PodBill Just what I expected

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Tayloriona Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Frances Chung Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Bezenby Sergio Corbucci swaps the desert for snowy mountains, howling coyotes for howling wind, and supplies a strong silent hero so silent that he doesn't speak at all. Ennio Morricone changes tone completely and gives us a morose, sad soundtrack that perfectly matches the atmosphere of desperation that flows through the entire film. No doubt about it – this film leaves a mark.In the mountains of Utah, starving citizens of the town of Snow Hill are forced to steal to feed themselves, and in turn have to hide in the mountains with a price on their head. The corrupt banker and Justice of the Peace Pollicut (Luigi Pistilli), encourages bounty hunters to hunt them down, as he makes a percentage on every 'bandit' brought in. However, the persecuted folks have help in the form of Silence, who really, really hates bounty hunters – and with good reason. Silence will only fire upon someone if they draw first, and he also likes to shoot the thumbs off bounty hunters, as Pollicut knows too well. Worst of all the bounty hunters is Loco (Klaus Kinski), who doesn't even care why people have a price on their heads, as long as he gets the money, and there's no 'dead or alive' where Loco is concerned. If they're dead, he doesn't have to feed them. Loco kills the husband of Pauline, who returned from exile to visit his wife, and she hires Silence to kill him. Loco knows that Silence is too fast for him, and will not be drawn into a gunfight…yet.There's also a new Sheriff in town that quickly twigs that things aren't quite right in Snow Hill. Burnett (Wolff, playing the only character approaching 'comic relief'), does not agree at all with Pollicut and Loco's tactics, even going so far as to arrest Loco and take him elsewhere for a trial. That's enough plot! There's loads going on in this film, and plenty of it must have been quite daring for 1968. The interracial sex scene between Silence and Pauline for starters (and the music during this bit is outstanding, even for Morricone!), the bloody violence with headshots being a speciality, and the ending! The ending! Jesus! Buddha! Brian Blessed! The ending! Indy! The ending! I will not reveal it here, but it's certainly not something you encounter very often, in any genre. Jaw-dropping.The acting is also faultless too, even if it is dubbed. Klaus Kinski is very restrained for the most part, but still comes across as a polite, malicious, sadistic murderer who is also smarter than everyone else. This might possibly be the best film I've seen him in. Luigi Pistilli isn't too far behind either. He's cowardly and scheming and likes to make others do his dirty work (mainly Mario Brega, who meets a gory end that stands out). Frank Wolff jumps between comedic and serious as the only male character in possession of a soul. His character follows the law to the letter, which may be a mistake in the hostile environment of Snow Hill. I'm not familiar with the actress that plays Pauline but she also stands out as a woman channelling her grief into one simple task – to kill Loco.This one gets the highest recommendation for me!

Red-Barracuda Sergio Corbucci is often cited as the greatest spaghetti western director after Sergio Leone. This claim seems to be pretty well founded from what I have seen. With Django he created one of the most iconic characters of the genre, while ramping up the violence to new levels. In the case of The Great Silence, however, he not only made his masterpiece but one of the best westerns ever made.The Italian westerns were famous for overturning the myths of the Old West perpetuated by the traditional American westerns. In some ways The Great Silence overturns some of the conventions created by the spaghettis themselves. Most obviously in the way that it portrays bounty hunters as the bad guys for a change. They had hitherto been depicted effectively as heroes in films such as Leone's For A Few Dollars More but here they are amoral, cold-blooded killers, with no qualms about who they kill just so long as it pays and they themselves remain technically on the right side of the law. I'm sure Corbucci's depiction is far more truthful than the romanticised version. In the world of The Great Silence the law works through using professional killers, some types of murder have been legalised.There are several contributory factors that make The Great Silence so successful. One of them is the landscape. The snowbound land of Utah makes for a terrifically cinematic setting and an unusual one for a western. The white expanses really allow the characters to stand out on the screen. And the cinematography is excellent in capturing this, with some really beautiful shots. It adds a cold harshness as well that reflects the tone of the story while setting into motion the important plot-line where the starving Mormons who live in these extreme conditions are forced to rob travellers in order to steal their horses to eat. These crimes are what bring the bounty hunters into the vicinity as the authorities are willing to pay them to remove these desperate people from the scene.The score from Ennio Morricone adds an awful lot too. He is most famous for his soundtracks for Leone's spaghetti westerns. With good reason of course, as those truly are spectacular bits of music but his contribution here is wonderful as well but quite different. The themes match the mood of the movie. It's more orchestral, a lot more downbeat and reflective sounding, with a particularly haunting melancholic main theme.The film is also blessed with a top rate cast. Jean-Louis Trintignant (Silence) is such a great actor that he conveys so much with zero dialogue. He is part ominous, part sensitive; overall an extremely compelling spaghetti western lead. He didn't do any other westerns and allegedly only agreed to star in this one if he didn't have to learn any lines – although I have no idea if this is really true. Klaus Kinski (Loco) starred in many spaghetti westerns of course and, as always, brings a lot to the table. His characterisation of Loco is interesting. He's obviously a bad guy but he under-plays the character a lot and he is far from a one-dimensional villain. He knows he is no match for Silence and says as much which in itself is an unusual build up to a finale with the villain almost ruling himself out of a showdown. Of course the two leads continually play the bounty hunter game of never drawing first (the law states it can never be self-defence). This leads to a strange ongoing situation, ended when Loco manipulates things to his advantage for an easy kill. There is also great support in other roles. Frank Wolff is amusing as the good intentioned sheriff, Luigi Pistilli is effectively sleazy as a snake-like businessman who hires the killers and Vonetta Magee is strong in the role of Pauline, the woman Silence helps. Those two also have a very tender and beautiful love scene. Shot and scored exquisitely. Such beauty stands out here and is unusual in spaghetti westerns in general.It would only be fair to conclude by saying that the most striking single thing about The Great Silence is its ending. It's uncompromising and dark beyond belief. We have the hero, the girl and all the other sympathetic characters massacred by the bounty hunters. It's sheer nihilism makes it both incredibly unusual but also absolutely perfect. It's boldness is genius. It's message could not be clearer and that is that bad deeds often go unpunished and innocent weak people are often murdered by state funded terror throughout the world. It has always been so but it's so very rarely that it's shown so truthfully in the movies. It seems pretty likely that the ending of The Great Silence contributed to its box office failure. Admittedly, the late 60's was a time in the movies where such endings happened in films quite a lot but the ending of The Great Silence has especially more of an impact because it so completely subverts the inbuilt rules of the western genre. Funnily enough, Corbucci was obliged to shoot an alternative ending for certain foreign markets. Viewing it immediately after watching the movie, it looks completely and utterly absurd but when you think about it, it's the sort of ending you normally get. It just looks so foolish next to such an incredible, brutally believable one.

Giorgos Trou I really didn't know what to expect from this film, since I was quit disappointed by Corbucci's other masterwork "Django". However, I was intrigued by the last scene's reputation and the good position of the film in the 'Empire's 500 Greatest Movies of All Times' (#386).The setting of this film is really genius: a mute gunslinger; a town in the snows; a bunch of starving outlaws; a black widow seeking revenge. These facts alone are enough to consider "Il Grande Silenzio" a fine spaghetti western. Without a doubt, Kinski serves the best performance in the movie, as a cold-blooded bounty hunter. Morricone's music is once more great, adding a lot to the final result.Unfortunately, though, some aspects of the film prevent me from giving it 8 or 9 out of 10. First of all, I feel Trintignant wasn't the best option, although I recognize it's hard to steal the show without a word to say. Like in "Django", the protagonist's romance fell flat. The sheriff's role also seemed a little bad, not because of the actor's performance, but because of his silly obsession with Loco.All in all, "Il Grande Silenzio" offers everything a good spaghetti western has (except the sun of course). It is a classic and therefore can't be missed.

thisissubtitledmovies Originally released in 1968, Sergio Corbucci's The Great Silence (Il Grande Silenzio) is widely considered the greatest spaghetti western not made by Sergio Leone. Dedicating the film to Martin Luther King, Che Guevara, and Jesus Christ, the film has very definite political undercurrents. The actions of the state and its laws seem concerned only with the protection of property and the rich, only paying attention to the poor and needy once privation has driven them to act outside of the law. The familiar Corbucci trope of hand mutilation is present, linking Silence to Jesus and Che Guevara (Jesus was nailed to the cross through his hands; the hands of the dead Che Guevara were sent to Fidel Castro) to suggest the impossibility of revolution through the actions of one solitary individual. Regardless of your feelings about the spaghetti western genre, The Great Silence is an essential piece of cinema. A haunting meditation on death, almost despairing in its indictment of injustice, it has genuine claim to the status of greatest spaghetti western ever made. GJK