• On Friday I saw Once Upon a Time in the West for the first time-and it was amazing!
• Once upon a time in the West is ironically titled, it isn’t a traditional Western that abides by (and promotes) genre conventions, it is grounded in realism and uses the mythology of the old west against itself. Instead of contending that these myths are something to be celebrated it, the film instead highlights the immorality of the Western. The film accentuates its bad features-lack of fertility (symbolised by draught and lack of women), Violence- Violence punctuates the slow moving scenes, through his pacing Leone shows the life before death, in real time, this pacing really draws the audience into the scene and gives them time to identify with and speculate the characters motives  on the screen, so when Leone kills off this people the pathos of death really hits home-initially we see everyday people, fighting boredom, the next thing we know they are dead.
• Ford is against type, normally Fords Westerns focus on the American Dream, where peaceful families and communities exist and the fighting is to help protect there way of life. In Once Upon a Time it is dog eat dog. There are no connections, alliances are made and broken, even the presence of gunman Cheyenne is an odd one, he really doesn’t have that much invested in the land or the major conflicts, yet he plays such a major role in the film, at times he is a comforter (to Jill McBain) and at other times he comes across as an untrustworthy murderer, what he really is, is just another man fighting for money and survival against the cruel, arid conditions of the wild west. As a character he is really just caught up in the narrative. This lack of connection between character (Harmonica not repaying the love of Jill, Frank betraying essentially everyone, Jills stoicism and lack of warmth, the only family depicted in the film (Brett Mccains) being killed) is what Once Upon a Time is about. It showing the reality behind the myth-in reality the frontier isn’t romantic or moral-it is cruel and unjust.
• Another subversion is having a woman and a strong independent character-who doesn’t really need other character to fight on behalf of her. The reason Jill ends up successful and living is because she doesn’t chase money like the other characters. When selling her property she states ‘Its not about the money’. Once Upon a time is an anti-capitalist tale, where money hungry tyrants die and people like Jill, who don’t get caught up in money, live.
• There are No heroes. On Wikipedia Henry Fonda is the villain and Charles Bronson is his nemesis. Bronson, the avenger, the person the audience is supposed to root for, is not labelled a hero. Every action, every motive, is self-serving (he doesn’t let someone else kill Frank because he wants to do it himself, he strikes Jill McBain, he doesn’t show warmth).
• The railroad being built is a symbol of Industrialisation-as Harmonica leaves the township at the end because he doesn’t belong in that society, he is a cowboy at heart, he understands the frontier is changing.
• Violence punctuates mundanity (the mundanity creates an element of realism, which makes it all the more shocking when violence interrupts it).
• The long shots of the workers are filled with melancholy. It is tragic to see these people killing themselves in order to dig holes in the ground.In the final show they flock to water like animals, like thirsty sheep would a muddy puddle. This is Leone showing the land defeating the people- the citizens are literally floundering in the dirt. All four leads want to control the land, they want to master it, to own it. But in all its monetary worth the land can’t be controlled, its can’t be conquered by man because the frontier is unpredictable, there are too many self-centred, individualistic people who operate at random to serve themselves (an example of this would be Harmonica not killing Frank). Leone is critiquing the capitalist ideas embedded in a traditional Western, he shows the selfishness that ultimately kills everyone (including the ranger at the start, though he was clever, it was also Self-Serving). Jill is the least greedy of all and leads the most meaningful existence. Leone critiques capitalism and individualistic society, he believes that the traditional Western conventions promote these things (tradition, greedy, money, violence), instead of romanticising these things (like in a John Wayne film) he critiques the Western for what it is-immoral.
• Everyone is driven by the appeal of money, land or revenge.
• Modernity will come via train.
• Unflinching Violence, Unforgiving Land.
• Frank is an industrialist.
• Harmonica is destined not to settle, but to die out as the railroad and civilisation encroach on the frontier. As he leaves the era is ending.
• In traditional films heroes tame the wild west, in non-traditional ones they fail.
• Water is significant because it is life giving, it is pure. It is everything the wild west isn’t, yet characters such as Morton (the tycoon) love it, is this because its everything the wild west isn’t? And everyone has a subconscious desire to get out, to leave?
• Brett McBain was killed in limbo while waiting for his money and his wife. Is Leone suggesting that like his story everything else in the wild west is in vain? Reward simply doesn’t come, it is one big melting pot of revenge, death and futility.

Here are some sources I looked at after watching the film.

http://www.deepfocusreview.com/reviews/onceuponatimeinthewest.asp

https://www.loc.gov/programs/static/national-film-preservation-board/documents/once_time_west.pdf

http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/stable/pdf/41690264.pdf