jellopuke Wanna see what Tarrantino ripped off for Hateful 8, then this is for you. It's got great vistas, a super downer ending, and some great characters in an unconventional setting. See it!

Zoooma It's hard to gauge this because the dubbing into American accents was not so good. Twas a distraction and would have been better with subtitles. The dubbing on its own is bad but that also throws the sound off at times. What's great about this spaghetti western is definitely the snowy scenery of the Dolomites in northern Italia. What a production filming in such conditions. Our protagonist (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and antagonist (Klaus Kinski) are both solid in their performances. Interesting social undertones with a fine hero out to destroy a terrible villain. But all that gets shot down, literally, at the end. In American westerns you know who wins. American westerns I love and have seen perhaps 1,000 of. So the ending here left me shocked. Many westerns come and go, to be forgotten about for all time. Not this one! --A Kat Pirate Screener

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.

rleary1 I love spaghetti Westerns but have never seen one filmed in 'snow-filled mountains' The long distance shots were fantastic and this must have been a grueling film shoot not only for the actors and crew, but especially the horses! When I'd see a horse collapse in the snow I thought, "I sure hope that 'no animals were harmed in the making of this film'! The horses were trudging though 3 - 4 feet of snow sometimes and there were a couple of 'snow-blind' camera shots where you couldn't even see anything. The gun shot sounds were the usual 'small cannon Italian gun echo'y sound' but that didn't bother me and is just standard in an Italian Western. Music was haunting and the dubbing wasn't bad at all. Throw in evil giant blue eyed psycho Kinski (playing the character 'Loco')and you've got yourself a hit! Lastly and most importantly is the ending. I can't say enough for the ending to this epic saga of good vs. evil. I just sat their astonished at the ending and realized that I don't think I've ever seen an ending that 'Realistic'!? I'm sure a lot of you would not agree (but some of you film fan purists would, and it threw me 'way off guard' but I came to like the ending and thought it really rang true! One of the best 'truest' Western endings I've ever seen! I don't want to give away any spoilers but seriously, I have never seen a film end in 'such a manner'. Stick with this movie and you will be rewarded. If not rewarded at least this movie will make you think or kind of bother you for a couple of days and those are my favorite kind of films!! Fantastic 1968 Film and glad I finally got to see it in 2010!