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Sergio Leone's most famous and longest opening sequence ever, revisited by Brillantine Pictures. Three cowboys waiting for the train.


Credits

In Once Upon a Time in the West, Leone uses sound and editing to slowly ratchet up the tension as the trio wait and wait and wait for their quarry. The film’s score is widely considered to be some of composer Ennio Morricone’s finest work, but the only sound here is the squeak of the wind turbine, the jangle of spurs, the cracking of knuckles, and the incessant buzz of one seriously pesky fly. This naturalistic soundscape allows the credits, set in Cooper Black, to seamlessly blend in with the scene. On-screen moves and audio cues pull — or lasso, if you will — most of the typography into frame. Credits appear and disappear in time with the clack of the telegraph machine or the slamming of a door.




Stills








6am







Shooting Script






1968
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