There's a big plot hole in the movie. Noodles' visit to the future is supposed to be just a wish-fulfillment fantasy to assuage his guilt, but, apparently, he knows everything about 1960s pop culture, including pop music and the ubiquity of television.
I believe the writer asked Sergio Leone about the problem, but Leone just waved away his concerns.
Sergio Leone wanted the movie to have a double reading and some ambiguity.
If a viewer wants to opt for a single interpretation and chooses the reality reading, this flaw doesn't exist.
Of course how could Leone portray the 1960s other than by using real examples? If the 1968 scenes had contained imaginary things similar to items we see in early science fiction films, it would have been apparent that the 1968 scenes were an opium induced dream. Leone didn't want this.
From Leone's 1984 interview with Jean A Gili:
Gili: "The editing of the film helps to read it on two levels."
Leone: "This was done on purpose...This was done very carefully."
and Stuart Kaminsky:
"Is the whole tale an opium dream by Noodles - a dream in which what he projects as a wasted life will be justified in the future, in which, in fantasy, he will discover that he did not betray his friends at all but was, himself, the tragic victim who becomes the tragic hero?
A problem with this is that the period information in 1968 is contextually specific. In a novel, the illusion might well carry. In the film, we see television, 1968 automobiles, 1968 clothing, a frisbee, etc. The information is not a distortion alone, but if it is an opium fantasy, then it is the fantasy of a seer. We might also argue that we are dealing with a problem of convention. The fantasy of the future will lose the context of assumed naturalism of that future (which is, in this case, 1968, our past) which deviates from our experience of that world.
Simply put, we have a sense of what existed in 1968. Were that to be confounded in a projection clearly seen as fantasy from 1933, it would change the genre of perception. Note, for example, the odd sensation of examining the "future" in a film that is now past. Just Imagine, Things to Come, and The Time Machine - all three predict a future that did not come to be, but that was in the realm of science fiction. What, as in the case of Once Upon a Time in America, do we do if we do not want to deal with the assumption of how the future will look to someone fantasizing in 1933."
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It's not "supposed" to be a wish-fulfillment fantasy. Sergio Leone left that question open for interpretation. You can decide yourself if it all happened in his head or not. That's the fun part of this film, you can look at it the way you want to.
The reason they incorporated a 60's setting, complete with Beatle's music is to show the audience that 35 years have passed. People would be confused if Sergio had not done that. It would also eliminate the possible scenario that the future was not in fact a dream. Sure, if it is a dream it would be too coincidental that Noodles would imagine a future very similiar to the actual future. But who says the actual future in this movie is the same as the future we know? Maybe the Beatles only exist in Noodles' dream in this movie or maybe Noodles is just really good at predicting the future.
If the opium dream theory is true, then the whole 60's setting coincidence would merely be an aesthetic issue, not a plot hole. The setting doesn't directly affect the story, it's not as if Noodles ever meets the Beatles. I don't think the setting is something to be taken literally, but if you think it takes away the credibility then you should probably find a different interpretation. There are lot's of reasons to assume that the future wasn't a dream.
Remember, the song Yesterday, doesn't sound inside the diegesis, inside the actual story; there is no speaker in the place playing the song; it works from outside, just like the rest of the score... it exist in a place only possible by cinema, just like the editing and the ambiguity that mades the film work
shareSubscribing to the opium dream theory, as I do, does not mean you have to believe Noodles envisions the future perfectly. For us, the audience, we see the setting in the 60's complete with all the technology but Noodles didn't dream that up, he dreamed up the events, the outcome of the characters, the end of his story, not the setting. The setting is just for us to make sense of it. Of course, it is certainly valid to make the argument that it wasn't a dream but I think people shouldn't try to discredit either outlook.
shareWhat makes you think the 1960s section is a dream/fantasy? There's no indication of that. Noodles has been living upstate and returns to visit his old pal Mo.
Unless you're referring to something else.?
I didn't go the "dream route" when watching the movie, but the version I watched ends with him at the opium place smoking and laughing. It seemed like a clue because that scene being placed there made no sense. However I think it's supposed to be ambiguous and open to interpretation.
shareIt's clearly a big dream of 1968. Notice the scene where he's in the funeral seeing the coffins of the three friends and his is on a wall with no date of birth and only a date of death. Plus, Deborah doesn't age and everyone else does. Plus, his friend Max is still alive.
shareIt's clearly a big dream of 1968. Notice the scene where he's in the funeral seeing the coffins of the three friends and his is on a wall with no date of birth and only a date of death. Plus, Deborah doesn't age and everyone else does. Plus, his friend Max is still alive.If you are talking about the scene with Noodles visiting the mausoleum, the plaque with the key hanging from it only mentions that the mausoleum and the tombs were erected to their memory by Noodles, which is of course a lie. There is no mention of Noodles' death, only the date of the gift.
Not sure about Deborah aging - you didn't see her (purposefully) without some makeup covering her face.
shareI didn't go the "dream route" either, but at the same time I could never understand why the last scene was of Noodles at the opium den, smiling like a buffoon in his drug induced euphoria. Now I don't know what to think. Frustrating.
shareAfter reading the comments here and other opinions I still think it's intentionally ambiguous but that it being a dream makes lots of sense now, especially if you watch that long version we watched. That part at the end with people dressed like they were at the end of the Prohibition era also seems to indicate some sort of dream state. Like his hallucinations mix the future dream with past real events.
I think it's up to the each one of us to decide which route makes more sense. Both have solid arguments.
Well if it was a dream Noodles would have been dead at the end - shot in the Opium den - and wouldn't have been smiling. We saw him escape from the Den, jolted out of hi haze apparently in real time and so we must assume that the smiling scene was from only the second time we know he went to the opium den; following his dinner with and rape of Deborah (remember the gang ribbed him about being on vacation for a few days) - was the rest a dream from there rather than the first time at the den? I am led to thinking not.
I get that you can dismiss the modern music and cars etc as being there to orient the viewer to the future but there was in the film hippies and the Love graphic where the Coney Island ad had been. So it leads me to think the rest was real. I can't however reconcile the cars outside the mansion filled with revellers - was it New Year's - I don't think so - reminded me of the cars at the end of Blow Up - what did they signify because maybe there is a connection other than an Italian director.
I didn't go the "dream route" when watching the movie, but the version I watched ends with him at the opium place smoking and laughing.
yes the sequence of the scenes can cause confusion, because the end scene that ends with him laying down smiling at the end should be the scene right before the beginning of the movie, it starts with the hitman killing his girlfriend then the hitmen are looking for him at chineese theater before the chineese guy wakes him up out of his daze to escape.
shareIf you are able to visit the future, why would you not be able to 'foresee' technology thirty-five, maybe forty-five years ahead?
I think the film's 'contemporary days' end with the killings of Dominique and Bugsy, and Noodles ending up in gaol.
Everything else is a dream on future days - please note that Noodles' dream ends with the kids walking and Little Dom dancing in the street just before those killings....
Do you think it's possible that Noodles envisioned a television, a frisbee, a 1962 Pontiac(his rental), the 60's clothing, his old Jewish neighborhood now overwhelmingly Hispanic, and the painting of the Big Apple on the entrance door of the terminal back in 1933? What technology in 1933 would give him any clue to see those things with 100% accuracy in his dream?
shareThis is a fairy-tale. In a fairy-tale it is possible for men to fly - and boys too
And in a fairy-tale boys don't have to grow up to be men
In the real world this is not even possible to the possibly greatest pop-singer of them all....
I don't think its a plot hole, although it is often suggested.
The way I see it, there was a dream going on but not necessarily in 1933. The dream happened later in Noodle's life.
The ending scene shows Noodles going into the opium den and he relaxes and smiles. He retired into a different kind of life.