TEHRAN – Australian film critic Adrian Martin’s book “Once Upon a Time in America” has been published in Persian.

Translated by Zaniar Ebrahimi, the book has been released by the Elmi Farhangi Publishing Company.

Sergio Leone, a maestro of the spaghetti Western, spent sixteen years developing what was to be his final work, the gangster epic “Once Upon a Time in America” (1983).

This “testament film” has a special place in Leone’s oeuvre because it marries the director’s typically flamboyant, expressionistic style to a story full of profound melancholy and regret. 

Tracing the lives of a gang of Jewish hoods from their childhood in the New York streets of the 1920s, through Prohibition and union racketeering, to the 1960s, “Once Upon a Time in America” centers on the relationship between Noodles (Robert De Niro) and Max (James Woods, an intense friendship destroyed by time, the shifting tides of political history, and mutual betrayal.

As well as detailing the film’s genesis, its production history, and its different versions, this study considers “Once Upon a Time in America” in the context of Leone’s evolution as a grand cinema stylist. 

It illuminates his themes, his method, and his aesthetic, and judges his enormous impact upon subsequent generations of filmmakers the world over.

Adrian Martin now lives in Malgrat de Mar in Spain. He is an adjunct associate professor in film culture and theory at Monash University. 

His work has appeared in many magazines, journals and newspapers around the world, and has been translated into over twenty languages. He has regular columns in the Dutch De Filmkrant and in Caiman: Cuadernos de Cine.

Photo: Front cover of the Persian translation of Adrian Martin’s book “Once Upon a Time in America”.

MMS/YAW