Editing Sergio Leone (section)

=== 1980s ===
[[File:Sergio Leone.jpg|thumb|Sergio Leone]]
Leone turned down the offer to direct ''[[The Godfather]]'', in favor of working on another gangster story he had conceived earlier.<ref>{{cite web |last=Fristoe |first=Roger |title=Sergio Leone Profile |work=[[Turner Classic Movies]] |url=http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article=191909%7c191910/Sergio-Leone-Profile.html |access-date=16 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140716203520/http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/191909%7C191910/Sergio-Leone-Profile.html |archive-date=16 July 2014 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Bozzola |first=Lucia |title=Sergio Leone |url=https://www.nytimes.com/movies/person/99378/Sergio-Leone/biography |access-date=16 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140716203731/http://www.nytimes.com/movies/person/99378/Sergio-Leone/biography |archive-date=16 July 2014 |department=Movies & TV Dept. |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |year=2014 |url-status=dead}}</ref>  He devoted 10 years to this project, based on the novel ''The Hoods'' by former mobster [[Harry Grey]], which focused on a quartet of New York City [[Jewish-American organized crime|Jewish gangsters]] of the 1920s and 1930s who had been friends since childhood. The finished four-hour film, ''[[Once Upon a Time in America]]'' (1984), featured [[Robert De Niro]] and [[James Woods]]. It was a meditation on another aspect of popular American mythology, the role of greed and violence and their uneasy coexistence with the meaning of ethnicity and friendship. It received a raucous, record-breaking ovation of nearly 20 minutes at the [[1984 Cannes Film Festival]] (reportedly heard by diners at restaurants across the street from the [[Palais des Festivals et des Congrès|Palais]]), at a time in Cannes's history before marathon applause became a regular occurrence.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://mauiwatch.com/2019/05/a-rons-film-rewind-presents-once-upon-a-time-in-america-the-35th-anniversary/|title=A-Ron's Film Rewind Presents: Once Upon A Time In America – The 35th Anniversary|date=27 May 2019}}</ref> Despite such a fawning reception, Warner Brothers felt it was too long. The studio drastically recut it down to two hours for the American market, abandoning its flashback structure for a linear narrative. This version suffered heavy criticism and flopped. The original version, released in the rest of the world, achieved somewhat better box office returns and a mixed critical response. When the original version of the film was released on home video in the US, it gained major critical acclaim, with some critics hailing the film as a [[Masterpiece|magnum opus]].<ref>{{cite news |first=Geoffrey |last=Macnab |date=15 May 2012 |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/martin-scorsese-breathes-new-life-into-gangster-classic-once-upon-a-time-in-america-7746578.html |title=Martin Scorsese Breathes New Life Into Gangster Classic ''Once Upon a Time in America'' |newspaper=[[The Independent (newspaper)|The Independent]] |access-date=20 May 2023}}</ref>

According to biographer Sir [[Christopher Frayling]], Leone was deeply hurt by the studio-imposed editing and poor commercial reception of ''Once Upon a Time in America'' in North America. It was his last film.

In 1988, he was head of the jury at the [[45th Venice International Film Festival]].<ref name="1988 Venice Film Festival">[https://www.imdb.com/event/ev0000681/1988 1988 Venice Film Festival] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170327112651/http://www.imdb.com/event/ev0000681/1988 |date=27 March 2017 }}, at the Internet Movie Database</ref>