F**** amazing, wonderful, breathtaking!
My favourite SW.
I just love it.
ā¦
I canāt even begin to summon the words to describe such a monumental achivmentā¦ This might be bold, but Corbucci outdid, not only himself, but Leone as well, with this poetic and highly sensuous work of art. Iāve literally written pages, and pages about the film, itād themes, the characters, the symbolism. Itās my favorite film of all time, and such a disturbing, brutal, yet chillingly realistic portrayal of the West, the ugly study of greed, the evil of money, capitalism, social and political issues which still, unfortunately, exist today as they did back then, and the ending was utterly brilliant. There was nothing more to say.
I was always fan of Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns an even though I have seen Great Silence when I was a kid, 30 years ago it didnāt catch my attention.
This is an exceptional well made movie not just well made spaghetti, different from any other.
I loved the cinematography, the story and the screenplay. The music was great, and for a moment the ending would fool me to give this movie anything else than 5.
This movie for me now goes hand in hand with Once Upon A Time In The West.
Does anyone know why this was not filmed using Techniscope? I had thought Django was the only main exception, but it seems this was as well.
Apart from Navajo Joe none of Corbucciās early westerns used Techniscope. He shot his 2 peplums in 2,35:1, so maybe he did not like to work in the extra-wide format. But of the 2nd half of his western output only one was not shot in 2,35:1.
His DoP Barboni also often shot for 1,6:1 or 1,85:1. Also in his directorial debut.
Actually a lot of Spags did not work with Techniscope. I would guess that about a third did not.
Yes I was talking about the better ones that had some real money and thought behind them. Iām just curious as to why he did Navajo Joe and The Mercenary in Techniscope, but then briefly moved away from it with The Great Silence, before reverting back to Techniscope (I think Hellbenders may also be an exception) afterwards. Perhaps he felt The Great Silence could profit like Django from a tighter aspect ratio (although I think the consensus is now that The Great Silence was composed for 1.85:1 rather than 1.66:1 unlike Django and unlike in many of its DVD releases), or perhaps The Great Silence had no money behind it?
Hellbenders and Silence were both before The Mercenary.
From Minnesota Clay (or even from Massacre at Grand Canyon) on to The Great Silence he shot in normal widescreen, with Navajo Joe being the only exception. But that was probably a less personal film, one made with US money.
From The Mercenary on to The White the Yellow and the Black he shot in 2,35:1, with What Am I Doing in the Middle of the Revolution? being the exception.
And most of his other films are also shot in flat widescreen, maybe all except the peplums.
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Youāre right - The Great Silence came before The Mercenary. For some reason I was thinking it came after. That makes sense now. That just leaves Navajo Joe as the exception with the caveats you mention.
Wish The Great Silence was filmed in Techniscope as like the format.
The āhappy endingā version is on the DVD as an extra without the audio. Apparently thatās the only version of it they could find.
I have the PAL U.K. DVD. It has English and Italian audio and English subtitles. Itāll do for me until a Blu-ray comes out.
I agree with you on this Iām happy with my DVD version. It is surprising that there is no Blu Ray. I thought Blue Underground would have been interested as they seem to go for spaghetti westerns of the more sadistic nature. A German version could be in the pipeline but no dates yet.
The happy ending version of the film with sound ( but not english sound though
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Nice post not seen this with sound before, apart from commentary from Alex Cox.
āI wonāt hold a grudge against you for eating my horseā 
I hadnāt watched this since film I was 12 years old. There were many things I remembered but funny enough, I actually forgot about the ending. Itās a pity that I found out how the film ends before I had the chance to view it for a second time.
I think this is one of the few films where it is nearly impossible to forget the ending, so that was quite a feat!
For me this is not a film that gets better with each viewing. Where I rated this 9/10 the first couple of times, it is now for me a solid 7,5/10 (which is still pretty damn good). It probably stays this way, as Iāve seen it 5 or 6 times now.
Donāt watch it again. It might drop to a shaky 7,1/10.
I still need to review it, so Iāl be watching it at least once more.
Hey there, do you by any chance have a link for the HDTV version? The torrent is dead. Cheers
If there is a German HDTV print, how come Kinowelt backed out on the Blu-ray release? Or was the HDTV print not deemed of a high enough quality for a Blu-ray release?