Reworked by Claude Chabrol after the death of screenwriter Henri-Georges Clouzot (The Wages Of Fear, Diabolique), L’Enfer sees poor Fran
The L-Shaped Room is a stagy 1962 adaptation of a Lynne Reid Banks novel about pregnant French socialite Leslie Caron in a London bedsit, and is famous only to Smiths obsessives due to it being the source of the opening sample from The Queen Is Dead. John Schlesinger's 1965 Darling is a key text from the Swinging London canon, breezily and brilliantly skewering vacuous underwear model Diana Scott (Julie Christie) as she seduces her way into wealthy despair.
The L-Shaped Room is a stagy 1962 adaptation of a Lynne Reid Banks novel about pregnant French socialite Leslie Caron in a London bedsit, and is famous only to Smiths obsessives due to it being the source of the opening sample from The Queen Is Dead. John Schlesinger’s 1965 Darling is a key text from the Swinging London canon, breezily and brilliantly skewering vacuous underwear model Diana Scott (Julie Christie) as she seduces her way into wealthy despair.
Belated DVD release for Stephen (Blade) Norrington's flaccid 2001 meditation on the nature of, wince, 'celebrity culture'. Max Beesley, ineffably irritating in Alfie mode, is Billy Byrne, a talentless wannabe whose driving desire for fame sends him on a Hellish Journey? through London's criminal drug-dealing S&M underworld. Hateful characters, no discernible narrative voice, and hackneyed visuals. A mistake.
Belated DVD release for Stephen (Blade) Norrington’s flaccid 2001 meditation on the nature of, wince, ‘celebrity culture’. Max Beesley, ineffably irritating in Alfie mode, is Billy Byrne, a talentless wannabe whose driving desire for fame sends him on a Hellish Journey? through London’s criminal drug-dealing S&M underworld. Hateful characters, no discernible narrative voice, and hackneyed visuals. A mistake.
One of the best swashbucklers ever made. Tyrone Power is Don Diego de Vega?the son of a nobleman out to save the peasants of Olde Californy (and Linda Darnell) from the villainous Basil Rathbone. Fantastic swordfights (Rathbone was an Olympic duellist), and Power shows exactly how derring-do should be done.
One of the best swashbucklers ever made. Tyrone Power is Don Diego de Vega?the son of a nobleman out to save the peasants of Olde Californy (and Linda Darnell) from the villainous Basil Rathbone. Fantastic swordfights (Rathbone was an Olympic duellist), and Power shows exactly how derring-do should be done.
The Family Way sees squeaky-clean Hayley Mills as the perfect daughter to real-life dad John in this cautionary 1966 tale of a young married couple struggling with financial hardships and the apparently grim realities of married life. Accident, on the other hand, is a brooding psychodrama, written by Harold Pinter, directed by Joseph Losey and starring Dirk Bogarde as a tragic philosophy professor obsessed by Jacqueline Sassard's voluptuous student.
The Family Way sees squeaky-clean Hayley Mills as the perfect daughter to real-life dad John in this cautionary 1966 tale of a young married couple struggling with financial hardships and the apparently grim realities of married life. Accident, on the other hand, is a brooding psychodrama, written by Harold Pinter, directed by Joseph Losey and starring Dirk Bogarde as a tragic philosophy professor obsessed by Jacqueline Sassard’s voluptuous student.
The medium-defining shibboleth that induces paroxysms of adulation from film critics (but not filmgoers), Citizen Kane has become, in its inviolable immensity, the cinematic equivalent of its own overbearing protagonist, Charles Foster Kane. Yes, the 25-year-old Orson Welles' direction is astounding. Yes, Welles and Herman Mankiewicz's screenplay is a pointed satire of paper baron William Randolph Hearst. Yes, Gregg Toland's deep-focus cinematography is sumptuous. Yes, Bernard Herrmann's score is eerily ominous. And yes, the crane shots, the witty dissolves and the twist ending are all appropriately impressive for 1941. But looking beyond the technical bravura and the rhapsodic praise, and viewing the film in a guilt-free contemporary context, Kane quickly reveals just how cold and hollow a project it really is. Yes, it's a self-referential conundrum about the crushing emptiness of one man's life, but does that justify an empty movie, too?
The medium-defining shibboleth that induces paroxysms of adulation from film critics (but not filmgoers), Citizen Kane has become, in its inviolable immensity, the cinematic equivalent of its own overbearing protagonist, Charles Foster Kane. Yes, the 25-year-old Orson Welles’ direction is astounding. Yes, Welles and Herman Mankiewicz’s screenplay is a pointed satire of paper baron William Randolph Hearst. Yes, Gregg Toland’s deep-focus cinematography is sumptuous. Yes, Bernard Herrmann’s score is eerily ominous. And yes, the crane shots, the witty dissolves and the twist ending are all appropriately impressive for 1941. But looking beyond the technical bravura and the rhapsodic praise, and viewing the film in a guilt-free contemporary context, Kane quickly reveals just how cold and hollow a project it really is. Yes, it’s a self-referential conundrum about the crushing emptiness of one man’s life, but does that justify an empty movie, too?
Not even the presence of Peter Lorre can save Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea from being shoddy, badly written B-movie dreck. Fantastic Voyage may be creaky, but it's still great fun. Gasp as doctors (including Raquel Welch) get miniaturised and injected into the bloodstream of a comatose scientist to operate on his brain. Worth it for the impressively psychedelic SFX alone.
Not even the presence of Peter Lorre can save Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea from being shoddy, badly written B-movie dreck. Fantastic Voyage may be creaky, but it’s still great fun. Gasp as doctors (including Raquel Welch) get miniaturised and injected into the bloodstream of a comatose scientist to operate on his brain. Worth it for the impressively psychedelic SFX alone.
Pam Grier is a nurse turned vigilante, on a mission to avenge her strung-out kid sister by taking out the pushers, bad cops and corrupt politicians feeding off her neighbourhood. Hustling along to Roy Ayres' soundtrack, Jack Hill's 1973 movie is often grisly but treats its sex and violence with a surprising, and refreshing, matter-of-factness.
Pam Grier is a nurse turned vigilante, on a mission to avenge her strung-out kid sister by taking out the pushers, bad cops and corrupt politicians feeding off her neighbourhood. Hustling along to Roy Ayres’ soundtrack, Jack Hill’s 1973 movie is often grisly but treats its sex and violence with a surprising, and refreshing, matter-of-factness.
After a series of stunning cameo performances and a flamboyant turn opposite Robert De Niro in Flawless, Philip Seymour Hoffman makes full use of his first unopposed lead, running the gamut of grief as a successful techie crushed and drawn to petrol-sniffing by his wife's suicide. Fraught, funny, hysterical and truly touching.
After a series of stunning cameo performances and a flamboyant turn opposite Robert De Niro in Flawless, Philip Seymour Hoffman makes full use of his first unopposed lead, running the gamut of grief as a successful techie crushed and drawn to petrol-sniffing by his wife’s suicide. Fraught, funny, hysterical and truly touching.
Beloved spoof western which follows Jane Fonda's eponymous heroine, a schoolmarm-turned-outlaw, as she hires Lee Marvin's washed-up drunken gunslinger to stand against the lethal, tinnosed varmint (Marvin again) who killed her father. Never quite as funny as it thinks, but Marvin is sharp as a razor.
Beloved spoof western which follows Jane Fonda’s eponymous heroine, a schoolmarm-turned-outlaw, as she hires Lee Marvin’s washed-up drunken gunslinger to stand against the lethal, tinnosed varmint (Marvin again) who killed her father. Never quite as funny as it thinks, but Marvin is sharp as a razor.
A rock'n'roll movie without sex and drugs? Tom Hanks' directorial debut is an anachronism and proud of it. This tale of 1960s teen-pop sensation The Wonders (as in "one-hit") is breezy and good-natured, with Steve Zahn providing most of the laughs. The title tune by The Knack's Adam Schlesinger gets heavy rotation; thankfully it's a Beatle-esque beauty.
A rock’n’roll movie without sex and drugs? Tom Hanks’ directorial debut is an anachronism and proud of it. This tale of 1960s teen-pop sensation The Wonders (as in “one-hit”) is breezy and good-natured, with Steve Zahn providing most of the laughs. The title tune by The Knack’s Adam Schlesinger gets heavy rotation; thankfully it’s a Beatle-esque beauty.
Christopher Nolan's '98 DEBUT was made on a non-existent budget over a year of make-do weekend shoots, but introduced a shrewd talent with a unique knack for blow-to-the-solar-plexus storytelling. Its monochrome view of London's murkier nooks and crannies recalls Antonioni, but critics quickly tipped Nolan as the new Kubrick. And how he's delivered since. A lonely, bored wannabe writer semi-stalks random strangers (as 'research') but when a smooth-talking cat burglar turns the tables, he's seduced into a series of break-and-enter robberies. Falling for a girl whose flat he's been conned into turning over, he realises (in a device later gloriously developed in Memento) that all's not what it seems and he's way out of his depth. Twists, tension and a fresh tone of noir: this is Nolan in knock-out form, and a must for fans of his better-known biggies.
Christopher Nolan’s ’98 DEBUT was made on a non-existent budget over a year of make-do weekend shoots, but introduced a shrewd talent with a unique knack for blow-to-the-solar-plexus storytelling. Its monochrome view of London’s murkier nooks and crannies recalls Antonioni, but critics quickly tipped Nolan as the new Kubrick. And how he’s delivered since.
A lonely, bored wannabe writer semi-stalks random strangers (as ‘research’) but when a smooth-talking cat burglar turns the tables, he’s seduced into a series of break-and-enter robberies. Falling for a girl whose flat he’s been conned into turning over, he realises (in a device later gloriously developed in Memento) that all’s not what it seems and he’s way out of his depth. Twists, tension and a fresh tone of noir: this is Nolan in knock-out form, and a must for fans of his better-known biggies.
Gangs of New York is by no means the indisputable masterpiece Scorsese no doubt dearly believed it could have been. But this violent, seething, morally ambiguous, eventually muddled hymn to the troubled birth of New York is still frequently astonishing, with things you just don't see in anyone else's films. The look of the thing, for a start, is amazing, Scorsese's cameras hurtling around the elaborate facsimile of the city's Five Points district, a grim battleground ruled by the fearsome Bill The Butcher-played by Daniel Day-Lewis with a worrying intensity. Set principally in 1863, the American Civil War raging in the background, the movie's central narrative is pretty elementary. It's a patricidal revenge saga, basically, with Leonardo DiCaprio out to avenge the death of his father, the charismatic Priest Vallon, at the hands of the murderous Bill?Darth Vader in a stovepipe hat?who by now has adopted the scheming Leo as the son he never had (cue much teeth-gnashing and head-butting when DiCaprio's true intentions are revealed). Cameron Diaz is also at hand, in a barely-written role as the much tussled-over love interest. What really carries the film, however, is Day-Lewis' towering turn as Bill and the sheer ferocity of Scorsese's direction, the relentless momentum and unbelievable energy he packs into every teeming scene. The climax is disappointing?a muddled conflation of actual events and a misfiring showdown between DiCaprio and Day-Lewis?but much that has gone before is truly unforgettable.
DVD EXTRAS: Scorsese commentary, featurettes on costume design, the sets, history of the Five Points, documentary, trailer, U2 music video. 
Gangs of New York is by no means the indisputable masterpiece Scorsese no doubt dearly believed it could have been. But this violent, seething, morally ambiguous, eventually muddled hymn to the troubled birth of New York is still frequently astonishing, with things you just don’t see in anyone else’s films. The look of the thing, for a start, is amazing, Scorsese’s cameras hurtling around the elaborate facsimile of the city’s Five Points district, a grim battleground ruled by the fearsome Bill The Butcher-played by Daniel Day-Lewis with a worrying intensity. Set principally in 1863, the American Civil War raging in the background, the movie’s central narrative is pretty elementary. It’s a patricidal revenge saga, basically, with Leonardo DiCaprio out to avenge the death of his father, the charismatic Priest Vallon, at the hands of the murderous Bill?Darth Vader in a stovepipe hat?who by now has adopted the scheming Leo as the son he never had (cue much teeth-gnashing and head-butting when DiCaprio’s true intentions are revealed). Cameron Diaz is also at hand, in a barely-written role as the much tussled-over love interest. What really carries the film, however, is Day-Lewis’ towering turn as Bill and the sheer ferocity of Scorsese’s direction, the relentless momentum and unbelievable energy he packs into every teeming scene. The climax is disappointing?a muddled conflation of actual events and a misfiring showdown between DiCaprio and Day-Lewis?but much that has gone before is truly unforgettable.
DVD EXTRAS: Scorsese commentary, featurettes on costume design, the sets, history of the Five Points, documentary, trailer, U2 music video.
Siouxsie as a punk Monroe? Not quite, for despite the title, she looks more like a goth version of Marlene Dietrich in her pin-stripe suit. The jacket and tie later comes off to reveal a glittering bra as she works her voodoo on aged punks and new hedonists on the Banshees' 2002 reunion tour. Oldies such as "Spellbound", "Peek-A-Boo" and "Happy House" have lost none of their theatrical power and are augmented by one new track, an extraordinary version of The Beatles' "Blue Jay Way".
Siouxsie as a punk Monroe? Not quite, for despite the title, she looks more like a goth version of Marlene Dietrich in her pin-stripe suit. The jacket and tie later comes off to reveal a glittering bra as she works her voodoo on aged punks and new hedonists on the Banshees’ 2002 reunion tour. Oldies such as “Spellbound”, “Peek-A-Boo” and “Happy House” have lost none of their theatrical power and are augmented by one new track, an extraordinary version of The Beatles’ “Blue Jay Way”.
Hip and hunky priest Gene Hackman leads a motley gang of passengers through many a watery danger when a freak wave flips their passenger liner upside down. Classic disaster movie stuff, with the added bonus of a sweaty and thoroughly miffed Ernest Borgnine.
Hip and hunky priest Gene Hackman leads a motley gang of passengers through many a watery danger when a freak wave flips their passenger liner upside down. Classic disaster movie stuff, with the added bonus of a sweaty and thoroughly miffed Ernest Borgnine.
Enjoyable coming-of-age saga from Joe Dante, set against the backdrop of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Huckster movie director Lawrence Woolsey (John Goodman) arrives in a small Florida town to promote his latest gimmick-laden monster flick. Goodman's great as Woolsey (obviously based on William Castle), and Dante successfully evokes the era without being overly nostalgic.
Enjoyable coming-of-age saga from Joe Dante, set against the backdrop of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Huckster movie director Lawrence Woolsey (John Goodman) arrives in a small Florida town to promote his latest gimmick-laden monster flick. Goodman’s great as Woolsey (obviously based on William Castle), and Dante successfully evokes the era without being overly nostalgic.
The Rolling Stones recently cancelled what would have been their first ever visit to China. But Morcheeba made the trip earlier this year and their visit is commemorated on From Brixton to Beijing . Live footage, film of the band tobogganing down the Great Wall and a cameo appearance by Lambchop's Kurt Wagner contribute to an intelligently produced DVD that is several cuts above your average point-and-shoot tour diary. If there's anything worse than the gratuitous reunion, it's the even-more-gratuitous DVD of the event. The Adventures Of Sham 69 
was filmed on tour last year. Songs such as "Borstal Breakout" were dubious enough at the time. Today they commit the even worse sin of sounding tame. Marvin Gaye Live In Montreux 1980 
is a standard concert film without extras. But it's a blisteringly soulful performance with "Let's Get It On" and "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" predictably among the triumphs. Elton John's Greatest Hits?One Night Only was recorded over two nights at Madison Square Garden in October 2000. The versions of songs such as "Tiny Dancer" and "Philadelphia Freedom" are decent enough. But a list of guests that includes Ronan Keating, Bryan Adams and Billy Joel turns it into more of a celebrity love-in than a concert. Guitar Gods is a superior exercise in nostalgia and compiles performances by a dozen different axe heroes, including Carlos Santana, Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix and Duane Eddy. Blues Masters?The Essential History Of The Blues lacks the personal touch of Bill Wyman's Blues Odyssey, reviewed here recently. But you can only marvel at the b/w footage of Son House, Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday. Gary Crowley hosts We Could Be Kings , a brisk run-through of 16 classic indie guitar anthems, including The Las' timeless "There She Goes" and The Jam's "That's Entertainment".
(PH)
The Rolling Stones recently cancelled what would have been their first ever visit to China. But Morcheeba made the trip earlier this year and their visit is commemorated on From Brixton to Beijing . Live footage, film of the band tobogganing down the Great Wall and a cameo appearance by Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner contribute to an intelligently produced DVD that is several cuts above your average point-and-shoot tour diary. If there’s anything worse than the gratuitous reunion, it’s the even-more-gratuitous DVD of the event. The Adventures Of Sham 69 was filmed on tour last year. Songs such as “Borstal Breakout” were dubious enough at the time. Today they commit the even worse sin of sounding tame. Marvin Gaye Live In Montreux 1980 is a standard concert film without extras. But it’s a blisteringly soulful performance with “Let’s Get It On” and “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” predictably among the triumphs. Elton John’s Greatest Hits?One Night Only was recorded over two nights at Madison Square Garden in October 2000. The versions of songs such as “Tiny Dancer” and “Philadelphia Freedom” are decent enough. But a list of guests that includes Ronan Keating, Bryan Adams and Billy Joel turns it into more of a celebrity love-in than a concert. Guitar Gods is a superior exercise in nostalgia and compiles performances by a dozen different axe heroes, including Carlos Santana, Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix and Duane Eddy. Blues Masters?The Essential History Of The Blues lacks the personal touch of Bill Wyman’s Blues Odyssey, reviewed here recently. But you can only marvel at the b/w footage of Son House, Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday. Gary Crowley hosts We Could Be Kings , a brisk run-through of 16 classic indie guitar anthems, including The Las’ timeless “There She Goes” and The Jam’s “That’s Entertainment”.
(PH)
Part of a triple DVD pack, this contains footage of German TV show Beat Club, a legendary showcase for the best bands of the era. Its late-'60s archive is now a valuable resource for DVD compilers. Like a visual companion to Uncut's Acid Daze CD given away two issues ago, Psychedelic High features Donovan, Arthur Brown, the Small Faces and The Nice all overlapping with that collection. The Who and The Moody Blues also attend what is mostly a very English psychedelic tea party, although The Byrds, Blue Cheer and Canned Heat fly the American freak flag.
Part of a triple DVD pack, this contains footage of German TV show Beat Club, a legendary showcase for the best bands of the era. Its late-’60s archive is now a valuable resource for DVD compilers. Like a visual companion to Uncut’s Acid Daze CD given away two issues ago, Psychedelic High features Donovan, Arthur Brown, the Small Faces and The Nice all overlapping with that collection. The Who and The Moody Blues also attend what is mostly a very English psychedelic tea party, although The Byrds, Blue Cheer and Canned Heat fly the American freak flag.
Inspired by a Bowie gig, Trilogy sees The Cure perform three of their LPs in full over two nights at Berlin's Tempodrom?the classics Pornography and Disintegration plus the more recent Bloodflowers. With the band, as usual, brilliantly lit and the event shot with 12 separate cameras, this is far superior to normal live fare. The music, too, benefits from perhaps the band's strongest line-up. Pornography, originally performed by a trio, here becomes a maudlin monolith, with the ageless Smith somehow reinfused with a bitterness now 20 years old. Thrilling.
Inspired by a Bowie gig, Trilogy sees The Cure perform three of their LPs in full over two nights at Berlin’s Tempodrom?the classics Pornography and Disintegration plus the more recent Bloodflowers. With the band, as usual, brilliantly lit and the event shot with 12 separate cameras, this is far superior to normal live fare. The music, too, benefits from perhaps the band’s strongest line-up. Pornography, originally performed by a trio, here becomes a maudlin monolith, with the ageless Smith somehow reinfused with a bitterness now 20 years old. Thrilling.
Since '96, this troubled, troublesome masterpiece has been unavailable on any format. Until now. But this is the least of the obstacles it's faced in reaching the audience it merits. The director turned down the opportunity to helm The Godfather to make it. Here's where we get controversial: it's a much better, richer film than Coppola's, and it's Leone's best. Grand statements, sure, but nothing to match the grander statements and panoramic power of this sweeping, savage celluloid poem. Leone conceived it as a fable. "It's not realistic, it's not historical, it's fantastic," he said in '84, claiming as influences Chandler, Hemingway, Dos Passos and Fitzgerald. (It's actually loosely adapted from Harry Grey's autobiographical novel The Hoods, and early versions of the script?credited to six names?were worked on by Norman Mailer). The Italian director saw it as a homage to the America he got to know, or imagine, from films?to his dreams and memories of the land. Shooting began in '82, in Cinecitta, Venice, Paris, Florida, Montreal and New York, and the movie first screened at Cannes in '84. Leone had already made his name with the Fistful Of Dollars trilogy and Once Upon A Time In The West. Initial reviews of the then four-hours-plus epic were exuberant. The money men, however, had been burned by Philip Kaufman's The Right Stuff which, at over three hours, had stalled at the box office the previous year. They butchered Leone's sepia-and-soul film into a 139-minute, strictly chronological story: in this hacked-to-bits state, it died in the US. The rest of the world at least got the longer version, applauding appropriately. You have to love the old tagline: "As boys they said they would die for each other. As men they did." The intact, immense saga follows the destinies of our Jewish gangsters across four decades, from youth in the '20s to 1968, from their bonding as Lower East Side kids through their violent rise to power as dominant hoods of the Prohibition era to a later settling of debts. They're led by the shy but decisive Noodles (Robert De Niro) and the hot-tempered, amoral Max (James Woods). The women in their life are Deborah (Elizabeth McGovern), Noodles' boyhood crush (first played by a young Jennifer Connelly), and Carol (Tuesday Weld), initially a hate figure and ultimately a match for Max. There's sterling support from Treat Williams, Burt Young and Joe Pesci as a mobster (for once outplayed for loose cannon rage by Woods, who is absolutely incendiary.) De Niro is brilliant throughout, ageing convincingly, somehow both blankly impassive and riddled with guilt for a lifetime of sin. For a character who commits one, possibly two rape attacks (on Weld and McGovern), he's freakily sympathetic. Perhaps because Leone constructs Noodles' inarticulate love and yearning for Deborah to Gatsby-esque proportions. His frustration at her insouciance becomes plausible if unforgivable. And Woods, in his heated pomp, is just blistering, a primal force. The only time he's intimidated is when De Niro silently stirs a cup of coffee for an unduly long time: Leone homes in and makes it the most threatening, sinister act conceivable. Watch this a hundred times; it still gives you chills. Leone's leaps between time periods, with multiple jumps forward and back, is never bewildering. He rarely opts for a gung-ho gimmick where the subtle establishing of a melancholy mood will suffice. The ambitious structure achieves exactly the levels of poetic resonance he's aiming for, and his unsavoury, shadowy men become mythical characters. He's helped considerably by Ennio Morricone's elegiac score, one of his very finest and most stirring, which elevates the themes of misguided love, broken loyalty and mesmeric friendship even higher. Through an incredible red-tape oversight?"somebody forgot to enter it, it was as stupid as that", the producer Arnon Milchan's recalled?it was never submitted for an Oscar. The history of this film, then, is littered with poor decisions and self-inflicted injuries. Yet it's a stream of scenes, both beautiful and vicious, which run to a heartbreaking whole, and a profoundly moving prayer to mortality and the passing of time, stunningly shot, agonisingly well-acted. This release, hopefully, will enhance its belatedly solid reputation as one of the true all-time greats.
Since ’96, this troubled, troublesome masterpiece has been unavailable on any format. Until now. But this is the least of the obstacles it’s faced in reaching the audience it merits. The director turned down the opportunity to helm The Godfather to make it. Here’s where we get controversial: it’s a much better, richer film than Coppola’s, and it’s Leone’s best. Grand statements, sure, but nothing to match the grander statements and panoramic power of this sweeping, savage celluloid poem.
Leone conceived it as a fable. “It’s not realistic, it’s not historical, it’s fantastic,” he said in ’84, claiming as influences Chandler, Hemingway, Dos Passos and Fitzgerald. (It’s actually loosely adapted from Harry Grey’s autobiographical novel The Hoods, and early versions of the script?credited to six names?were worked on by Norman Mailer). The Italian director saw it as a homage to the America he got to know, or imagine, from films?to his dreams and memories of the land. Shooting began in ’82, in Cinecitta, Venice, Paris, Florida, Montreal and New York, and the movie first screened at Cannes in ’84. Leone had already made his name with the Fistful Of Dollars trilogy and Once Upon A Time In The West. Initial reviews of the then four-hours-plus epic were exuberant.
The money men, however, had been burned by Philip Kaufman’s The Right Stuff which, at over three hours, had stalled at the box office the previous year. They butchered Leone’s sepia-and-soul film into a 139-minute, strictly chronological story: in this hacked-to-bits state, it died in the US. The rest of the world at least got the longer version, applauding appropriately.
You have to love the old tagline: “As boys they said they would die for each other. As men they did.” The intact, immense saga follows the destinies of our Jewish gangsters across four decades, from youth in the ’20s to 1968, from their bonding as Lower East Side kids through their violent rise to power as dominant hoods of the Prohibition era to a later settling of debts. They’re led by the shy but decisive Noodles (Robert De Niro) and the hot-tempered, amoral Max (James Woods). The women in their life are Deborah (Elizabeth McGovern), Noodles’ boyhood crush (first played by a young Jennifer Connelly), and Carol (Tuesday Weld), initially a hate figure and ultimately a match for Max. There’s sterling support from Treat Williams, Burt Young and Joe Pesci as a mobster (for once outplayed for loose cannon rage by Woods, who is absolutely incendiary.)
De Niro is brilliant throughout, ageing convincingly, somehow both blankly impassive and riddled with guilt for a lifetime of sin. For a character who commits one, possibly two rape attacks (on Weld and McGovern), he’s freakily sympathetic. Perhaps because Leone constructs Noodles’ inarticulate love and yearning for Deborah to Gatsby-esque proportions. His frustration at her insouciance becomes plausible if unforgivable. And Woods, in his heated pomp, is just blistering, a primal force. The only time he’s intimidated is when De Niro silently stirs a cup of coffee for an unduly long time: Leone homes in and makes it the most threatening, sinister act conceivable. Watch this a hundred times; it still gives you chills.
Leone’s leaps between time periods, with multiple jumps forward and back, is never bewildering. He rarely opts for a gung-ho gimmick where the subtle establishing of a melancholy mood will suffice. The ambitious structure achieves exactly the levels of poetic resonance he’s aiming for, and his unsavoury, shadowy men become mythical characters. He’s helped considerably by Ennio Morricone’s elegiac score, one of his very finest and most stirring, which elevates the themes of misguided love, broken loyalty and mesmeric friendship even higher. Through an incredible red-tape oversight?”somebody forgot to enter it, it was as stupid as that”, the producer Arnon Milchan’s recalled?it was never submitted for an Oscar.
The history of this film, then, is littered with poor decisions and self-inflicted injuries. Yet it’s a stream of scenes, both beautiful and vicious, which run to a heartbreaking whole, and a profoundly moving prayer to mortality and the passing of time, stunningly shot, agonisingly well-acted. This release, hopefully, will enhance its belatedly solid reputation as one of the true all-time greats.
