The_Film_That_Changed_My_Life

Once Upon a Time in America
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Noodles ends up being a rapist. As a director how do you create empathy
for such a morally reprehensible character?
Polish: It’s an uphill battle. It’s already going to be tough, because he’s obviously
acting out serious pain that he feels. And all he feels is he can inflict
pain on other people. That’s the way he’ll express it.
If you can accept his baggage, you’ll be able to like him. I think he loses
his moral compass when that young kid Dominic gets shot—that whole
sense of watching that kid. That failure of him not being able to help him
and seeing that kid go down. I don’t think it’s acceptable for him to go rape
somebody, but yet his whole value system is askew.
There’s been some critical commentary in this area that Noodles drifts
from a fully conscious character to one blind of his own ugliness.
Polish: Opium is one to take you there. What’s amazing in Once Upon a
Time America is what you don’t see. You don’t see a parental structure; you
don’t see any of their parents. So these kids, you’re led to believe, are real
street kids who create their own morals and Ten Commandments by what
they do and how they act and what they believe is good.
The film takes place in 1922, 1933, and 1968. What do you think about
the theory that once Noodles betrays his friends, he hides in opium,
and the last third of the timeline is an opium dream?
Polish: I love that interpretation. I love that people come to that conclusion.
I’m one to believe that he really physically left because when you witness
the death, or what you believe is the death of your friends, you’ll leave
the scene of the crime. Anyone smart enough is not going to come back.
That’s where serious guilt comes in. Whether it was a Jewish or Catholic
saga, it was the guilt that drove him away.