Once Upon a Time in America--movie (possible spoilers)

Cafe Society
1

I saw this for the 4th or 5th time last night. I still have questions about certain events. Maybe some of you who are more enlightened can help me.
[ul]
[li]Where did Noodles go for 30 years after his friends were killed?[/li][li]Why did Deborah get involved with Max (after his resurrection)?[/li][li]Hi Opal![/li][li]Did Max fake his death to get into politics?[/li][li]Is the audience to assume that Max had plastic surgery so that nobody would recognize him? Did anyone realize (except Deborah)that Bailey was Max?[/li][/ul]
I’ve moved this into my top 15 fave movies list. It is definitely like an onion–layers upon layers.

2

Ah, you’re asking the right guy. I love this movie, I’ve seen it countless times.

  1. Noodles went to Buffalo, or some other city. It doesn’t matter for the purposes of the story.
  2. Debobrah really didn’t get involved with Max. She basically blew him off as much as she could.
  3. Yes, yes…
  4. Not quite, Max faked his death to get rid of Noodles. For politics, he merely moved to the West Coast and assumed a new identity. He didn’t need to pretend to die to do any of those things.
  5. No, no one has to assume Max had plastic surgery. No one really knew of his life as a ganster (except for that corrupted union guy), so he had a relatively easy time of it. It’s safe to say no one except Deborah knew that Bailey was Max.

See my old web page about this movie (I no longer control or host it, though):
http://film.tierranet.com/directors/s.leone/america.html

3

But, it seems to me that Max could just have told Noodles that he was going into politics out West. Or, he was just blowing off Noodles. Doesn’t sound right to me. Avumede.

4

It truly is a lovely piece of filmmaking isn’t it? Sergio Leone was the director was he not? He played the cameo part of the old man walking past the hearse after the prostitute playing the part of the corpse went into ‘seduction mode’.

I made a point of watching the film again about 10 months ago with my girlfriend (who had not seen the film but loves truly masterpiece works) and I recall that the opening 10 minutes to the film are pivotal to the closing 10 minutes - hence creating a cyclical effect where you can watch the entire film again from beginning to end because the end is actually at the beginning so to speak.

In many respects, I’m sad the film is not yet regarded in the same ‘masterpiece’ category as some of Hitchcock’s films are - hopefully this will change.

In answer to the original post, my understanding is that James Woods basically double crossed Robert de Niro so as to save Robert de Niro from James Woods’ destructive ways. I’m not sure as to why Elizabeth Montgomery’s character needed to hook up with James Woods - apart from the fact that it served to make the story more poignant.

One thing’s for sure - that scene where Robert de Niro ‘rapes’ Elizabeth Montgomery in the back of the chauffeured car is certainly one of the most powerful scenes in the history of cinema - and when you consider some of the Top 20 ‘most powerful scenes’ in the history of cinema, it’s astonsihing how many feature Robert de Niro too.

Arguably the greatest cinematic actor of all time.