Opening Sequence of Once Upon A Time in America

Once Upon a Time in America is a 1984 crime thriller, directed by Sergio Leone.

After the title sequence, the film starts off with a sound bridge of the non-diegetic track “God Bless America” playing over the first close up shot. This is an important cultural signifier and the Italian director is making an ironic statement by using this track in the first shot also because the values represented in the song are so violently contradicted later in the film.

Eve, the first person the audience can see, appears out of the dark after diegetic sound of her footsteps and a door opening. She is obviously a femme fatale, a deviant woman. The first shot of her uses very little light, but she is still distinctively recognisable through the noir lighting.

Her emotions shown through her facial expression are emphasised by the use of many close up shots. Also, the viewer can identify with her so they are on her side, and also see this scene from her point of view.

This adds to the suspense of the scene, as the close ups and darkness mean that the audience can not see what is happening out side of the shots and so they cannot see the rest of the room. For all we know, a killer might be hiding in a corner.

Her beauty is shown even more distinctively when she turns on the ambient lighting of the lamp.

Her costume also connote a lot about her character. Her natural beauty is emphasised through the quite simple tone of colouring of her clothes and through her not wearing much make up. Her perfectionism is shown through the overall perfect impression and while her red nails foreshadow violence and blood, her pearl earrings and necklace connote her melancholy and stand for tears to show that, like for example Marion Crane in Psycho, she is a vulnerable character, but also simply to add sophistication and elegance to her style

The natural warmth of her character is also mirrored in the use of ambient, gold-toned lighting coming from the lamp covered by a beautiful lampshade. This lamp is the only source of lighting in the mise-en-scene.

The fact that she is introduced alone shows her as a isolated figure and character.

In this shot, Eve finds a silhouette of a body drawn onto the sheets of her bed, adding suspense by throwing the audience into a unexplained situation as one immediately questions what has happened.

This low angle shot is used to demonstrate her vulnerability, but also to show the audience an overview of the scene while still slightly keeping it similar to her perspective.

Suddenly, three gangsters enter, wearing generic 1940s trilby hats and jackets.Cut to low medium close up shot of Eve from behind, so the audience can see the scene how she is seeing it. One should particularly notice the notion of framing that is added in this shot with the arch in the ceiling/wall surrounding the action.A generic convention is the strong sense of claustrophobia adding to the tension making the viewers start to panic when they realise that Eve can't escape between the bed and the gangsters with the gun. Eve keeps her elegance even when she is shot by the gangsters as she gracefully twirls when she falls onto the bed.

Cut to low angle shot with Eve lying dead on the bed in the foreground out of focus, while the focus is on the three men standing authoritatively and dominantly in the background,

connoting their power. Despite being out of focus, Eve's shocked facial expression is still clearly recognisable, as her face is situated right close up to the camera.

When the gangsters leave the room after killing Eve, one of them turns the lamp off that Eve had previously turned on. This reflects how they have put her beautiful light out by killing her.

In a scene following the murder of Eve, the gangsters are brutally assaulting a fat middle aged man who is hanging by ropes from the ceiling. In this scene the director uses various close-up shots, applying the technique of shot reverse-shot and also importantly never breaking the 180-degree rule.

A low angle medium close up slightly tilted shot introduces the important gangster leader, who is calmly watching the assault, whilst sitting wearing a suit and suavely holding a cigarette in his hand.

This is a very interesting tilted upside down worm's eye view shot from later in the film. As well as being worm's eye view it is also a point of view shot seen from the perspective of a bleeding man lying shot on the floor looking up to the gangster.

In important generic convention from the entire film is that, even though there is a lot of violence and blood, nothing supernatural happens. This makes the film a crime thriller rather than an action or horror film.