Most westerns are actually about the death of the old, wild, west; and 'Once Upon a Time in the West', with its story centred on the coming of the railroad, is no exception. One thing that Sergio Leone has done in this movie is to make a truly cinematic film: it's hard to imagine how the script read, as so much of the meaning is conveyed in the facial expressions of the actors or by Enrico Morricone's score - there's a balletic quality to Leone's work. Unfortunately, I found the music intrusive, the exaggerated grimacing of the characters merely comic, and the plot contrived, difficult to follow and arbitrarily bloody; I don't believe that even in the wildest west, six people would be killed outside a bar and everyone inside would just carry on drinking as if nothing had happened. Personally, I prefer Robert Altman's treatment of a similar storyline in 'McCabe and Mrs. Miller', a film that uses rather fewer of the conventions of the western, but which seems closer to life as a result.