Ennio Morricone Once Upon a Time in America Piano Solo arr., sheet music, Noten, partitura, partition

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Once Upon a Time in America is a 1984 epic crime drama film directed by Italian filmmaking legend Sergio Leone. It stars Robert De Niro and James Woods as two lifelong friends, David "Noodles" Aaronson and Maximilian "Max" Bercovicz, who lead a close-knit group of Jewish ghetto youths rising to prominence as powerful gangsters in New York City's organized crime world. Spanning several decades, the film serves as a grand, poetic exploration of childhood friendship, ambition, greed, betrayal, and deep personal regret. It was the final film directed by Leone before his death and stands as the third installment in his thematic Once Upon a Time trilogy, following Once Upon a Time in the West and Duck, You Sucker!

Key Elements of the Film

• The Story: Follows Noodles from his rough childhood on Manhattan's Lower East Side in the 1920s, through his adult years running a highly successful bootlegging operation during Prohibition in the 1930s, to his return as an older man in 1968 to confront the ghosts of his past.
• The Score: Features a hauntingly beautiful, world-renowned soundtrack composed by Ennio Morricone, which utilizes recurring character themes and pan flutes to emphasize the passage of time and sorrow.
• The Structure: Uses a highly complex, non-linear timeline. The story constantly flows back and forth between different eras, masterfully utilizing seamless, dreamlike audio and visual transitions to mimic the fading memory and lingering trauma of its main character.

The Disastrous US Cut vs. The Masterpiece European Version

The film is famous for a notorious battle over its theatrical runtime and editing structure:

• The European Cut (229 minutes): The version premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and released across Europe. It maintained Leone's complex, memory-driven non-linear structure and received immense critical acclaim.
• The Original US Theatrical Cut (139 minutes): Fearing American audiences wouldn't sit through a long movie, US distributors drastically hacked out nearly 100 minutes of footage. Crucially, they reshuffled the remaining scenes into a strict chronological order against Leone's wishes. This butchered edit stripped out the artistic pacing, removed vital character motivations, left glaring plot holes, and bombed critically and commercially. Critics like Roger Ebert famously called the US cut a travesty while praising the long version as an absolute masterpiece.
• The Restored Extended Cut (251 minutes): In 2012, film preservationists and Martin Scorsese successfully integrated an additional 22 minutes of previously lost footage into Leone's 229-minute structural blueprint, bringing it even closer to the director's ultimate vision.

Music

The musical score was composed by Leone's longtime collaborator Ennio Morricone. "Deborah's Theme" was written for a Franco Zeffirelli film but was rejected. The score is also notable for Morricone's incorporation of the music of Gheorghe Zamfir, who plays a pan flute. Zamfir's flute music was used to similar effect in Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975). Morricone also collaborated with vocalist Edda Dell'Orso on the score.

Besides the original music, the film used source music, including:

• "God Bless America" (written by Irving Berlin, performed by Kate Smith – 1943) – Plays over the opening credits from a radio in Eve's bedroom and briefly at the film's ending.
• "Yesterday" (written by Lennon–McCartney – 1965) – A Muzak version of this piece plays when Noodles first returns to New York in 1968, examining himself in a train-station mirror. An instrumental version of the song also plays briefly during the dialogue between Noodles and "Bailey" near the film's end.
• "Summertime" (written by George Gershwin – 1935) An instrumental version of the aria from the opera Porgy and Bess is playing softly in the background as Noodles, prior to leaving, explains to "Secretary Bailey" why he could never kill his friend.
• "Amapola" (written by Joseph Lacalle, American lyrics by Albert Gamse – 1923) – Originally an opera piece, several instrumental versions of this song are played during the film; a jazzy version, which plays on the gramophone danced to by young Deborah in 1918; a similar version performed by Fat Moe's jazz band in the 1930s speakeasy; and a string version, during Noodles's date with Deborah. Both versions are available on the soundtrack.
• Part of the third theme from the overture to La gazza ladra (Gioachino Rossini – 1817) – Used during the baby-switching scene in the hospital.
• "Night and Day" (written and sung by Cole Porter – 1932) – Played by a jazz band during the beach scene before the beachgoers receive word of Prohibition's repeal, and during the party at the house of "Secretary Bailey" in 1968.
• "St. James Infirmary Blues" is used during the Prohibition "funeral" at the gang's speakeasy.

A soundtrack album was released in 1984 by Mercury Records. It was followed by a special-edition release in 1995 featuring four additional tracks.