sponsorlink
  • Home
  • Podcast
  • Interviews
  • Reviews
  • Movies
  • TV
  • Games
  • Comics
  • Tech
  • Geek
  • About

Western Wednesdays: ‘The Great Silence’

by Elisabeth Rappe, Aug 4 2010

Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah painted some bleak and cynical portraits of the West. They gun down children, show the futility of civil war, pile corpses in wagons, and survive by whatever bloody means they have to.   It’s my humble opinion that Sergio Corbucci might make them both look like Walt Disney with The Great Silence.  (PG-13 Disney, mind you ….)

The plot of Silence is typical spaghetti – mysterious gunslinger rides into corrupt town, aims to clean it with bullets, rival bounty hunters get in his way – but is far more hellish.  Corbucci once again makes a greater use of landscape and weather than most Westerns do (Django was one of the few that embraced mud and dank, Silence is the rare one that replaces the bleakness of the desert with the inhospitable winter). But there’s no thrill of the wild here.

Leone took a certain glee in painting his fictitious “age of the bounty hunters”, and Corbucci embraced that spirit in Django, but here he creates a West of punishment and horror. It feels more like Purgatory than faux-history.  There’s no world outside of his Snow Hill. Characters ride in and out of it, but they don’t seem to go anywhere or have any awareness of a world outside their town.   There’s no greater plan for civilization – at one point the newly appointed sheriff speaks grandly of eliminating the bounty hunter in favor of law, order, and peace.  Everyone looks at him as though he’s speaking Greek.

He might as well be for all the odd anachronisms running through this movie.  The “bandits” harassing the town and dreaming of “amnesty” are inexplicable, particularly since their greatest crime seems to have been running into debt at the general store.  Leone would probably have made them ex-Confederates, Peckinpah may have vaguely linked them to Cripple Creek or the collision of ranchers and farmers, but Corbucci’s references are practically medieval.

The smirking Loco (Klaus Kinski) mentions that killing them is necessary for the greater good because they love to get up in pulpits and preach.  If they do so, they will infect the world with their message, and then what will become of us?  Their “message” is open to interpretation.   It’s widely argued that Corbucci intends them to be Communists, but the medievalist in me can’t help but see them as Protestants or Anabaptists, particularly since the political references are so muddled.  It’s a fascinating and weird backdrop, particularly since he ends with a title card that all but links them to the Spartans at Thermopylae.  (Go tell the American passerby ….)

For all its deadly seriousness, Corbucci can’t help but throw a bit of satire in with his hero, Silence.  This gunslinger isn’t just spare with his words, he’s actually a mute due to medically implausible (and pure grindhouse) circumstances.  I’ve heard differing reasons as to why — Jean-Louis Trintignat didn’t want to learn any lines,  it’s a mockery of Clint Eastwood and his tight-lipped imitators – but they ultimately pale in comparison to the actual character.

Silence is a tragic figure, and inspires more pity than admiration in the audience.  You admire Blondie’s snarl. You just want to give Silence a hug, which actually makes its romantic subplot the most believable one I’ve seen in the genre.  Silence and Pauline (the ethereal Vonetta McGee) are both wounded and battered people who wind up clinging to one another in Corbucci’s endless, miserable snowstorm of violence and despair.  (The fact that it’s an interracial romance and the film doesn’t even blink an eye is also pretty wonderful.)

There’s a lot of tonal similarity to McCabe and Mrs. Miller, except McCabe and Mrs. Miller are characters you don’t expect to have happy endings. They’re the weak of the West.  Silence and Pauline are its noble backbone, the barrier between it and the cruel chaos of men such as Loco.

I hesitate to say too much about The Great Silence because it’s best experienced fresh. It’s a sucker punch.  It’s the Western I wish I could have seen after watching every single one made before and after it. This is a genre killer far more than Unforgiven is. Rumor had it once that Eastwood wanted to remake it in the 1970s, but I find that impossible to believe.

Even his darkest movies have faith in humanity.  There’s hope even in Unforgiven’s pre-credits crawl.   There’s no optimism in The Great Silence.  There is just what the title implies – a void where no actions (good or ill) matter.

Posted in: Features · Movies · Reviews · Western Wednesdays
Tagged: Movies, Sam Peckinpah, Sergio Corbucci, Sergio Leone, The Great Silence, Western Wednesday, Western Wednesdays
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.



3 Responses to “Western Wednesdays: ‘The Great Silence’”

  1. Tweets that mention Western Wednesdays: ‘The Great Silence’ | The Flickcast -- Topsy.com says:
    August 4, 2010 at 6:19 pm

    […] This post was mentioned on Twitter by The Flickcast, Richard Jensen, Elisabeth Rappe, Elisabeth Rappe, Julie Rappe and others. Julie Rappe said: RT @TheFlickcast: Western Wednesdays: 'The Great Silence' http://bit.ly/b8YOoQ […]

    Reply
  2. charmwebb says:
    August 5, 2010 at 1:15 am

    I started watching this a couple of years and ago and could not finish it. It just a little too bleak for me at the time. I might give it another try again.

    Reply
  3. Peter Martin says:
    August 6, 2010 at 9:47 pm

    Great write-up, Elisabeth. This is one of the rare films in which bleakness is offered up without pity or sentimentality; the raw emotions bleed through the screen.

    Reply

Leave a Reply to Peter Martin

Click here to cancel reply.

Leave a Reply to Peter Martin Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.



Listen to Stitcher

Follow us @TheFlickcast
Find us on Facebook


rss Subscribe via RSS
microphone Subscribe via iTunes

Recent Articles

  • The End?
  • The Flickcast 338: Flickcast, Come Back!
  • The Flickcast 337: Guess We’re Back
  • Stan Lee Box: Unboxing!
  • How Did Hawkeye and Black Widow Meet in the MCU?
  • The First ‘Iron Fist’ Trailer Is Pretty Great
  • The Flickcast 336: We’ve Arrived
  • The Flickcast 335: Knowledge Is Power
  • More articles ...

Podcast Episodes

  • The Flickcast 346: Your Comfortable Coat
  • The Flickcast 345: Ice and Fire
  • The Flickcast 344: Winter Is Here
  • The Flickcast 343: Spinning A Web
  • The Flickcast 342: Gotta Light?
  • The Flickcast 341: We’re Mary Poppins
  • The Flickcast 340: Just Breathe
  • The Flickcast 339: The Flickcast Wakes
  • More episodes ...





3D 20th Century Fox ABC Action Activision AMC Android Animation Announcements Apple Avatar Avengers Batman BBC Blu-Ray Box Office Call of Duty Captain America Casting Chris Evans Chris Hemsworth Chuck Comedy Comic-Con Comics Community DC dc comics Deadpool Disney Doctor Who Drama DVD E3 Fox FX Game of Thrones Games Google Green Lantern HBO Horror iOS iPad iPhone iPhone 4 Iron Man iTunes Joss Whedon Kick-Ass Lost Marvel Marvel Studios Microsoft Mobile Movies NBC Netflix News Nintendo Paramount PC Games Playstation 3 Podcasts PS3 Reviews Robert Downey Jr. Robert Kirkman Ryan Reynolds San Diego Comic-Con Sci-Fi SDCC SDCC10 Smallville Software Sony Spider-Man Star Trek Star Wars Superman SyFy Tech The Avengers The Office The Walking Dead Thor Trailer Trailers TV TV recap Twilight Video Video Games Warner Bros Wii Wolverine X-Men Xbox 360 YouTube Zombies





Advertising and Sponsorship

If you have a product or service you'd like to advertise on The Flickcast website or podcast or want to sponsor one or more episodes of the show, please contact us via the info below.


Contact Us

Got questions, comments, suggestions, want to send us stuff or just need attention? Drop us an email:

info [at] theflickcast [dot] com

For more contact methods, go here.


Copyright © 2009-2019. All rights reserved.


Site designed by Robert Palmer | Powered by Media Temple

Who We Are

The Flickcast brings you the best geek stuff. Find out more about us here.