Part of Winter Classics
On an unforgiving, snow-swept frontier, a group of bloodthirsty bounty hunters, led by the vicious Loco (Klaus Kinski) prey on a band of persecuted outlaws who have taken to the hills. Only a mute gunslinger named Silence (Jean-Louis Trintignant) stands between the innocent refugees and the corrupt bounty hunters. But, in this harsh, brutal world, the lines between right and wrong are not always clear, and good does not always triumph. Featuring superb photography and a haunting score from maestro Ennio Morricone, director Sergio Corbucci’s bleak, brilliant and violent vision of an immoral, honorless West is widely considered to be among the best and most influential Westerns ever made.
“I’m not generally one for nostalgia, but I do regret the loss of a certain kind of craziness that used to flourish in movies — the kind that is on rich and ripe display in THE GREAT SILENCE… There is something about the film’s brazen mixing of incompatible elements that defies categorization, imitation or even sober critical assessment. It’s anarchic and rigorous, sophisticated and goofy, heartfelt and cynical.” —A.O. Scott, New York Times (Mar 28, 2018) “The legendarily bleak ending of the 1968 spaghetti western THE GREAT SILENCE…still hurts so good a half-century later. Co-writer–director Sergio Corbucci (NAVAJO JOE, COMPANEROS) constantly subverts the generic tropes that he dabbled with two years earlier in DJANGO, that blood-soaked and oft-imitated riff on A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS.” —Simon Abrams, Village Voice (Mar 28, 2018)
