Reviews of two Sergio Leone epics on laserdisc

Reviews of two Sergio Leone epics on laserdisc

His Kurosawa-derived spaghetti Westerns with Clint Eastwood made director Sergio Leone’s reputation, but these two later epics — one an operatic apotheosis of his cowboy flicks, the other a brilliantly detailed Lower East Side Jewish version of The Godfather — are clearly his finest work, unless you’ve only seen them on TV or tape, where his innovative wide-screen compositions have been inevitably mangled. In fact, what the letterboxed laserdiscs of Once Upon a Time in the West and Once Upon a Time in America make obvious is that those cropped versions are essentially excerpts from the original movies, and that images this sweeping demand to be viewed as Leone filmed them. Pounce, laserdisc fans. Both discs: A