Once Upon a Time: Sergio Leone

This hour long cut and paste job on Leone is serviceable in terms of the background information it provides especially on his westerns and arguably his crowning achievement Once Upon a Time in America.But apart from the presence of Stuart Kaminsky who talks mostly about writing one script, there isn't enough critical presence (say someone like Adrian Martin who has written in depth about that gangster epic) to balance the embarrassing fan boy gushing, complete with flailing gesticulations, of fellow director Quentin Tarantino. The earlier part of Leone's career such as his underrated work in the peplum genre (a long established and typically Italian format which the commentary incorrectly attributes to Americans) is brushed over. And is Leone's stature, considering all the other truly great filmmakers Italy has bestowed on us, really as monumental as the program claims? Last,a pet peeve. Narrating the film himself, writer/director Howard Hill lives up to the stereotype of the arrogant British imperialist who couldn't care less about learning how to pronounce words and names from foreign countries. Would it have been too much to ask that he bothered to pronounce names like Mussolini, Cinecitta and Trastevere correctly?

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.