The Great Silence (Il Grande silenzio, 1968)

Great movie. I've only seen it once when it was shown on IFC, but I absolutely fell in love with it. Everything about it is excellent. I really have to pick up the DVD.

It's pretty hard to find the DVD, but I got one from Amazon last year at a good price. If you're thinking of picking it up I'd say do it sooner rather then later. If only it were anamorphically enhanced.

And if you haven't seen it, might I reccommend Django Kill. Great Silence is probably Carbucci's best, nut if you haven't seen the original Django, you should check that out too, and the Hellbenders.

I saw this thanks to IFC, too, and knew about the ending from one of their documentaries. My expectation was that it was more of a face-to-face showdown than how it was, but it still makes its point.

I remember liking Kinski's character's emphasis on corpses equaling cash, and thought the love interest was uncommonly beautiful.

DJANGO KILL is utterly deranged, basically a horror film dressed up in Western clothes. It's not a Corbucci film and has nothing to do with DJANGO, but still a must see.

DJANGO, the Corbucci film - I love this movie. Pity the English dubbing is so awful - I really, really prefer watching Westerns in English, but that's not an acceptable option for DJANGO. Italian all the way on this one. I might actually watch this right now.

I really need to catch up with SILENCE - never seen it, but I've always meant to, and I've never heard anything remotely negative about it. It's still available from Amazon.

Yeah, Django Kill was Giulio Questi, whose only other film of note was Death Laid an Egg. Another great Carbucci film that's available on US DVD is Companeros.

One I really need to see is Navajo Joe.

A great opening scene, in the snow when he shoots the thumbs off a guy. I picked up the DVD just because it said Alex Cox on the back (He does a video intro and commentary). I love how spaghetti westerns, as a genre, stick so close to the rules, you might never tell them apart without reading the credits, and yet there is so many new touches brought to each film by directors and stars. It's exactly what I love about genre films.

I'm finally coming off a two ir three year Spaghetti Western binge, and they do start to blend together. Day of Anger and Death Rides a Horse are almost the same movie in my mind now. Great Silence is one of those movies that really stands out in the genre. It's so 'grown up' compared to the loopy violent fun of most the genre's 'quintessential' entrys.

this movie is incredible.a western with a semi-automatic broomhandle mauser?unheard of.

The Leone and Corbucci films, obviously.

MY NAME IS NOBODY/NOBODY'S THE GREATEST 4-disc set of the final two westerns that Sergio Leone produced but mostly didn't direct (or did he?), from Paramount Pictures Germany, is worth it for the documentaries alone. Good thing too, because while MY NAME IS NOBODY is great, an epic about being epic... NOBODY'S THE GREATEST is just shit. The documentary about the troubled production is much better than the film. Leone directed parts of MY NAME IS NOBODY, but not the parts you would expect.

GOD'S GUN - Spaghetti served up Israeli style by Golan-Globus in their pre-Cannon Group phase. Lee Van Cleef, Jack Palance, Sybil Danning and Leif Garrett star. Utter rubbish that I mention only because it's free and has some comedic value. Look again at that cast list. Did I mention it's free?

STORM RIDER aka THE BIG SHOWDOWN aka THE GRAND DUEL - Obviously not to be confused with Andrew Lau's 1998 Hong Kong comic book adaptation THE STORMRIDERS, or Steven Spielberg's DUEL, or the Showcase Showdown on The Price Is Right. No, this is the odd tale of Lee Van Cleef versus these guys. People get shot and shit.



I wonder if Frank Miller ever saw this?

This flick is playing on Comcast On Demand under the free movies right now.

Talk about an ending that slaps you in the face. I kept thinking to myself, "that sheriff isn't really dead, right? He'll be back to save the day, right? Mommy?"

It's like until the end it's all about myth making, then fuck ya, here's the reality. Klaus Kinski will always kill you in the end.

One I've had on my list for a while is Face to Face, but I can only find super expensive R2 DVDs of it.

I know that we say 'see the Leone ones' but often Duck You Sucker is overlooked. Do yourself a favor and see Duck You Sucker in widescreen. It's a fantastic film, and probably Leone's most enigmatic.

What an angry, angry film. It's like the spaghetti western counterpart to Night Of The Living Dead. From Wikipedia:

Hahaha.

I own the same model Mauser that Silence uses in the film; I hadn't seen the movie in so long I'd forgotten that tidbit.

Jean-Louis Trintignant looks just like Tati in this movie.

Every now and then, I imagine a League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen style version of the wild west, with The Man With No Name leading an all-new Magnificent Seven, consisting of Silence, Navajo Joe, Sabata, Django and...Caine from 8i]Kung Fu[/i] and Stumpy from Rio Bravo, or something similairly absurd.

Awesome movie. It's pretty telling that Corbucci was a card carrying communist, as his movies often carry some pretty strong leftist messages, none moreso than this one. Talk about your children of Marx and coca-cola: Corbuci is clearly infatuated by the coolness of US western mythology, but just like Leone, he is also interested in deconstructing it and showcasing the violence at the heart of the frontier period - the difference being Leone still had that childlike instinct of letting the hero ride off into the sunset, while Corbucci's more explicitly politicized approach allows no such escapism. Il Grande Silenzio isn't quite on Leone's level as far as the cinematography and production values go (but then of course, Leone had bigger budgets), and the obligatory reveal of the hero's past, much as I love it, is pretty silly, objectively speaking, but I'd still stack this up against most of Leone's best.

Almost redundant to say it, but GREAT score by Morricone, as well.

Score sample!

The movie is technologically inferior to Leone, but it's almost apples and oranges. This reminded me of the angry early horror of Cronenberg or Romero - mechanically sloppy, but raw and powerful and with something on its mind.

This is kinda splitting hairs, but I'd say that, although I agree that there are major differences, ultimately the things that Leone and Corbucci's movies share outweigh the things that set them apart from each other. The visual language of wide landscapes and extreme close ups, the overlap in casts & crews, the tragic, operatic feel. Leone would have never opted for something as raw and radical as Il Grande Silenzio, but it's still a kind of logical progression from the first time Clint Eastwood gets his ass kicked in Fistful Of Dollars.

They have a lot of elements in common, but what knocks me out about The Great Silence is in the ways it deviates. I don't think I'd be talking much about the movie if it didn't veer so hard from Leone's tropes.

Earlier posts in the thread say this is out of print, but there are cheap copies on Amazon, and Netflix seems to have it as well.

The Italian western is a genre I paid little attention to as a kid, but I've been slowly delving deeper into them as an adult, savoring them. I think Keoma might be next.

It's certainly not out of print.


I don't think it's far fetched to call it the best Spaghetti Western, or at the very least - in the Top 5.

Keoma is good, Django Kill is better.

I have an Italian-language version w/subs buried somewhere in a pile of boxes. The English dub on the DVD never worked for me (even though several cast members -- Kinski, Vonetta McGee, Frank Wolff -- were/are fluent in English). Plus I'm amused by the way Italian voice actors say "bounty killer."

KEOMA is intriguing because it's so damn close to being a musical. The DeAngelis Brothers' vivid songs are interior monologues for the agony of the half-breed title figure. In one scene Keoma is beaten and tortured while a male vocalist howls "Wanna die!" to an unintentionally hilarious length. Castellari's visual touches are bizarre as well, and Franco Nero is superb in the leading role. You won't find anything politically challenging in the film, but it's entertaining.

Keoma is the spaghetti western for me after Once upon time in the west. It's everything i love about film.

Another one which i Love to watch is Go Kill Everybody and Come Back Alone by Enzo G. Castellari. It's pure pulp at it's finest.

The Big Showdown is trash but the look of the flashbacks is stunning. It's presented in a sepia-tone.

When it comes to Corbucci, I have to go with Companeros as his finest. I've always favoured the *wink-wink* western and this has it in spades with Franco Nero and Tomas Milian upping the cheeky laughs. Palance's villain's is just a mental characterisation, i don't know if it was in the script but on-screen it's eccentric and electric.

Personally i find this genre so rewarding, Leone was the milestone before, but exploring has wielded some real gems. I love it.

Well that ending was a downer. I was hoping Silence would get *at least* one of those bounty killers, but no! It was a complete massacre. I had to laugh at the over-the-top, FIST PUMPING happy ending included on the dvd. At least Corbucci had a sense of humor about it.
*frozen Sheriff rides in from out of nowhere*

The whole movie seemed like a big "fuck you" to FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE. It's the most unconventional Corbucci film I've seen, but it might also be the sloppiest. There's more bad lighting, shaky cameras and blurry shots than I've seen in any of his other movies. I consider THE MERCENARY the total package when it comes to Corbucci. It has the best blend of action, humor, western tough guy coolness and political/social commentary.

Corbucci is so great because he's kind of the anti-Leone in terms of photography and production. Most of the contemporaries tried to make Leone films, Corbucci was always rough. I've honestly never noticed any technical issues with the film, probably because I was in the roughness of the moment.

I've been on a huge western kick (both regular and spaghetti) since I'm trying to write one myself, and I watched this one a few months back. I thought it was really excellent. The only other Corbucci movies I've seen are Django and The Hellbenders, and I'd say The Great Silence is head and shoulders above those.

The rawness of his movies, and this one in particular was really off putting at first, just because until that time Leone was all I had exposure to, but I got into it fairly quickly. By the time the ending came around, I was a huge fan. What Phil said about it feeling like early Romero or Cronenberg is totally true. The seething anger in the movie is totally palpable through its rough-around-the-edges style.

And Gabe mentioned Duck, You Sucker being really underrated. A truer statement could not be said. It might very well be my favorite spaghetti western. Really fun movie with a couple of really good lead characters. It's also streaming on netflix in widescreen (but not HD), so check that out if you haven't.

Erik, you might wanna give Navajo Joe a try. More lightweight than Il Grande Silenzio to be sure, but there's some terrific action, breathtaking desert shots and Morricone at his very best.

I don't know if Fistful Of Dynamite is underrated - going off on a tangent here, but I don't know if anything is underrated post-Internet; it seems like every movie has a cult following now - it's sort of settled into being the Leone movie everyone mentions as being underrated. I dislike it, I have to say - mawkish, hectoring concerning its politics, unsure of whether it wants to be a comedy or a serious political movie (not always a bad thing but here I just don't think the halves match up.) I liked Steiger's speech about the revolution and Coburn's weird flashback scenes (also him just blowing random stuff up when he enters the movie), but mostly...Leone was less than fully invested in the movie and it shows.

Daniel, it's worth watching Duck You Sucker with the DVD commentary. I liked it from the beginning, but the track pushed me to loving it. I suppose if the dueling tones bother you you'll probably never love the movie, but it's worth a shot. There was a pretty good reason for everything, actually.

I suppose being a major Leone fanboy I'll have to get the special edition some day - I may have been dealing with excessively high expectations. I do like Christopher Fraying's contextualization of the movie in his Leone book Something To Do With Death; Leone's dad was an embittered socialist, and Leone was highly critical of the way regime collaborators turned communist overnight after WWII. He's also once said something along the lines of "I'm an anarchist, but an anarchist with a conscience, which is what keeps me from blowing stuff up". As I said, I think Steiger's speech about what "the revolution" really means is powerful stuff.

NAVAJO JOE is a nice little Rambo Western. Corbucci doesn't waste any time with this one. He gets straight to the point (Angry Indian hunts down the gang who murdered his tribe) and the movie doesn't overstay it's welcome (It's about 90 minutes long). Really the only thing that bothers me about NAVAJO JOE is that they didn't use Burt's voice.

I can't actually read the words 'Navajo Joe' without hearing a chorus of people chanting his name, thanks to Morricone's score.

Adding Navajo Joe to the top of my queue. Thanks for the tip.

Companeros is also worth checking out. It has a memorable Morricone theme like Navajo Joe, but it's a mexican revolution buddy comedy.
I'd say check out THE MERCENARY, but it still isn't available on dvd for some reason.

If you've ever fantasized about seeing Eli Wallach in a dress then you can't go wrong with Il bianco, il giallo, il nero. It's by no means a masterwork from Corbucci, really, it's downright idiotic but it knows that and has fun with it. Wallach steals the whole film, his deadpan delivery just highlights how silly his situation is but Tomas Milian, who I consider a genius is just lousy as the samurai, I don't think the dub really helped his performance.

For a real Corbucci gem it's worth tracking down his Trucker movie, Il Bestione. There is one film of his that i'd really like to see and that's Sonny and Jed with Milian, Telly Savalas and Susan George.

(This tune from the Angelis brothers seems to pop up in a few films. It's the theme tune for Watch Out We're mad but It also appears on the radio in Il Bestione and Street Law. It's not the best song to get stuck in your head (liked it at first, hate it now), anyone heard it elsewhere?)

Sorry to veer ever more slightly offtopic here, but this reminds me that today I learned that there's a spaghetti western featuring Tatsuya Nakadai, who's been in an extraordinary amount of great samurai films - it's called Today It's Me...Tomorrow It's You, and also stars Bud Spencer pre-comedy superstardom. Anyone seen?

Yeah, the samurai that's been corrupted by the dark side in The Sword of Doom! He plays the villain in Today... with the same crazy-eyed conviction. I'd say if you're a die-hard fan of his then watch it, if not skip it, as he is by far the most interesting part in an otherwise very pedestrian western.

The direction is flat and the rest of the roles are just lazy caricatures. Brett Halsey's character is a Django rip-off and Bud Spencer is his usual gruff and tired self except this time he actually looks really fucking bored.

The script was co-written by Dario Argento, they should have let him direct it. There's a shoot out near the end that takes place at night time in a forest that i'm sure in his hands would have been interesting. In Tonino Cervi's, it's dull and shows little imagination.

re: The Great Silence

Watched this last weekend, and was really into the movie even knowing how it would end. I thought the ending was artfully done and made sense given the characters. It's not exactly the feel-good movie, but it's a fascinating anti-Western all the same.

Too bad there's no English/Italian dub for that super-happy-awesome ending. Maybe they could get sound-alikes and slap together an alternate cut for an eventual Blu-Ray. It's so hilarious that I think it's great, although not better than the downer ending.