The Great Silence

Sergio Corbucci's western set in snow, and one of the bleakest films in the genre. It takes place in the Utah mountains in the winter of 1898. The snow is so heavy that people are stranded, and those forced to steal food have been declared outlaws. Bounty hunters make their money killing them. The man called Silence cannot speak, his throat cut as a child, and he kills bounty hunters, but only if they draw first. Loco, the bounty hunter played by Kinski, is untouchable because he applies the law to the letter. Its known feature is the ending. Corbucci built it deliberately to break every expectation of the genre, and when the producers objected an alternative happy ending was also shot; the version released carried the original. Snow is an unusual ground for a western and it changes everything: the horses are slow, the guns freeze, nobody is fast. Jean-Louis Trintignant plays Silence and Klaus Kinski plays Loco. Ennio Morricone wrote the music. One of the peaks of the genre for anyone who loves spaghetti westerns. For a viewer expecting the hero to win, the film does the opposite and does not open it for discussion.