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Once Upon A Time In Tarantino’S West: Persistence Of The Western As An American Fairy Tale, Beth Jane Toren

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Traditionally associated with fairy tales, “Once upon a time” invites us to suspend disbelief, leave time behind, and be transported to an alternative world. Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West (C’era una volta il West, 1968), a follow-up to his Dollars Trilogy, invites us to visit “The West” not as a historical landscape but a surreal domain. Like the fairy-tale worlds of Grimm or Perrault, or in the film medium of Leone’s, Quentin Tarantino’s cinematic universes invite the audience to experience another dimension entirely. Not surprisingly then, his ninth film Once Upon a Time in …