Once Upon a Time . . .

 

Do you know I don't really have a favourite – a favourite anything. When I go to the supermarkets the machine will ask me if I would like to browse my favourites; I find that very strange to have a favourite anything that you can buy in a supermarket. Bit like window shopping at Tesco's or Ralphs and ogling the goodies that I used to look at in toys or bicycle shops when I was a child.

I spent the weekend looking at one of my favourite movies: Once Upon a Time in America. All three hours and forty minutes of it. But can I really say it's my favourite film? what about The Godfather or Annie Hall?

I read the other day that they actually cut two hours from it.

It was made in 1984 and is a masterpiece; terrific performances by Robert de Niro and James Woods – now how can I like James Woods when he is so right wing, or appears to be? Well it's his acting I like. It is a big performance but natural and that is the be all and end all for me. It's so well crafted and it slips into two or three time zones effortlessly. When I say natural I mean I believe it.

I think back to 1984 and figure what I was doing. I was doing a movie called Lifeforce which really wasn't well received here. It wasn't received well in America but when I moved there in 1994 a film editor, in the building where we lived, recognised me from it. When we were coming up in the elevator one of the days he welcomed his guest and introduced me and said 'guess what movie he is in?' and the guy said Lifeforce.

I went to a horror book shop in the valley one day, with a pal, and the guy in the shop wanted me to sign his DVD and VHS copies of the movie and when I met a movie director, casually, at a movie screening he told me he had met me before in the Horror Shop; maybe I should have asked him for a job?

The kicker was a few years ago, when I was doing my play at Jermyn Street Theatre, a group of guys waited for me one of the nights when I was going home. They were Lifeforce fans and had photos of me which I had never seen which I had to sign. I know about Star Wars and Star Trek conventions but Lifeforce?

When working on that film, and there were one or two actors who looked down their noses at the movie, two actors were brought in for one of the scenes. Two actor laddie types with perfect diction and big movements. The director thought they were wonderful when they came in but after a few takes he thanked them very much and off they went – they didn't use the scene.

I did learn a lot about natural acting when living in LA. They loved the perfect diction – which I never have had, in any case – but when it came to the work it was never needed. If the film is American and set in America why should they worry about some cinema in London, e.g.

The reason I put the movie on was to listen to the music of Ennio Morricone at the beginning when the character De Niro plays goes in to Grand Central Station in New York to open a case from a safe deposit box. When he finds it empty he buys a ticket to Buffalo and as the wonderful Morricone music swells the music changes to 'Yesterday' by Paul McCartney and we have gone forward 35 years.

I omitted saying it is at least fifteen minutes into the film and I was hooked. By the way, have you ever noticed that at twenty minutes in most films there is something called a Life Changing Event – and that would be the moment; end of the first act.

Not in my new film, of course, as that will only be 25 minutes long.

I have seen Once Upon a Time in America many times and I hope to see it again as it is like a great painting.

As we were watching it I said to my wife 'Wife' I said – only kidding. I pointed out that a section of the music was like some of The Pogues Christmas song Fairytale of New York which has to be one of my all time favourite Christmas songs. The bit that goes: la la la laa la (so happy Christmas) and when I was researching the movie today look what I found:

When Shane MacGowan of The Pogues was writing "Fairytale of New York", he had never actually visited the city, so he watched this movie countless times to get a feel for the New York City atmosphere. (The first bar of the Pogues song bears a strong resemblance to "Deborah's Theme.")