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he Great Silence / Il grande silenzio (1968) [Repost]

Posted By: Notsaint
he Great Silence / Il grande silenzio (1968) [Repost]

The Great Silence / Il grande silenzio (1968)
DVD9 | VIDEO_TS | PAL | 16:9 | 720x576 | 6,23 Gb
Audio: Italian Ac3 2.0 @ 224 Kbps; English AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps | Subs: English
01:40:59 | Italy, France | Western

The late, great Italian filmmaker Sergio Corbucci (Django, Companeros) directed and co-wrote this western in 1968. Bounty killers led by Loco (Klaus Kinski) prey on outlaws hiding out in the snowbound Utah mountains. After an innocent becomes Loco s latest victim, his wife hires a gunman for revenge. Silence, mute since his throat was cut as a child after witnessing the murder of his parents, decides to take justice into his own hands.

Director : Sergio Corbucci
Cast : Jean-Louis Trintignant, Klaus Kinski, Frank Wolff, Luigi Pistilli, Vonetta McGee, Mario Brega, Carlo D'Angelo, Marisa Merlini, Maria Mizar, Marisa Sally, Raf Baldassarre, Spartaco Conversi, Remo De Angelis, Mirella Pamphili, Fortunato Arena, Bruno Corazzari, Loris Loddi, Benito Pacifico, Mimmo Poli, Claudio Ruffini, Giulia Salvatori

IMDb

There’s a lot you have to accept if you want to get into a Spaghetti Western, especially a Spaghetti Western that isn’t helmed by Sergio Leone. Like most of its kind, The Great Silence is badly dubbed, so that the words you hear never match the movement of the actors’ lips; furthermore, the words you hear are badly mixed in, so that they always come out as an audio close-up. All of the costumes look newly made, no matter how worn they should be, and most of the extras can only be counted on to ham it up in the worst fashion imaginable. But if you go into the film knowing this, you can soon accept it, and you should, since The Great Silence is one of the most original and rewarding Westerns out there.
The film stands out for various reasons. First is its setting; most of us are used to seeing cowboys in dusty Frontier or mining towns, or perhaps in lush green fields in places like Montana. The Great Silence takes place in snow-covered Utah; everyone is bundled up, everything is frozen (not unlike McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Robert Altman’s 1972 Western film that seems to be the spiritual partner of Corbucci’s film). Then there’s Loco, played by the infamous Klaus Kinski. It’s hard to put your finger on exactly what makes Loco so much different from so many other villains. He seems practical (he asks for help hoisting frozen corpses onto a carriage, so he can collect the bounty), and almost polite. He also looks fucking insane. Then there’s the overall mood of the film, which is gloomier even than Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven.
There isn’t much to say about Silence, played by French actor Jean-Louis Trintignant. There are different theories, or rumours, surrounding the reasoning behind the protagonist's muteness. Some say that this is Corbucci playing with the trope of the laconic cowboy; if Eastwood or John Wayne, for instance, are curt, than Corbucci’s hero is going to be downright dumb. The other popular belief is that Trintignant only accepted the role on the grounds that he didn’t have to learn any lines. Either way, Silence is pretty uninteresting; not only does he not talk, he has seemingly no facial expressions whatsoever. All of his character seems to be expressed in his unique choice of gun. Unlike most cowboys, who carry some sort of six-shooter, Silence carries an automatic handgun, an 1896 7.63 mm Mauser Broomhandle. It’s his gun, rather than his silence, which sets him apart.
The last character worth mentioning is the Sheriff, played by Frank Wolff. (The love interest, played by Vonetta McGee, doesn’t do much but bring Silence to Snow Hill, before quickly falling love with him.) While the Sheriff is clearly meant to be comic relief, he’s rarely as buffoonish or clownish as some of his comedic counterparts. On the whole, he is well-meaning, but ignorant of his own situation and naïve in believing that he can make a difference. He is, on the whole, fairly noble, and one can’t help but feel that he’s the most sympathetic character in the whole film.
That said, anyone who’s a fan of the genre should check out the movie. It features a great villain, and while I’m not sold that Corbucci is the peer of that other, more famous Sergio (I found Django, for instance, pretty bad), he is a stylish director with a flair for filming violence. The Great Silence is a dour, nihilistic Western that is well worth tracking down.
~ Movie Feast

Strangely never released in the U.S. for reasons never made clear, The Great Silence is one of the most neglected top run spaghetti westerns. The constant snowfall and eccentric storyline immediately set it apart from its desert-bound ilk like the Sergio Leone classics, and the downbeat, gritty approach still makes it a potent, unforgettable experience.
In the snowswept wilds of Utah, the mysterious outlaw Silence (Jean-Louis Trintignant) coldly guns down armed bounty hunters who cross his path. The most nefarious of these legalized killers, Loco (Klaus Kinski), crosses paths with Silence in a remote and despairing mountainside town, where Pauline (Vonetta McGee) enlists Silence's services to avenge the death of her husband. The town's owner, Pollicut (Luigi Pistilli), allows the bounty hunters to commit legalized murder with impunity, but the genial new sheriff (The Lickerish Quartet's Frank Wolff) has other ideas and crosses paths with Loco. Pauline and Silence also begin a tentative love affair, but greater, more sinister powers control their destiny.
One of the greatest international actors, Trintignant makes the most of his non-speaking part to convey a dense moral ambiguity lurking within a gun-slinging mute (his vocal chords have been slit), able to strike back only in self-defense. He's matched every step of the way by the Aryan Kinski, whose fascist behavior gives the film a more disturbing political subtext than your average Euro oater. The film also marks the debut of McGee, an interesting actress who later returned to snowy climes for Clint Eastwood's The Eiger Sanction. Her interracial love scene here is something of an anomaly in westerns, Italian or otherwise, and her relationship with Silence gives the unexpected finale an even greater resonance. And as for that ending… well, let's just say it's one of a kind and will either make or break the film for most viewers.
Director Sergio Corbucci made a name for himself by directing Django, one of the most popular non-Leone spaghetti westerns, but in many respects The Great Silence is a far more impressive work. As with Django, he avoids the spacious scope framing one normally associates with the genre, choosing instead to evoke a tight, claustrophobic atmosphere through bizarre framing and cramped visual spaces. The oppressive snowstorms which punctuate the film provide some startling tableaux of men on horseback trudging through the hills; even more than the notorious Cut-Throats Nine, this is a western that seeps into your bones and makes you want to curl up in front of a fireplace for a few hours. The rough technical nature of the film (some rough edits, a few shaky camera shots, visible imperfections in some of the film stock) in many ways enhances its curiosity value, distinguishing it from the slick Hollywood product of a director like John Ford. Naturally it also wouldn't be complete without an Ennio Morricone score, and the maestro doesn't disappoint. The main theme is one of his most haunting, and the rest of the music perfectly captures the violence and melancholy inherent in the story.
~ Mondo Digital

he Great Silence / Il grande silenzio (1968) [Repost]

he Great Silence / Il grande silenzio (1968) [Repost]

he Great Silence / Il grande silenzio (1968) [Repost]

he Great Silence / Il grande silenzio (1968) [Repost]
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