The Great Silence (9/10)

Sergio Corbucci, 1968
The film is an interesting and ironic reflection on morality and law, set among a picturesque background and involving a cast of eccentric characters. It is the ‘Empire Strikes Back’ of spaghetti westerns. At face value, the film is similar to most films in its genre. Everything from the plot, which involves outlaws chasing their prey through a lawless and expansive countryside, to the Ennio Morricone score and final show down are typical. What distinguishes the film is Klaus Kinski’s performance as Loco, a morally deprived and dishonest bounty hunter on a mission to capture a group of outlaws hiding in the mountains to collect the reward. Since, Loco can collect the reward regardless if he brings the fugitives in dead or alive, he prefers the former, provoking them into threatening him and claiming self-defense. After he kills a woman’s husband, she hires Silence, a mute gunslinger with a high tech pistol to extract revenge. The two chase each other through the Italian Alps, guised as the Rocky Mountains, and eventually meet in a final confrontation that ends with a distinctive ‘Corbuccian’ twist. Interesting to note the director also made an alternative happy conclusion for North American audiences, where everything works out perfectly for the hero and everyone lives happily ever after.
Like most Westerns, from Sergio Leone to Howard Hawks, John Wayne to Clint Eastwood, the Great Silence portrays a type of moral ambiguity, in where the good guys aren’t really good. The protagonists are often the same bounty hunters, killers, drunks, and mercenaries as the antagonists. However, at the end of day the former are a little less sociopathic, a little more compassionate, and much more human than the latter. This is what makes the genre, inclusive of spaghetti westerns, so ‘American’.

It can be difficult to take Kinski seriously, given his outlandish ‘I am the new Jesus’ performances and legendary escapades with Werner Herzog. However, before all that, he made his name in Italian Westerns, and ‘The Great Silence’ is unquestionably the best performance of his career. His detached deadpan seriousness and eccentricities are reminiscent of a super cool mix between Dennis Hopper and Jean-Pierre Léaud. Corbucci’s distinctive styling and the genius of Klaus Kinski truly distinguish the film, making it one of, if not the, best in the genre.