Once Upon a Time in the West (Eagle 4Kult Italian import) (4K UHD Review)
- Review Date: Feb 21, 2025
- Format: Blu-ray Disc
-
Director
Sergio LeoneRelease Date(s)
1968 (October 24, 2024)Studio(s)
Euro International Films/Rafran Cinematografica/Finanzia San Marco/Paramount Pictures (Eagle Pictures 4Kult)- Film/Program Grade: A+
- Video Grade: A-
- Audio Grade: A-
- Extras Grade: B-
Review
[Editor’s Note: This is an Italian import release. While the 4K disc itself is all-region, the included Blu-ray is Region B only.]
When you live in a place that embodies vastness, you quickly begin to appreciate the value and impact of opposition—the individual in an expansive landscape for example, the yin and yang of land and sky, the stark contrast of the close and intimate versus the remote and distant. It’s no wonder then that Hollywood filmmakers have long been drawn to these sorts of places, especially when telling stories of human conflict, whether rooted in the internal landscape of the mind and heart or the interpersonal divides of civilization itself—right and wrong, good and evil. And given the real history of the American West, details both admirable and terrible, it should be no surprise that the Old West in particular has been a popular milieu for cinematic exploration, with the likes of John Ford, Howard Hawks, Sam Peckinpah, John Sturges, Delmer Daves, Clint Eastwood, Anthony Mann, and many others making invaluable contributions.
But place and history are often never more interesting than when they’re explored from the perspective of an outsider. And no foreign-born filmmaker has made a greater or more impactful contribution to the Western genre than the Italian director Sergio Leone. In the mid-to-late 1960s, Leone directed a series of films set in the Old West but shot in southern Italy and/or Spain, often with American actors familiar to fans of Hollywood Westerns. His “Man with No Name” or “Dollars” trilogy starring Clint Eastwood (with Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach)—A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)—has become iconic, and the less appreciated Duck, You Sucker! (1971, aka A Fistful of Dynamite) starring James Coburn and Rod Steiger is certainly worthy as well. But of all the films in Leone’s corpus, there may be none greater or more accomplished than the epic Once Upon a Time in the West (1968).
While Leone was originally reluctant to make more Westerns after The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, the success of his “Dollars” trilogy essentially meant that’s all Hollywood wanted from him. Luckily, a generous budget offer from Paramount Pictures and the chance to work with Henry Fonda—who he’d originally had in mind for Eastwood’s role in A Fistful of Dollars—proved irresistible. The project was also a chance for Leone to collaborate with a pair of younger men who were friends and who became accomplished filmmakers in their own right, Bernardo Bertolucci and Dario Argento. With the help of screenwriter Sergio Donati, the trio conceived a tale that would include references to (or draw inspiration from) dozens of their favorite American Westerns, including—but in no way limited to—Nicholas Ray’s Johnny Guitar (1954), Ford’s The Searchers (1956), George Stevens’ Shane (1952), and Sturges’ The Magnificent Seven (1960).
The film’s story, which is deceptively simple, tracks the unlikely alliance that forms between a mysterious harmonica-playing drifter (Charles Bronson) and an outlaw named Cheyenne (Jason Robards), who discover that they have a common enemy in the form of the ruthless gunman Frank (Henry Fonda). Caught in the crosshairs of all three men is a New Orleans prostitute named Jill (Claudia Cardinale), who arrives by train in the Old West town of Flagstone only to find that her new husband and his children have been murdered on the Sweetwater ranch that was to be her new home. One of the many delights of Once Upon a Time in the West is the slow yet deliberate pace with which the film gradually reveals the mystery of why this happened, who is actually behind it, and how all of these characters’ lives are intertwined.
But what really makes this film memorable is the way Leone’s choices in direction—and particularly his collaboration with cinematographer Tonino Delli Colli (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Once Upon a Time in America, Life Is Beautiful)—play with that notion of contrasts, elevating their inherent drama, both visually and thematically, to truly operatic levels. And he does this unapologetically, with such gusto and flare that the viewer simply can’t avoid being drawn in by it. The film’s opening sequence—in which a trio of gunmen sent by Frank (and played by genre regulars Jack Elam, Woody Strode, and Al Mulock) lie in wait to ambush Harmonica when he arrives on the scene by train—is fifteen minutes of “pure cinema” virtuosity that somehow makes use of every single inch of the 2.35 widescreen frame. What’s more, Leone’s against-the-grain use of Fonda in a despicably villainous role is inspired, as is the magnificent symphony of staging, sound design, and camera movement that’s employed to reveal him. Combined with one of the great Ennio Morricone’s finest and most somber and melancholic scores, the result is a cinematic experience so splendid that it feels almost an understatement to call it a masterpiece.
Once Upon a Time on the West was shot by Delli Colli on 35 mm photochemical film using Arriflex 35 II C Techniscope cameras with spherical lenses in the 2-perf Techniscope process introduced by Technicolor Italia in the early 1960s. Now, it must be noted that Techniscope captures its widescreen image using half the vertical film area as regular 4-perf 35 mm photography, and the film is exhibited at 2.35:1 theatrically. At the same time, Techniscope release prints were made using a dye-transfer process that tended to soften the grain and fine detail a bit. (It’s important to keep both of these factors in mind as you continue reading this review). This new 4K Ultra HD release from Italy’s Eagle Pictures features the end product of a 2018 restoration effort by Paramount’s remastering team and Sergio Leone Productions, working with L’Immagine Ritrovata and supported by The Film Foundation and the Cinema per Roma Foundation. The disc includes the 165-minute extended Restored Version of the film, sourced from the original Techniscope camera negative. Per Paramount’s home video press release, it’s been graded for high dynamic range (both HDR10 and Dolby Vision are available) in such a way as to honor “the 2007 Film Foundation photochemical restoration overseen by legendary director Martin Scorsese by matching its build and color palette.”
But here’s the important thing: While the Eagle Pictures 4K release utilizes the exact same restoration master as the Paramount Presents 4K edition (reviewed in detail here at The Bits last year), the company chose to encode the image for release on a 100GB disc, as opposed to the Paramount edition which was a 66GB disc only. As I noted in my review of the Paramount Presents release, that one decision by Paramount compromised the image quality of their 4K release significantly. The result was an overly waxy appearance, with very indistinct photochemical grain that was essentially indistinguishable from compression artifacting. Yet when I compared the Paramount 4K disc to the uncompressed Kaleidescape 4K presentation of the same restoration, the difference was notable—the K-scape image offered greater and more nuanced fine detail, and the grain was far more obvious. That grain is still somewhat “smeary” looking, but that’s to be expected given that the Techniscope process results in the grain structure being optically enlarged and “anamorphosed” during printing. And prints made using the dye-transfer process were never as sharp or refined looking as those made otherwise, but had slightly increased contrast to give the appearance of sharpness. The resulting image is sometimes described as “silky” or “velvety” looking. So what a lot of people dismissed as excessive DNR (or digital noise reduction) on the Paramount 4K is more likely the result of the Techniscope process combined with excessive compression to squeeze the film onto a 66GB disc. And I’m very pleased to say that the Eagle Pictures 4K disc, encoded to take advantage of the extra room on a 100GB disc, is every bit as good as the Kaleidescape presentation. While the image still has a silky appearance (as it should), greater fine detail is in evidence and so too is the grain that was missing from the Paramount 4K. How much you appreciate this is going to depend in large measure on how big your 4K display is. But if you’re looking at this disc on a large projection screen (which I am), the difference is significant. The image is just more detailed, more nuanced, and slightly more dimensional looking as well.
That matters to me a great deal: I love Once Upon a Time in the West. This is the film that pushed me toward my chosen career, that convinced me once and for all to study cinema back in the late 1980s, and that led me to founding The Digital Bits in 1997 and everything that’s followed as a result. Believe it or not, the first time I ever experienced this film—with absolutely zero knowledge of who made it, what it was about, and who starred in it—was as the projectionist for the screening, a work study job I had at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. My job was to run the screening, ensure that the anamorphic image was perfect, swap out the reels throughout via two projectors, and ensure the overall projection quality—a job I took very seriously. But I was so enraptured by this film that I damn near missed the reel changes more than once. I was just completely captivated by what I was seeing and I’ll never forget the experience. So this film is personal to me.
The Eagle Pictures disc offers a Dolby Vision HDR grade with color and contrast that are essentially identical to the Paramount disc. The 4K color is more saturated and nuanced in HDR compared to the 2011 Paramount Blu-ray, as you’d expect, with highlights that are more naturally bold and shadows that have a little more depth, though they still look crushed occasionally. But the overall palette is now much warmer looking as well. It’s possible that the 4K image is more accurate to the 2007 restoration, and that the 2011 Blu-ray was graded incorrectly—I have no way of knowing. Either way, I find the HDR grade pleasing.
Bottom line: When Stephen (Bjork) told me that he’d gotten a copy of the Eagle Pictures disc and confirmed that it was 100GB, I knew I had to get my hands on a copy. And I am very glad I did. It’s far from perfect, given the limitations inherent in the Techniscope process mentioned above, so if you’re comparing this 4K image to the very best 4K catalog restorations you’ve seen on other classic titles, you may be disappointed. But this is by far the best I have ever seen this film looking before. And that, for me at least, is a huge win.
Audio-wise, the Eagle Pictures 4K release includes the same lossless English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio mix that’s on the Paramount Presents disc, but it does not include the English 2.0 mono Dolby Digital mix (which more or less preserved the film’s original theatrical audio experience—more on that in a minute). However, the Eagle 4K does include Italian 2.0 mono in DTS-HD Master Audio format. And that’s notable, because the Italian mix has the correct closing credits music, in which Morricone’s iconic “Jill’s Theme” plays right to the end of the film over the credits. On Paramount’s restored English mix, “Jill’s Theme” plays for a time, but then it switches to “Cheyenne’s Theme” as Harmonica rides off into the distance. (So if you want the more authentic experience, switch to the Italian mix just as the film’s title spins across the screen.) It’s a small detail to be sure, but I’m glad to have the option of experiencing it that way. There are no English subtitles on the Eagle disc, but you do get optional Italian subs.
Eagle Picture’s Ultra HD release is a 2-disc set released under their 4Kult label, including the remastered film in 4K on UHD and also 1080p HD on Blu-ray. (Note that the Blu-ray is locked to Region B.) There are no extras on the 4K disc, but the Blu-ray includes the following special features:
- An Opera of Violence (SD – 28:50)
- The Wages of Sin (SD – 19:37)
- Something to Do with Death (SD – 18:17)
- Railroad: Revolutionizing the West (SD – 6:22)
- Credits
All of these are in the original English, but with optional Italian subtitles. I reviewed these features in detail when I covered the Paramount Presents 4K + Blu-ray release, so I’ll simply refer you to that text now. Missing here are the two audio commentaries from the Paramount release, as well as the Leonard Maltin retrospective, the Locations Then & Now piece, the Production Gallery, and the film’s trailer.
Note that the first pressing of Eagle’s 4Kult release came with a numbered O-card, but that’s sold out at this point. So a thicker European-style 2-disc Amaray case is what you get now.
The wait for Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West in 4K Ultra HD has been a long and somewhat frustrating road. But while Paramount’s 4K restoration of the film is actually quite good on the whole, it took Eagle Pictures to finally let us see that work on Ultra HD in all of its uncompressed glory thanks to their use of a 100GB disc. It’ll cost a little extra to import their 4Kult edition via Amazon.it, but if you love this film as much as I do—and you’re able to view it on a very large display or projection screen—you’ll be glad to have it in your collection. Leone’s Western epic was, is, and remains a true classic—one of the all-time great and most pleasurable movie viewing experiences any cinephile can have. It’s absolutely not to be missed.
- Bill Hunt
(You can follow Bill on social media at these links: Twitter and Facebook)