Once Upon a Time: Sergio Leone (2001)

Personalities, enthusiasts, actors, writers and others take a look back at Sergio Leone's final film "Once Upon a Time in America", sharing good stories and also sad ones about one of the ... See full summary »

Director:

Howard Hill

Writer:

Howard Hill

Stars:

Carla Leone, Piero De Bernardi, Enrico Medioli

Cast

Credited cast:
Carla Leone	...	Herself
Piero De Bernardi	...	Himself
Enrico Medioli	...	Himself
Arnon Milchan	...	Himself
Stuart Kaminsky	...	Himself
Quentin Tarantino	...	Himself
Raffaella Leone	...	Herself
Artie Rose	...	Himself (as Scott Tiler)
James Woods	...	Himself
Leonardo Benvenuti	...	Himself
Francesca Leone	...	Herself
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Howard Hill	...	Narrator (voice)
Sergio Leone	...	Himself (archive footage)

Storyline

Personalities, enthusiasts, actors, writers and others take a look back at Sergio Leone's final film "Once Upon a Time in America", sharing good stories and also sad ones about one of the most important epics of all time. James Woods and the screenwriters talk about their personal experiences with the legendary director while admirers, like Quentin Tarantino, open up about Leone's influence in their filmmaking. And of course, there's time to cover the infamous topic on the shameful butchering of the film in U.S. at the time of its release, in 1984, which caused not only the uproar from audiences and critics, but also hurt very deeply its most excited creator: the director, who devoted several years in its making.

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Plot Keywords:

once upon a time in the title | 

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Genres:

Documentary

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Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English Italian

Release Date:

8 July 2003 (Spain)

Also Known As:

Once upon a time - Sergio Leone

Company Credits

Production Co:

CreaTVty, Westbrook

Technical Specs

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

This documentary is featured on the Two-Disc Special Edition DVD for Once Upon a Time in America (1984), released in 2003.

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Goofs

When Noodles takes Deborah to the beautiful restaurant, the wide shot reveal of the expansive room shows a very visible camera and boom shadow in the bottom right hand corner.

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Crazy Credits

This documentary is dedicated to Carla Leone

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Connections

References Once Upon a Time in America (1984)

User Reviews

Not very insightful, although the James Woods interview is good

An excerpt of this documentary based on Sergio Leone's life is included on the two-disc "Once Upon a Time in America" Director's Cut DVD. Unfortunately it seems very amateur, the interviews are poorly edited, repetitive and contain little insight; and worst of all, the people interviewed themselves had little to do with the film's production.

Perhaps the most interesting story is the one which one of the film's co-writers tells about Leone's peculiar requests in regards to scriptwriting methods.

I also enjoyed the James Woods interview segment, in which he explains how a critic that called "America" the worst film of 1984 later saw the director's cut version and named it the best movie of the entire decade.

Overall, there are some good bits like these, but a lot of the documentary could have been cut down/edited and more interesting anecdotes and interviewees could have been selected.