tankjonah Review of The Great Silence

The Great Silence (1968)

Astonishing ending in one of the best non-Leone westerns ever made.

[7/10 · 25 February 2006]

A mute bounty hunter (Jean Louis Trintignant) is hired by a woman (Vonetta McGee) to kill a fellow bounty hunter (Klaus Kinski) who has killed her husband and has been ignoring the law by killing wanted men rather than attempting to take them in alive. A typically violent spaghetti western by Sergio Corbucci with all of the staples of the genre. We are given flashbacks to Trintignant's childhood where we learn that his tongue was cut out to keep him silent by thugs who murdered his parents. The film contains striking scenery set amidst a snow bound landscape. The ending is astonishing with Kinski and his thugs killing Trintignant and McGee (the two had become lovers) and then the people that they were holding hostage. A tough realistic ending that you'd rarely find in a Hollywood film. The film is ultimately critical of the law in the US which allowed for the proliferation of bounty hunters and ultimately a lawless society. The bounty hunters in the film, ultimately confident with their speed with a gun, often stirred trouble and drew second relying on their superior speed to shoot a man in self defence. Ultimately this is a cynical, morbid film, which is gutsy and commendable and apparently based on real incidents; the 'Snow Hill massacre'. In terms of consistency, not one of Ennio Morricone's best scores; parts of it are conventional. However, its best moments are eerie and effective.