The opening of Once Upon a Time in the West is a virtuosic evocation of time passing. However, for most of its duration, the sequence kills time with action. The unusual miniature activities of hat water drinking and fly baiting are magnified by Leone’s close-ups, and become widescreen spectacle. The stillness of the sequence also serves to build suspense. This is a self-reflexive western, so we know (and Leone knows we know) that there will be a shoot-out when the train finally arrives. Though the killers’ progress is temporarily stilled at the station, they are nonetheless on a journey that will end with someone being
killed. In the meantime, they pass time in various entertaining ways. But
ultimately, by killing time, Leone’s killers hasten their own death. When the train finally arrives, they do not have time to kill their intended victim, because he is a faster shot, so they are killed. With hindsight, we see that they have in fact been in limbo, waiting for their own death.
— Richard Misek: Dead time: Cinema, Heidegger, and boredom (2010)
Synopsis: As the railroad builders advance unstoppably through the Arizona desert on their way to the sea, Jill arrives in the small town of Flagstone with the intention of starting a new life.