The Great Silence (1968)

Before the rise of boutique DVD and Blu-ray labels, an enterprising American director could watch something like The Great Silence and spin its vibe into a movie or two. Every time I watch a Corbucci film I’m treated to one of the most arresting images I’ve ever seen in a movie, like the casket dragging in Django or every stunt in Super Fuzz. Here it’s more the atmosphere than anything — snowy westerns never get old, even though it’s clear that none of the horses were having a good time.

Hell, nobody is. The Great Silence is an utterly bleak movie, claustrophobic despite the vast expanse of not-yet-bloodstained snow. Nobody lives in the town of Snow Hill by choice and nobody gets out alive who isn’t one of the worst people to’ve ever ventured the American west. Though he’s ostensibly the good guy, Silence has to number among the worst — a vengeful killer whose policy of shooting only when someone draws on him is more of a legal loophole than a hard moral code. He’s a saint against Klaus Kinski’s Loco, his gang, his banker employer, and so on, but that’s a real “the bar is in hell” scenario.

I loved this film. It’s gorgeous and harrowing and unflinching about the material conditions of life in America, in a way that only Italian westerns seem brave enough to investigate. Things could be good in Snowy Hill were it not for the bastard from Wells Fargo, whose lusts are for extortion and murder. What else is new, right?