Film Talk: Once Upon a Time in Italy

Sir Christopher Frayling gives a lecture on Sergio Leone's gangster epic, Once Upon a Time in America.

Sergio Leone's massive gangster epic Once Upon a Time in America (1984) was the result of fifteen years of preparation. It told of the rise and fall of a gang of Jewish hoodlums from the Lower East Side of New York, over a forty year time span. Leone was determined not to make a film about the usual Italian or Irish gangsters but instead to focus on a community which had more rarely been featured in Hollywood thrillers. When the film opened in America it was severely cut and opinions were sharply divided on whether it was convincing or not.

Professor Sir Christopher Frayling was until recently Rector of the Royal College of Art and Chair of Arts Council England. An award-winning broadcaster and regular contributor to BBC radio and television, he has written eighteen books, among them the acclaimed biography of the Italian director Sergio Leone and a detailed study of his films. He is Professor Emeritus of Cultural History at the RCA and a Fellow of Churchill College Cambridge. He was knighted in 2000 for 'services to art and design education'.

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