Did Max Throw Himself Into The Garbage Truck? | Once Upon a Time in America Explained
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0:00 (Intro)
01:00 (Recap)
02:58 (Noodles & Max Reunited)
04:12 (Once Upon a Time in America's Mysterious Ending)
04:57 (Did Max kill Himself?)
05:25 (The Opium Dream Theory)
07:54 (Possible Theories)
09:04 (Why Would Max Throw Himself Into The Dump Truck?)
10:07 (Other Possible Theories)
11:21 (The True Answer?)
13:15 (Mystery Solved or Movie Mistake?)
13:38 (Deleted/Restored/Extended Scene)
14:57 (Conclusion)
Once Upon a Time in America Ending Explained.
Once Upon a Time in America is Sergio Leone’s classic gangster movie starring Robert De Niro, James Woods, Danny Aiello, William Forsythe and Joe Pesci. The sprawling, operatic epic is considered one of the greatest crime films ever made, and the story goes that Leone, who directed classic westerns such as For a Few Dollars More, The Good The Bad and The Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West, was approached to direct the The Godfather, an offer which he refused, and subsequently rejected, leading him to make his own epic gangster movie.
Near the end of the film, Noodles leaves the house and notices a garbage truck parked outside the Bailey home. The truck’s engine comes on, and from the home a figure emerges, who is dressed and looks like Mr Bailey. The truck moves slowly forward, obscuring Mr Bailey who was slowly walking towards the truck in Noodles’ direction. He’s also still very close to the home’s gate, so could easily just have turned around after he was out of site and went back inside. But, given the metallic screech filling the night with the dump truck’s trash compactor in full swing, and Mr Bailey disappearing, we and the bewildered Noodles, who looks around like he’s unable what to make of this surreal situation, are left asking, did Max throw himself into the garbage truck? - Фільми й анімація
*What would have happened if Don Corleone accepted the Turk's deal? The Godfather Explained:*
ua-cam.com/video/Xs8ztW-xsdQ/v-deo.html
Which one ? Mike or Vito?
35 plus years ago when I saw this movie I saw the part was James woods shot his self in the head and fell into the garbage truck and he got ate up by the Blades . I’m 100% positive that was on the movie I Seen.
I saw this movie for the first time on Netflix maybe a year or so ago. Good flick I was hooked from the first 10 minutes I think he just threw himself in the the garbage truck
The fact that noodles never heard of senator bailey or seen an image of him on the news or newspapers to recognize that it was max all along, adds even more weight to the dream theory imo .
What are talking about hr knew who Senator Bailey was.
@@daveyboy_ what I mean is that he never seen a picture of him on the tv or in the newspapers also how did fat moe not know that his sister was with max?
@@alexsidenticalsiblingrandy5795 i gotta rewatch that movie .
When is the last time you saw a picture of the Secretary of Commerce? Do you even know who it is without looking it up?
@@tph2010 yes I do but I think when discussing assassinations linked with him they would show a photo of him no?
I don't know much, but I do know this -- that Noodles sure does a lotta rapin'
LOL
In the original ending Noodles raped the garbage truck.
It's part of hie characters relationship with sex. He pays for it , blsckmails.for it. And eventually takes it.
When there’s a movie that people talk about years later you know it’s a masterpiece
Like The Room
@@dillonwalshpvd in its own way I could argue it is
@@V---L I mean. Im listening :p
@@dillonwalshpvd The movie was horrible, so horrible it was regarded as the worst movie ever, so you can argue it was good at being bad, not just that it was the best at being bad, which could therefore mean it's a masterpiece at being horrendous
yes dillon is mocking someone's loose definiton of "masterpiece". if using that loose definition, it equally applies to The Room. of course The Room is infamous and not a masterpiece. so OP's definition isn't very accurate. @@V---L
I can't imagine how confusing the original edit must have been for audiences or how upsetting it must been for everyone involved to see a masterpiece butchered.
Could you imagine that, just the garbage truck scene with the cars coming back the other way and credits smh
Being american, I was so fucking confused by the version I saw
I'm definitely in the opium dream camp. The way the story was set up with the opium den starting and ending the film, plus the fact that Deborah didn't seem to age much while Noodles and Max were noticeably aged, says to me that this was deliberate to indicate Noodles is still imagining Deborah as she is in the 1930s due to his attachment to her. Noodles was responsible for the deaths of his friends and this vision was a way to cope with that and make himself out to be a victim to Max rather than own up to his mistakes.
spot on. To add to that Max used to fake death when he was a kid. So Noodles wanted to believe max is faking his death again. Last garbage truck scene was another instance of it. Noodles thinking did max again fake his death
Yes Deborah staying youthful is the giveaway.
@@chrissy2590 He faked his own death again, the feet under the truck can not be explained away as a mistake, like it was in this video... Sergio Leonne was very deliberate with detail, and that was no mistake.
Deborah è invecchiata. La si vede quando Noodle arriva alla festa del senatore Bailey.
I just realized something about Deborah. After the “Cleopatra” scene, Deborah is seen with some of her white make up on. And in the beginning seen where Noodles sees her - there flour in the air. It’s definitely a dream.
I saw it as Max was in trouble with the wrong people. He had a working relationship with the Unions and the Mafia. He knew his time was up and he wanted Noodles to do it. But when Noodles didn't, Max was "cleaned up".
Two facts I do know. Firstly, the scene was something of a reference to a real event, where some politician or businessman (can't remember who exactly, Jimmy Hoffa!?) disappeared, and on the day it happened a garbage truck was mysteriously parked outside his home all day. Secondly, the actor who we see standing there is not James Woods - it was in fact a crew member or something. Sorry these facts are a bit shady, they're just from memory. I'm sure someone can give full details though.
Personally, I reckon since Senator Bailey/Max asked Noodles to kill him, his suicide does make sense. But yeah I do think it was left deliberately ambiguous - hence not using James Woods. We also don't know whether he jumped in the back to kill himself, or maybe just got in the passenger door to escape. In real terms I suppose it actually makes more sense if he got in the passenger door - after all throwing yourself into into that grinding mechanism seems like a pointlessly painful way of committing suicide, whereas sneaking off in a garbage truck seems like a pretty conspicuous way of disappearing. But this is a film, and symbolism is far more important than logic - and a man killing himself by jumping in the back of a garbage truck is pretty meaningful.
There's also some symbolic significance in the way the headlights change and suddenly there's a car full of partying youngsters coming the other way - kind of an out-with-the-old, in-with-the-new thing.
I'd say this is by far the most surreal scene in the whole film.
I think this movie was edited by 4 brain dameged blokes who've never met and don't speak the same language.
those 4 blokes probably worked for Warner Bros studios.... since they were the ones that butchered Leone's masterpiece.
@Tusc9969 I'm glad someone wrote about the escape possibility (it may have, hm, escaped me, but is it even mentioned in the video here?)
Also, what i'm not finding in the first few comments i've just scrolled, is that Max going into clandestinity, albeit rather old, is a sort of simmetry/karma/retribution to what Noddles had to undergo.
Btw, i haven't looked for the joe pesci cameo in the hospital (when the union man is recovering from the shot)... and whether he actually had agreed with Max to take out the Detroit diamond man (back then - or was it hinted/shown, in those scenes) or this is a comeback of revenge, or doesn't care anymore, because times have changed and they're into an altogether different business.
I've just watched the extended cut on tv in Italy, it's good it does raise doubts and questions and food for thought. However, call me simplistic or worse (fine :D) but it all sounds bit too brainy and complicated... i can tell you, i've done literature studies and stuff, love cinema, did watch most or all Leone's works, just saying i'm nerdy enough to appreciate even heavy bits i guess! But this movie here, just sounds a bit too built-up in the plot.
Or yeah, made more sense as the original idea of 2 parts or, i'd say, an actual series, yeah.
These are all really just questions, thank you :)
Your giving opinions, not facts
@@Tusc9969No, it was The Ladd Company, and that butchered version was barely ever available after 1984.
The problem with it being an opiatic nightmare is this-there is a scene where he goes to the locker to fetch the money and there is a frisbee in the scene,how can he imagine a fad”frisbee would be created.or that TVs would be popular in bars,or style of rent a car be dreamed in 1933?
you are right - the dream hypothesis is B/S and frankly it would be a dishonest way to end the film.
Yeah, Unless there's a 10 hour Leone cut out there. Where Noodles is doing DMT and shrooms with Mike Tyson, before getting time traveled back into the future with Doc Brown to help Middle earth fight the Rings of Power .
Then that theory is a fluke, Opium isn't that helluva drug lol.
Especially to dream about the future of NYC in great detail. That's God level omniscience, even for a petty gangster 😂.
@@davebyrd1394 I just watched this movie for the first time, brought my confusion to UA-cam, and this comment just took me out😂😂
Because his dream hasn't ended yet. We've been living in it all this time.
I think it’s just mistakes. The whole production was pretty messy.
There isn’t much I wouldn’t do to see the full version of the movie as intended by Leone. This film just feels frustrating because although it is great, it could have been so much more.
I can buy it on UA-cam, at least the 3.5 hr version
So, from what I hear most of the footage is not retrievable. If the studio agreed to Leone’s original 2 movies at 3-hours each then ya, we’d see a lot more scenes. But we’ll never see all the footage he wanted to use for the ‘6 hour’ presentation. Same kind of deal with Kubrick’s ‘eyes wide shut’
Wouldn't do? Rape, murder, molestation? Which one are you OK with to see the original film?
@@MrOctober44 Don’t take it all so seriously it’s just a way of speaking. I wouldn’t do any of that I’m not crazy. I’d just really like to see the movie the way Leone wanted it to be seen.
@@LucLB01 lol he just doesn’t understand something called ‘a figure of speech’ He was trying to be clever but ended up just looking like a goof, hahaha.
Did he or did he not. That is the question, and many thanks for covering this topic. Once Upon A Time In America was a masterpiece, and the ending was spectacular.
It's rubbish, immature and amateurish.
Love the genre and often point to this pile of vomit as a comparison to good movies from the mob genre.
@@louisfrost4975 20× better than the godfather
@louisfrost4975 So why don't you enlighten us all with some title of "non-pile of vomit" movies of mob genre wich you usually make the comparison with?
@@louisfrost4975There you are. That guy.
@@louisfrost4975Do you know that the director of this "pile of vomit" was offered the direction of "The Godfather" earlier than Coppola? And that he refused because he was already busy with the project of this film, on which he worked for the next twelve years?
I understand and don't discuss personal tastes, no film should please everyone and in fact I also don't like many critically acclaimed films; but that doesn't mean I can't recognize their objective value or I'll start insulting them. In particular, insulting this is just making you ridiculous.
Many things are explained by the idea of an opium dream sequence, some that stick out to me are:
1) The phone ringing while having detailed thoughts is the first sign of it, the ringing being the reminder of what you are seeing is really over lapped by the reality where he really is.
2) The assisted back door escape from the opium house. How could someone in a drugged opium state just walk out of that house and begin their sequence that lead to him going to Buffalo?
3) The lack of utter surprise seeing Noodles after 35 years from each character. It's more of a casual, hey where ya been? And of course the line, what have you been doing? "Going to bed early". A feeling of opium induced dreaming is more of a better description.
4) The mausoleum scene is one of the biggest mysteries explain by a dream sequence. That would be the perfect thought in his head for his 3 dear friends to all be together in this huge beautiful mausoleum, with no real description of how it was commissioned.
2- I don't think is very important, the travel to Buffalo could of been in separate days and him leaving could of happen with the help of the Asian ppl, is somewhat incongruent but I personally don't think is as relevant
3-Noodles doesn't mind, he just accept it, he can't do anything and in a way he refuses to call him Max, as he never refers to him as such, Noodles also got time to think about it before hand and he is too old to even care
4- Max himself did it, he find their graves to say his goodbye and it was made by Max, which is why the key for the money is there
The fact that we don't know what happened gives the film a kind of immortality...no matter how many times you watch it the question will never be answered...and so the film never really ends...maybe that's its brilliance...
Definitely. It's like why a David Lynch film, that didn't make much sense to myself upon first viewing, will still stick in my mind way longer than a linear plotted movie
No! Il film è bello perche racchiude tutto quello che può offrire l'arte cinematografica in 100 anni di cinema.
Like it 😀
No, the film literally ended. There was just no conclusion to the story.
@@Ted_Sheckler Maybe...but then again there's a conclusion to every story whether we know what it is or not...?
I think if max had thrown himself into the garbage truck, there would have been some blood
@karinhowell..I said exactly the same thing..(but, so what, right..?!)~Peace
I just watched this film yesterday(… 🎶) and I think there’s an interesting parallel to the garbage truck scene and the scene where Max and Noodles first meet. In this scene, Noodles was trying to “roll a drunk” unseen, behind the cover of an oncoming wagon but was thwarted by Max.
In the end, Noodles thwarts Max’s plans of how things should end and Max disappears himself behind the oncoming garbage truck.
The Dream Theory is very reminiscent of the film Mulholland Drive. A character uses a dream to escape their guilt.
the car coming past at the end with the partying kids in it is also reminiscent of the opening of Mulholland Drive
I think its just as likely Max just got in the passenger side of the truck, he's the master of faking his death. If he gave Noodles $1,million For him to do the hit, you know he had a couple of million to start a new life somewhere else.
But if he had killed max that would had more guilt to him
Nah, max could see that noodles come to terms with max death a long time ago, the max who noodles loved and lost died with patsy and cockeye. Noodles always loved Deborah, but he knew Deborah would never forgive him.. it was enough for him to know that Deborah made the right choice by leaving him to pursue her acting career.
Another point in support of the opium dream theory is that Max's son looks exactly like young Max... I know they used the same actor to drive home the point that Max survived and had a child, but it's a bit too on the nose
I have my own theory. On two seperate occasions earlier in the film Noodles kills men involving machinery. There's the scene where he starts up the elevator as a ruse and then shoots the guy in the back of the head, and then there's the scene where a guy tried to hide in the pillow factory and Noodles turns off the thing blowing the feathers, revealing the man and then shooting him. Thus, Max appearing at the end next to the garbage truck implies that Noodles did indeed kill him in the 30's and that this vision of him as an old man is just an opium dream.
I’m 99% sure it’s a dream but there’s something that doesn’t add up. Who took the money? If Max actually died who knew about the money and took it? I wish we could see the 9 hour version
He never leaves the Chinese theatre.
The whole of the future is the pipe dream.
what money ?? you see the briefcase just at the beginning ,when they were kids...
do you really believe that max and the others having a famous pub still have their money in a briefcase at the train station??? that's part of the dream.
Noodles was a gangster, not someone who worked on Tin Pan Alley, but perhaps he should have as his "opium dream" produces a muzak early version of the Beatles "Yesterday"- I'm assuming the lyrics which are not present in the dream were also written by Noodles as their sentiment so accurately reflects his state of mind. Anyone care to explain how that "airport song" got into the dream- Leone could just as easily have used a twenties era song like, say, "All Alone". Perhaps it's just a massive oversight, along with the foresight Noodles shows in reimagining automobiles, escalators, etc.
@@xpindy he's not going to make it obvious, or people wouldn't be so surprised and they can still have their own interpretation anyway. It's art I suppose.
Noodles fails in his pursuit of the American dream (get rich, marry your childhood sweetheart), so has a pipe dream about being the victim of a great betrayal instead, in this interpretation.
That happened to be shared by Sergio Leone himself though.
' For me, Noodles didn't leave the 1930s. He just dreamed about his future, in an opium hallucination '- Sergio Leone.
Perhaps the Bruce Willis character in Six Sense should have floated around in a white robe then maybe?
“The peculiarity of opium is a drug that makes you imagine the future as the past. Opium creates visions of the future. Other drugs only make you see the past' , Sergio Leone.
An artist is someone who can hold two opposing viewpoints and still remain fully functional.'
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Such a fantastic film and highly underrated. Thanks for this amazing video.
It's shite.
@@louisfrost4975 🤡 Call your nanny and keep watching Teletubbies
@@sciarrillo Love the genre, this just the worst example of it. I think it was written by 3 12yo lads. Who've never met.
The author of this analysis is correct. I have been personally ripped apart by a dump truck several times and can confirm that it’s an awfully painful way to die.
@augnkn93043..d'you intend this to be taken "literally"..?? Cuz, that situation could NOT be survivable..!!~~~Peace
Opium dream theory has some holes in it too. His dream accurately envisions modern cars of the 60s, though he is having the dream in the mid/early 30s. He also is reflecting to the song "Yesterday" released in 1965. Wouldn't his dream of the 60's still reflect his knowledge of the 30s, rather than actually being set in an accurate 60's?
Realistically, if you wanted to film it as an opium dream and make the spectator only find it at the end, how else would you do it? Some futuristic version of 30s would make it obvious right from the beginning, not to mention that sci-fi looks would totally spoil its atmosphere.
You ignore two things. While Noodles watches the Garbage Truck - there’s an Asian house clearly behind Noodles. Also, after the Garbage truck goes by, three 1930’s cars drive by in the other direction. With people in the cars wearing 1930’s garb, celebrating - with God Bless America playing. It’s just like the Prohibition Party that opens the film. ….It’s a dream.
No no it's a flashback of another time
That's David and his friends, partying in retro style. It is _not_ hallucinatory.
And by David, I don't mean Noodles.
Nice selection for a topic
This film breaks my heart when I watch it.
Same here..I literally just finished watching it. Prolly one of most depressing movies I’ve ever seen....have a great day🙂
this film is great, something like the sopranos or Goodfellas you still like the mobsters no matter how depraved they get, but this film shows how ugly it really is and doesn't make it look attractive at all
Car rape was unsettling
@@CastleBlackWatches ...it broke my heart cause Deborah loved him
@@CastleBlackWatches. The hardest thing in the movie to watch 😢.
I think it was like the scene where they fell into the water , cus if you look underneath the Garbage truck when it's driving , you see Max running up to the side of it . And if he did jump in the back that would be messy .
The big give away was that he would see the girl, his one love, guilt ridden by their last "encounter", as the same age she was the last time he saw her face. When you think of past loves, you see them as they were, not as they are. It was certainly an opium induced dream. Not to mention that one could let themselves be ground up in a garbage truck without making any scream, or any blood showing on the blades.
4 other members of their gang. You forgot Dominic. Who's murder by Buggsy, was avenged by Noodles. Then Noodles got pinched for stabbing a cop in the same incident. This is very important for the Noodles character arc. Which was brought to the audience's attention later on in the film when Noodles mentioned Domimnic's last words "I slipped ".
Any time I hear that phrase I think about Dominic. Rip.
I love this movie but it has the craziest ending!
The opium dream does not hold up. Noodles dreamed what a 1964 Lincoln Continental looked like, dreamed television sets and all other items of modern society? Nooo, I don't think so. The point of the ending is this: Noodles is the only one who has come to peace with himself. Deborah has become a mediocre actress and a kept woman. No husband or real family of her own. Max has lived his life as a hood, always looking over his shoulder until it finally closed in on him. Noodles is the man at peace, who stopped "Living with a gun in his hand". Max was being watched and after Noodles told him to shove off and left, was killed by a hit man who got in the waiting garbage truck which was his getaway. This truck leaving exposing the rotating trash signifies that they were all trash.
Definitely a dream sequence. Leone and company knew they were being surreal to imply it's a dream. It adds an endless amount of possible discussions and debates over the meaning of every scene of the film.
Then explain how Noodles, being able to visualize cars, fashion and culture of the future, when he have never seen it, the mind can't visualize what have never been seen.
If anything, people back then had a totally different view on where society would look like in the future, similar to how we do that today based on current trends. Hence for it to be a dream, the mind has to visualize familiarity, we would have seen a different world.
@@birdsteak9267 the wizard did it
If it was a dream, I think Noodles would have dreamed of all the guys in the car were alive.
Noodle is a crime boss still. He knows about Max new identity all along. He has'nt seen Max, Deborah etc for all these years yeah, but he knows roughly their whereabouts. The garbage truck team is Noodle's own and yeah, he kills Max. Max wanted out by gunning, Noodle gave him a crushing in the back of the truck.
I think we would've HEARD Max if he jumped into the back of the dump truck....
Wasn't there s gunshot before he fell into the truck? I could be wrong but I'm have to re watch it again.
in a deleted scene when the elderly noodles is walking around the neighbourhood there is an old building being torn down and the workers are throwing debris in to a shredder and noodles is mesmorized looking in to it. it mirrors the dump truck's shredder plus there is asian writing on the dump truck which is a nod to the opium den where noodle's inagination is concocting the entire story.
I have met Elizabeth McGovern ( Robert De Niro's love interest) a few times and I found her to be very down to earth. She lives in West London and I was surprised at finding out how big she was in the 80s. She has since appeared in Downton Abbey, a British TV series.
This movie is a masterpiece 👏
I finally watched this film for the first time. A true masterpiece.
Wanna go for a swim?
I watched for the first time too by my father's indication. He watched when it was at the cinema in the 80s, we have completely different views about the movie. For example: he thinks Deborah was a cheater and manipulated Noodles since the beggning and i think she liked him but choose to persue her career.
Most of all the movie gave me more questions than answers😂
@@purplepink139 I feel the same way about her. She knew it was noodles that she was with but she saw/assumed the influence that Max had over the group and positioned herself to align with Max.
PURSUE! Please learn to spell.
@@nobull9541 you were that triggered by that as to where you used caps and exclamation points? Sheesh relax.
Debra was still young looking probably symbolizing how Noodles sees her as innocent. 😊
My take on it is that the garbage truck is symbolic - removing the trash. The "Once upon a time" format is indeed a fairy tale, however, fairy tales act as camouflage for what is really going on in Life. I'm not sure the whole film is an opium hallucination; if it was, why didn't the film open with Noodles in the opium den and proceed from there? I think it is relating the story of early organized crime in America, with characters representing real-life characters that we all know. The opium den scene, I think, is Noodles escaping from the bitter mistakes he made in his life, on different levels. Conventional wisdom is that he Gentiles tend to get drunk, while the Jews lean more on drugs as an escape mechanism; opium is also more cerebral, which Jews are perceived to be as well.
The older Noodles was still living in a time where Politicians tended to be well-known locally, as opposed to nationally, so it would make sense that he didn't know Bailey, or ever see a photo of him. Even if he did, he could have simply wrote it off as a look alike of Max, since Max was confirmed to have been burned up beyond recognition; and official accounts still carried weight back then.
I think I saw an extended version of the movie years ago, but I don't believe it was the 4 hour one. I would have liked to see more of Jimmy O'Donnell and the relationship formed between the Gangsters and the Union; that piece is interesting, especially since Unionism is often portrayed politically as Collectivism, while Gangsterism is collaterally portrayed as Capitalism writ large.
I hate the whole it was a dream explanation. Sounds like a cop out, pardon the pun.
After the switching of the babies the political guy says you have take out old garbage in front of Noodles, when they were popping champagne. I had a feeling Max's ambition started there..
Great movie! Just finished watching it again since I saw it on release in the theaters.
I always assumed the truck was a back up plan and yes he threw himself in.
Most other theories seem to make no sense.
Except there really wasn't any subtext to show Max being such a painslut that he'd choose such an end
You would need it for body disposal no matter who did the hit
I never could get past the ringing phone. It went on forever. I gave up. Maybe I should try and give this film another watch.
Yeah skip that and watch it...
There's also the multiple drawn out rape scenes that make you disgusted by the characters doing them but the movie just brushes them off like nothing major happened...
@@QuebecSouverainNo, the phone ringing is worse, snowflake.
The answer is so obvious I can't believe people are even debating it. Max turned into the garbage truck, just as Phil Leotardo turned into a house.
The shah of Iran
the ringing of the phone in the first scene of D'Niro drugged out, means the thugs catch up with him. In the end, it's not a new scene, it's the same scene revisited at the end (him drugged out smiling). D'Niro is smiling because he's imagining what might have taken place, but didn't because he soon dies when the thugs catch up with him. The reality is, the entire pack are killed because of his lame plan to get them busted and the rest of the movie after the smile point, was his imagined drugged out idea of what *could have been. It's his imagined happy ending. It's his drugged out way to deal with what happened and not to face his soon to come immanent death.
Max was watching him from when Noodles went to their mausoleum. And saw the key, a deleted scene is where he wrote down the license plate number.
Amazing film, although the ending left me baffled and a bit disappointed
in the garbage truck scene if you watch the back passenger side wheel, you can see his foot and he hops on the truck.
I definitely go with the Opium Dream thing, so the garbage truck thing was all just a dream. It was symbolic of Noodles mindset though.
Yeeess
I thought I saw an interview where the director alluded to the dream theory. It isn't real. A movie like this would have had evidence of his body in huge spiraling blades. Either that or he escapes on the truck - not chopped up. But no setup witnesses to his death? But then, why a garbage truck? A getaway car would work. It isn't real.
I think noodles might of wanted that to happen seeing max come out
but he then snapped back to reality reason for max disappearing after the passing truck
likely the mind altering substance was taking a toll on him and noodles at the end scene using the substance was a way of him coping with all the drama hes been through like as if max was haunting him
watched about almost 50 times ,most favourite film
You don't mention the car loads of partiers driving through after the dump truck leaves, appearing to be celebrating the end of prohibition? As you mention in the other video; it suggests this was all a dream; and, his 1930's mind is trying to pull him back to reality in the opium den? I also think the smile at the very end is simply Robert De Niro himself laughing at us while we are trying to figure all this out!
Bugsy was such a deliciously evil character, I wish he had more than 2 scenes
The truck is full of rubbish. It appears and explodes in another cut scene as it’s a metaphor. Noodles is in a pipe dream and the future he is living is actually rubbish. It’s untrue. A concoction to relieve himself of guilt. A throwaway repositioning of himself as victim. Rubbish.
One thing that is puzzling. Assuming it isnt a dream, who put up the monument( that a taxi driver takes noodles to in 1968 en route to the neighbourhood. )
to the three who died at the bank heist. It says that it was erected by Noodles but he fled NY in a hurry , being hunted by killers so he wouldnt have had time to do this .
My guess is Max paid for it to be done
There is no blood on the razors... I don't think he is jumping in.
Bugsy wasn't their boss. He was their rival and bully.
Once Upon a Time in America was a very very good movie I can watch that over and over is almost as many times as I can watch The Godfather 1 and 2
13:20 thanks a lot to speak about that!!i thought i was alone to have seen that and i ve been so splitted about that.was it intentionaly from leone to let us think max leave with the truck??or it was just a mistake??i think it s a mistake,as you think,but it s still strange in my mind...Léone didnt see that?thats strange...
Excuse my english im french.
Thanks again for your video bro
Note the number on the truck and the seeming ghostly, bony hands. The number is 35, about the time prohibition ended. Then the fade to a 1930’s scene. Lends credence to the Opium dream theory.
I always believed Max went into that garbage truck, though I was very young, and tended to take things at face value when I first watch this movie. If I were to rethink it, see it more as he played his final visual trick, and made you think he magically disappeared, perhaps getting crushed. Because it does seem choreographed a little too well.
The blades would have had blood
A bit of trivia from the circle one biography by Christopher frayling, the actor going into the garbage truck a guy who looked close to James woods, in an effort to confuse audiences about who it was
I thought he committed suicide with the trash truck.He was facing prison time ,and couldn’t handle descracing his family.
that magic by Leone, still I would like to know what happen at the end ?
Without Leonne's proper cut of two films both six hours in length, we shall never know. I am trying to find a copy of the book it is based on to understand more of the subplots.
I think after the success of Peaky Blinders we could do with a reimagining of the story over a 12 part TV series.
This is originally a 12 hour movie?
@@bri7757 not a 12 hour movie. Originally Leone intended to make a 6-hour cut and release it in two 3-hour parts like the movie Novecento, but the studio didn't want that and ended up releasing the 3h40m cut
I think that good old Sergio wanted us all to discuss about this for the rest of our lives.
One of the best movies EVER made. Period!
Max was walking behind the trash truck and then disappeared so he jumped in. He knew he was a dead man and was serious about Noodles whacking him. Maybe there wasn't blood on the compactor blades because they were cleaned off as they rotated against the rest of the garbage by the time Noodles looked in. Why go through all that trouble to bring Noodles back to kill him and not die and just left things as they were and he wouldn't have been the wiser after all that time. Max owed him the money and the deed. An Opium high could not go into the future with so much detail as if he was a future reading gypsy. while high. LOL!
My theory is he’s reliving a nightmare that has haunted him since he made that phone call. We you opioids both legal and illegal. To dull the pain
I've seen a ton of crime movies and watched a lot of kino and I have never heard of this movie or had it suggested to me
I'm gobsmacked.
Max's fate should not be correctly speculated or witnessed by the movie viewers, but be determined only by Max himself.
Whichever way you look at the film's plot, both the real or the dream scenarios are masterfully done with the footage used in the proper form. In a rather large nutshell the easy plot line is that the film is about a guy who loved his gang (and the people he grew up with) so much that he was willing to do anything to help protect them and every time that a tragedy befell his gang (death of a member or Debora's leaving) and he just couldn't deal with the reality, he would turn to the opium den for escape. At the end of the 3 plus hour cut you see Noodles looking back (after what he assumes is Max's suicide) upon the night he originally thought Max and gang were gunned down. A beautiful scene to be sure but what if it were a dream for the reasons that have been mentioned in many talks about Sergio's gremlin-type, tounge in cheek way of dealing with his overly enthusiastic aduiences? That can be fun too. There were quite a few cuts of this film that had basterdized the ideas and ended up making the film even more confusing. The original VHS American trimmed down cut adds one small but maybe important tidbit to the dream scenario. Let's say the opening scene is real where the boys from Detroit are hunting down Noodles. Noodles goes to the opium pagoda and gets high to dream a happier ending to his life so far as his brain twists and turns what happened in the gang's life to fit a narrative he can come to terms with. The dream begins after he puffs up. The sounds of "God Bless America" are heard in the background for a bit and the dream is off and running. Move to the ending where Max runs out and jumps into the back of the garbage truck as it rides away. STOP. In the early American cut, as the truck pulls away we hear two gunshots and we see the usual back of the grinding gears and then a shot of Noodles watching as we also see, in the background a quick shot of a pagoda. (Opium den???) The truck's lights dissolve into a 30's post prohibition car coming the other way with "God Bless America" playing in the background. As Leone once said, "Maybe Noodles never got to leave the 1930's..." The gunshots make some sense but just how much sense, who really knows? Did this ending mean that as we see the pagoda and hear the shots and the song, Noodles life is drawing to a close because the boys from Detroit have found him? In that original (bad) cut the shots make perfect sense for the dream aspect but they never appeared again in any other cuts. Was it overlooked?
Max is a serial con artist. He probably faked his death to others hence his new start and meeting with noodles. Max faked death in the sea with noodles. Then the fake federal reserve job. Then the garbage truck scene. Max moved on to new pastures. He was still alive. Noodles was a street hustler that's all. Noodles stay in prison was not mentioned in film. Which leads me to believe it was all a dream on Noodles.
This movie is pure art
I've seen this movie countless times.. I do believe noodles and the crew are from Brooklyn Williamsburg. Where a lot of Jews reside today. I'm from the Lower East Side and see a project building when Dominic died. And that was the Manhattan Bridge the were under. It's crazy how Debra had a kid with Max and was ashamed, even though Noodles tried to rpe her.. when you see her face upon entering she warned him, to keep they memory of his crew pure, instead on what he was about to see.. but messed up to say you can see the potential of betrayal from when Max moved to his hood. Dealing with the watch. But as I learned, as did Noodles, Love is blind. This movie is a great lesson in that.
He didn't try, buddy, he actually did R8pe her.
He didnt jump in
The people sent to kill him did.
They arrived in a garbage truck and waited for him.
People forget about the deck on the back of those trucks that two people ( the collectors ) ride on.
He wanted Noodles to do it before they did.
When Noodles refused, Max put on his coat walked out and waited patiently for the hit.
They "collected" Max and tossed him in the compactor where he was crushed to death.
Max didnt want to just vanish , or be remembered as a suicide ...both would be considered an admission of guilt.
He wanted to be found murdered.
He was sure that once Noodles found out how deeply he had been betrayed , he'd do it without hesitation.
But Noodles gut instincts caused him to just walk away.
The reason his old girl still looks young is because thats what he sees , he still loves her.
How did he get his friends killed? He tried to stop it
He hid in the bushes.
I'm not terribly fussed to figure out details like this. I view the film from a thematic perspective. It's a tale of wasted lives. The young fellows were driven by insatiable need for power and wealth, but succeeded in merely wasting their lives.
I've always assumed (and don't consider myself nor the theory to be 'silly') that Bailey was assainated by the work crew per his prediction of his impending doom. I never heard these other theories but find the video thought provoking if unconvincing in making those alternative endings make sense for ME. to each their own. Good art is always open to interpretation.
And what about the scene where they drive off the pier and the boys are in the water screaming out for Noodles who doesn't appear (the way Max did when they were kids on the boat) but then it cuts to the 1968 garbage truck grinding away outside the gate in the day time?
I would love to read The Hoods by Harry Grey,upon which the film is supposedly based.
£100 second hand.
I think that Max threw himself in there because he felt ashamed of what he had done - that he saw himself as garbage and thats where garbage belongs - in a garbage truck - but then again, if the whole thing was an opium dream, Noodles future and all of that, is it just Noodles’ mind trying to make sense of everything and trying to piece together the answer of who might have betrayed the gang, a way of trying to get closure for everything that he desperately sought with his trips the opium dens
What about the Frisbee flying thru the air and caught by a mystery hand scene?
Yeah! With the briefcase.
now it's even more confusing
It was clear that Max did not throw himself into the garbage truck because the camera zooms in on the open backend of the truck and we see no body parts, not even blood. It's Sergio Leone being the magician showing: no, not in the garbage truck. Where did Max go children?
For most of my life, I didn't like the dream scenario but it is actually the one that makes the most sense after all we are shown in the film.
It doesn't change how much I love this film so for any viewer in doubt I say it's fine whichever scenario one chooses.
It is but cinema.
Anybody who knows how those old garbage trucks operate would know that he didnt jump in the back of it, lol, to be slowly minced by that slow turning screw while being totally silent lol, there are no assassins in the garbage truck, he just hitched a ride and set in the cab to disappear again. Or just see what Woods says in interview about that scene, what happened to the character he plays,he disappeares behind the truck end scene, its not written in the script, but if you were 7 years old when you watched the movie you might have thought he jumped in the back you silly goose 😂
I reject the Opium theory. In my opinion, it hurts the films development and the message of regret and old age that it delivered so very well.
The Garbage truck was for Noodles if he acquainted Bailey with Max.
That's why DeNiro supplicated himself to Woods character.
Max wants to be shot by Noodles so his kid David does not have to have his name ruined and can live a normal (wealthy) life. If Max gets investigated and maybe Epsteined then David’s future is also ruined. So he asks Noodles to shoot him. In fact, he is setting Noodles up a second time which is why Noodles refuses to do it. It’s not a noble gesture to even the score, he just needs to hire some idiot to do it. He provoked Noodles into ratting them out first time around as part of his planned disappearance so he could leave NY, and restart with a false identity in California. With all the money he stole from the other 3.
"Opium induced dreams " are not a thing, and thats probably the most important thing to remember.
Opium causes you to nod, which is not a dreaming sleep at all. Nor is it enough time for a dream to happen.
I absolutely hate that nonsense theory
Max ended up in the Staten island dump ,the end.
Don't think that Sergio Leone would make such a mistake about Max hopping onto the garbage truck. He's too good for that.
Look at the garbage truck. There is standing 35 on it. Its 35 years between Noodles ran off in 1933 to 1968. Thats not a coincidence.
So the truck represents something, like 35 years of noodles life.
PS, and believe it or not, again I speak from experience, they never made garbage trucks with weird twisty screws inside them. They've always actively compacted garbage with hydraulic rams. THAT was a prop truck made to look evil. I will admit I always thought Max shot himself and fell into the truck. Wasn't until now I noticed the screws.
Thanks, I think you have a point! ..'made to look evil' and with tinted windows in 1968!😅 I did a research on NY era garbage trucks pertaining to the 1960s after reading your comment here(and I've commented on this scene elsewhere in the past). I couldn't find any trucks with corkscrew waste grinder. However in the scene the overclean truck is seemingly poised to make it's rounds on the street but there is no garbage anywhere. Just a thought😉
They never work for bugsy at any point on the movie. He's just the local gangster who had a grip on the area before noodles and co came through with their salt contraption..."you don't work for me u don't work for no one"
"I don't like bosses"
"Woulda been better if youd a stayed in the bronx"
"Woulda been better for u too"
Max was behind the last contract hit. He was giving Noodles the option to take revenge on his friends deaths for whom Max felt responsible. Noodles refuses to carry out the hit because he turned Max over to save his life in the first place putting his other friends lives in jeopardy to save Max; to kill him now would only be redundant. (I was actually waiting for Noodles to get wacked when he left the mansion). Throughout the movie whether Noodles was present or not on a job, the group always made sure he got his share. Even after he served prison time. In the end, Noodles walks away a free man and Max keeps his new identity. And that is why Noodles is smiling in the end because he still has the hit money paid by Max who faked his own death. They both walk away free men.
You do realize that is the younger noodles in the end. A flash back to when he went to the opium spot.
@@jcsuperstar4646 Yes, of course, but it does end in real time in the end after he been away for so long a time. And I stand by my analogy.
@@itsajahthing It doesn’t end in real time. The smiling DeNiro is still the younger Noodles. Nothing wrong with standing by your assessment, wrong or right.
@@jcsuperstar4646 Younger Noodles or not, the smile on his face was the realization that he had gotten over on the rival gangsters as did his best friend who was now state official. The garbage truck was either meant for Noodles or for his bestie but neither of them got whacked, so they were both free from the rival gangs!
@@itsajahthing The smile on his face was that he was high as fuck, nothing more. And he obviously didn’t get over on them because the money was gone. Stop making shit up
Here's how you solve the matter.
What's in it for Max to leave his death ambiguous in the mind of Noodles? There you go. Now you have something.