The Great Silence

1968 [ITALIAN]

Action / Drama / Western

26
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 89% · 13 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 89% · 5K ratings
IMDb Rating 7.7/10 10 20063 20.1K

dying and death capitalist gunslinger sheriff bounty hunter saloon

Plot summary

A mute gunslinger fights in the defense of a group of outlaws and a vengeful young widow, against a group of ruthless bounty hunters.

Director

Sergio Corbucci Photo
Sergio Corbucci

Top cast

Remo De Angelis Photo
Remo De Angelis as Fake Sheriff in Flashback
Klaus Kinski Photo
Klaus Kinski as Tigrero / Loco
Mirella Pamphili Photo
Mirella Pamphili as Red-Haired Saloon Girl in Flashback
Carlo D'Angelo Photo
Carlo D'Angelo as Governor of Utah
720p.BluRay 1080p.BluRay
932.78 MB
1280*682
Italian 2.0
NR
Subtitles it  
23.976 fps
1 hr 45 min
Seeds 5
1.73 GB
1920*1024
Italian 2.0
NR
Subtitles it  
23.976 fps
1 hr 45 min
Seeds 47

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by Xstal 8 / 10

In the Bleak Mid-Winter...

A voiceless vigilante enacts revenge, if you've been tricked or tripped up he can make amends, for a fee he will dispense, compensation, recompense, with the weapon of his choice (a Mauser C96), he will avenge. Loco makes collections for the state, if there's a bounty on your head he will checkmate, always dead never alive, as he conspires and connives, has the backing of the local magistrate.The town of Snow Hill lives up to its name as Pauline Middleton, wonderfully performed by Vonetta McGee, seeks revenge for her husband's killing at the hands of Loco, a devious and scheming bounty hunter (just as wonderfully performed by Klaus Kimski), by hiring the man with no noise who goes by the name of Silent, and bears a close resemblance to a similar spaghetti western character you may have come across, played perfectly by the suave Jean-Louis Trintignant. The ending may leave you a little confounded as it takes a tangent you most likely won't be expecting or indeed be familiar with.
Reviewed by Quinoa1984 8 / 10

not quite like Leone westerns despite Morricone's presence: a real sense of malaise, dark melodrama, a bleak ending

Sergio Corbucci had me a little fooled at first; from seeing Navajo Joe, the first I'd seen of his films, I thought he was more of a spinster in the comical sense than Sergio Leone was. Although Corbucci doesn't nearly have the level of directorial talent as him (then again who does), there's a level of enthrallment in making a movie, in pushing an in-your-face style that works to his advantage. The Great Silence is pretty far from Navajo Joe, mostly because any laugh to be had is unintentional, or at the expense of star Klaus Kinski if one is already a fan (hearing him dubbed after seeing so many of his Herzog roles is a little staggering). The story boils down to vendettas and paybacks and paydays between scorned bounty hunters and duped sheriffs, plus the title character- named as such because of a mute demeanor and because actor Trintignant didn't want to learn any lines- leading Silence and Loco (albeit this isn't even one of Kinski's craziest performances by far) into a final showdown.The circumstances leading up to this showdown should, in a more conventional western, be pretty clean-cut. But what's impressive, if almost a little circumstantial, is that Corbucci puts in little unconventional markers along the way: the high-drama scene where Silence gets his hand burnt by a goon as foreshadowing for the ominous bounty hunter massacre, and for those little moments when life seems so easily killed off, particularly at the start. Silence, like in a Leone film, does have something of a gimmick as a killer, as he shoots off the thumbs of his targets. But Corbucci's drama isn't keened on incredible suspense sequences in operatic form or gallows humor. Even a sex scene for Corbucci has a tenderness to it that feels the work of someone trying to break out of squarely B-movie extremities and trying for something more. If it isn't altogether successful it's attributable to flaws scattered around: random 'soft-lighting' in the last act that is very distracting, a couple of plot points not totally clear even by the end, and Kinski looking sometimes like a pretty boy as much as a sadistic bounty hunter, plus Corbucci's tendencies to favor close-ups for more formulaic means as opposed to drawing out deeper emotions through a more keen system.But even with Corbucci not being a 'great' director, he has a keen eye for Utah (if it is Utah, which it probably isn't), and the vast vistas of snow and fields in a plain sight that contrasts the sort of void sucking the characters in with the hopeless center of bounty hunters without the strongest opponent. And Morricone, as if it was like breathing, fleshes out scenes so well with his beautiful score, only slightly below the magnificence of a Leone picture. You may feel by the end that it's not the prettiest western you've ever seen, but it has that possibility in its low-budget blood-stained manner to stay with you long after it's over.
Read more IMDb reviews

10 Comments

Be the first to leave a comment