Once Upon a Time In the West / C'era Una Volta Il West (1969 Sergio Leone)

Filmed mainly in Almería, but with a memorable scene in John Ford's Monument Valley, a real big (it stays with you for days, months later you start singing Robards' signature theme...), emotional western, unique in Leone's work for the central character of the strong woman (something Bertolucci brought to the table) - Gina Lollabrigida is wonderful. Tonino Delli Colli's camera cranes and sweeps and the deep focus of his Techniscope lenses is remarkable.

The length Leone spends on some scenes is incredible from the opening onwards (the gunmen are Jack Elam, Woody Strode and Al Mulock) and indeed by the final showdown between Charles Bronson and the perfectly evil Henry Fonda I was laughing away at the over-the-topness of it - the film is knowingly funny. Here, there's three minutes of Bronson and Fonda just lining up in front of each other .. then, with the flashback, another three minutes before the shot is fired! But these's also very simple scenes like where Marco Zuanelli goes to the train and we have this lovely train come towards us and then out of frame leaving those tracks going back into infinity - lovely framing.

The soundtrack even without the music is amazing.

As Q observes, it's all in the eyes. And even in widescreen, Leone does get that intimacy through his huge close ups:

With Jason Robards, Gabriele Ferzetti, Lionel Stander, Paolo Stoppa (The Leopard) and Keenan Wynn. Fantastic production design from Carlo Simi and editing by Nino Baragli.

Compare to this GBU shot