become more and more rewarding with each passing year and I can't imagine ever getting tired of its complex nature and narrative.
I love every aspect of the film but I think might my favorite scenes might be the remarkable moments where we are transported back in time to see Noodles and his gang as children. Cinematically these moments are handled in such an exquisite way, and they remain some of the only scenes in any film that actually feels like memory. For whatever reason, whether it is the way Leone and Tonino Delli Colli shot these moments or the way that Ennio Morricone's unmatchable and beautiful score is aligned with them, these shots remain some of the most profound and personal that I have ever seen.

Of course this section of the film also introduced us to the wonder that is Jennifer Connelly. Discovered by Leone just after her 13th birthday (she only had one small television credit at that point) and hired on to play the key role of the young Deborah after successfully auditioning with Robert De Niro himself, Connelly is unforgettable in the handful of scenes she appears in. I would argue that it is these moments between her and the young Noodles that more than anything else gives the film the devastating emotional impact it has.

The film, Leone's last and Jennifer's first, is every bit as good to me as THE GODFATHER or any other great epic gangster film you'd care to name. Jennifer would follow up the film working for another great Italian legend, but more on that later this week.
Here is a clip of Jennifer talking about Leone. Unfortunately James Lipton cuts her off before she is able to say a lot, but the experience obviously remains a special one to her. I have a feeling she wanted to speak a lot more on it.

The Jennifer Connelly B-Sides: Étoile (1988)

Filmed in Italy less than five years after her astonishing debut in Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America, 1988’s Étoile remains one of the most little seen films in the career of Jennifer Connelly. Never gaining a United States release and currently only available in Japan, the film remains along with a smattering of television appearances one of the key missing pieces in what has become one of the most remarkable careers in modern cinema.


As directed by Peter Del Monte, who co-scripted it with Italian horror favorite Franco Ferrini, Étoile is an interesting if confused little film that never seems to fully make up its mind as to what it wants to be in its 101 minute running time. Part love story mixed with an odd tale of possession, Étoile isn’t a bad film, but it is a muddled one and one gets the feeling while watching it that it could have been so much more than it finally is.


Connelly stars as a young American dancer named Claire Hamilton who is attempting to make her way into a prestigious Italian Ballet school as the film opens. Claire soon meets and falls in love with a geeky but sweet young man also visiting the town, but their hopes of a solid relationship are damaged when she is inexplicably taken over spiritually by a dead ballerina named Nathalie whose great goal is to perform the ultimate version of Swan Lake.


Forgive me if my plot description of the film is a bit confused, but honestly it is a pretty fair representation of Del Monte’s bizarre script that hops from one head-scratching situation to another. No one would accuse Étoile of being predictable but unfortunately it’s not very cohesive either, so any sort of plot description is futile at best.


California born Del Monte has certainly had an interesting career with Étoile representing neither the best nor the worst of it. The high point to my eyes for the writer-director remains the fascinating Asia Argento vehicle Traveling Companion, a wonderful film that shows Del Monte is a really talented gentleman capable of getting some wonderfully nuanced and touching work out of his actors. Other films in his canon include the 1982 cult film Invitation au Voyage, the utterly bizarre 1987 Kathleen Turner production Julia and Julia, and 2000’s Controvento which featured Del Monte’s sometimes companion Valerie Golino. Étoile represents the mid-point for Del Monte and he shot the film in his mid forties, just after production on Julia and Julia had been completed.


Etoile’s cast is not surprisingly mostly made up of Italian actors, although much loved award winning Charles Durning appears in what has to be considered one of his most bizarre performances. A particular out of the blue break down sequence in a phone booth takes its place as on of the film’s and Durning’s most ill-conceived moments, but otherwise the always durable Durning gives the film a lot of support and watchability.


Technically the film is fine. It has that certain mid eighties sheen on it, thanks to cinematographer Acacio de Almeida, that automatically makes it feel very much of its time. The Set Direction by Oscar winner Bruno Cesari is very well thought and the film is nothing if not stately and handsome. Otherwise the most notable behind the scenes touch comes from frequent Wim Wender’s composer Jurgen Knieper who contributes a solid if not totally memorable score.


The film would probably have all but been lost in time right now were it not for the luminous young Connelly, and Étoile captures her at an interesting point in her career. Having still not developed the astonishing power she now possesses as an actress capable of delivering some of the most honest and intense work in American film, Connelly is still slightly awkward here but charmingly so. Possessing a natural grace and an uncommon beauty, Connelly’s work here feels a bit like an answer of sorts to her work in Argento’s Phenomena a few years before. I suspect screenwriter Ferrini felt the same way as he had indeed written her fan favorite role Jennifer Corvino for Argento, and I am sure some of the connections here between the two films were intentional, although Étoile is nowhere near as fascinating as Phenomena.


Étoile never really comes together but for Jennifer Connelly fans it is more than worth searching out. The film had a belated European release in 1990 but from what I can tell it failed to really catch on anywhere in the world. I suspect some enterprising small company will eventually release it stateside but for right now the Region 2 Japanese disc (that is out of print at this point) is the only game in town, save for grey market copies.

Noodles and Deborah Together Again

Vanity Fair has never been one of my favorite magazines but their annual Hollywood issues are always something to look forward to due to the always splendid photography. This months is possibly the best ever with Annie Leibovitz paying tribute to Film Noir with an incredible assortment of some of our finest living stars.
The photo that put a lump in my throat features a reunion of sorts between Once Upon A Time In America's Noodles and Deborah. Sergio Leone's epic film from 1984 is a favorite of mine and it gave Robert De Niro one of his greatest roles and introduced the world to the lovely and talented Jennifer Connelly.
Connelly and De Niro have never actually worked together as Connelly played Deborah as a young girl while Elizabeth Mcgovern played her as a grown up and shared the screen time with De Niro. Connelly's portrayal of the young Deborah continues to give Once Upon A Time In America the overwhelmingly haunting feel that it continues to exude all of these years later.
This photograph marks the first time Connelly and De Niro have actually worked together to my knowledge. Pardon the scan quality but it's just meant as a teaser to a great Leibovitz spread that can be easily found everywhere.
Connelly would go from Leone's epic to one of Dario Argento's most personal films and has built a lovely career and life for herself. De Niro continues to be one of our great icons and will hopefully one day return to roles, like Noodles, that expose his great talent for all it can be.