when was once upon a time in america filmed
Once Upon a Time in America The film was shot between June 14, 1982, and April 22, 1983. Leone tried, as he had with A Fistful of Dynamite, to produce the film with a young director under him. In the early days of the project he courted John Milius, a fan of his who was enthusiastic about the idea; but Milius was working on The Wind and the Lion and the script for Apocalypse Now and could not commit to the project. For the film's visual style, Leone used as references the paintings of such artists as Reginald Marsh, Edward Hopper, and Norman Rockwell, as well as (for the 1922 sequences) the photographs of Jacob Riis. F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby influenced Noodles' relationship with Deborah.