Been there.
My argument, that Sergio Leone's 1968 hit movie Once upon a Time in the West is a mythologized portrayal of the birth of the Las Vegas phenomenon, must necessarily be told in the form of informal rambling discourse. I am shooting at a moving target while time is running out. The notion is so new, to me, that I can't provide any footnotes. It may not even be an original idea, after all. And so (by way of disclosure), I state that if it's not my original idea, neither am I guilty of deliberate plagiarizing.
I repeat not intentionally, because neither can I claim to be innocent. The movie is a cultural icon of mythic proportions. I saw it as a kid. Probably, if I did my homework, I would discover my thesis discussed before by one—or more—Cinema deconstructionists. I don't want to know. I'm a reluctant researcher. I don't like spade work. I'm a lucky finder. A researcher hedges his bets. A writer shoots from the hip and hopes. You can be a reader, or you can be a writer -but not both.
Catch me if you can. I find this to be true about art. What am I saying? It goes double for art. I see traces of "influences" in every artist's work. Originality is always a rare find. Which is why I relocated from New York to Las Vegas. One way. First of all, there's no art in Las Vegas; not, at least, to saturation point (unlike New York.) Don't get me wrong. I love looking at art (like I love New York.) But you should know (if you're an artist), looking at art is a waste of precious time that could be better spent painting.
The lifestyle of the flaneur is not for me. Strolling the galleries and museums and openings—the beaten path—doesn't offer the same satisfaction as creativity. Not being a gambler, I admit I have been a flaneur of the Las Vegas phenomenon, a pedestrian who has spent too much time (some would say totally wasted time) strolling the Las Vegas Strip, seeing the sites, like any ordinary tourist. Strolling the Las Vegas Strip, you won't fall down with your head in the clouds looking around as often as in New York. You will never buy shoes the same way, again.
The same goes for Cinema. I say the movie-goer is a kind of flaneur. Movies offer a voyeuristic spectacle to would-be travelers who can't get away. Most Las Vegas visitors only stay for a week, or a few days. They come because regardless of what "happens" in Las Vegas, everyone earns a badge for having been there. I address that audience. To those who have not been, be assured that everything you see at the movies about Las Vegas contains a degree of truth, and of fiction.
I'm not one of those critics that finds fault with the show. I detect embellishment of a sound narrative like a knee jerk. I first noticed the truth factor reading “as told by” non-fiction authorized by gangsters. The story was just too good to be true. Then, I cross-checked a few claims made by tell-all gangsters, and I soon discovered I was reading a lot of non-corroborative testimony. I had to ask myself, at one point; can I believe a convicted gangster? Eh, cumpari, you must know that non-fiction can have consequences.
Memory persists. Some of those underworld types are still alive. Who to believe? Well, for one thing, believe what you see for yourself. Like circular logic, this comes back to my dilemma of the tourist. Unlike the tourist, I didn't come to Las Vegas to have a good time. I'm doing research my way. If I was not an artist, I could write a book of my own, like a mystery. The mystery is knowing what not to say. Tell all -but not everything. And all the while I appear to be having a good time. Isn't everybody happy in Las Vegas?
My personal capacity for satisfaction is limitless. I don't want to be a know-it-all, or talk about myself endlessly, however, when somebody else expresses a point of view with which I agree, or agreeably disagree—a strong statement—I'm in the zone. What I believe Sergio Leone is referring to, in Once upon a Time in the West, is the endless poker game that is Las Vegas. I first conceived this notion gazing at the backgrounds in the outdoor scenes. The shootout between Bronson and the three outlaws sent (by Frank) to kill him is like a cinematic punch in the face.
Once upon a Time in the West is a movie to look at, a movie for the senses. The story is secondary. A true curmudgeon of Cinema would give me a low grade for my knowledge of the plot. The fact is, I know what it's about, not him. The plot is important, as we shall see. It was a long, long time before I got it. I didn't notice it had a story on first viewing it as a kid. After watching it again in Las Vegas (many years later), I noticed the hills in the background looked familiar. They looked sort-of like the hills of Las Vegas.
Eureka! It was a moment of recognition. The desert you see in the movie's outdoor scenes (wherever they are, in fact) puts me in mind of the Nevada desert, right outside Las Vegas. The natural fact is, Las Vegas was a literal desert not so long ago. It's not only the hills (which are distinctively nondescript), but the desert haze, plus an otherworldly sunlight which burns into the brain, that panorama of nothingness in the background of the action by which Sergio Leone tips his hand.
It is the atmosphere of smoke, the Italianate love of Sfumato, itself one of the Four Canonical Styles of Painting since the Renaissance in Italy. Hear refrained again, and again, the timeless theme, once upon a time. It puts one in mind of the Surreal paintings of de Chirico, a favorite of mine, with a tiny locomotive in the distance, so far, far away that, even as you think you see it, it has long since passed us by in Relativistic time. The Doppler effect of the passing locomotive whistle -and the harmonica. What you see is already gone.
Eh, cumpari? Maybe I don't know what I am talking about; you have to go to art school to learn to see with imagination. Being an artist, I doubt they compare Renaissance painting to cinematic art direction in film school. Film, as such, competes with art. Art is for intellectuals, which is why I argue, Once upon a Time in the West is the best movie about Las Vegas ever made. It's one of the best art films ever, as well.