The main character of the movie is called Silence, therefor āGreatā or āGrandeā is more suited. Calling it The āBigā Silence pretty much eliminates the suggestion that the title is referring to the character.
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āThe Big Silenceā, sounds bad to my ear also, in this context, ā¦ but if itās a variant of āThe Big Sleepā, meaning death, then that works fine ā¦ but as El Davido says, it doesnāt make sense when we know thatās the name of the main character.
I think the ending after the ending which is followed by another ending is one of the most unusual endings of any genre film. Nearly as unusual as the TGS ending.
Leone added an encore to his Dollar films, but Corbucci really started the film again.
But it seems not to be your favourite film anyway ā¦
I remember it being listed as The Big Silence on ITV, as well.
Are multiple endings really that rare?
I actually like it mainly because of Franco Nero who is my number 1 SW actor. This could never work with anyone else. This is definitely his movie.
Still 5/5 in my top 20. I just shifted it lower on my list because it is just action and it lacks any emotions. I am one of those who likes Companeros more for exactly this reason.
Many SWs have the story divided into episodes, this a recurring thing. Besides, the āstoryā is often not so important in SWs, these films are more about certain themes, mood and atmosphere.
Anyway, The Mercenary is a rather big and epic film, and this is unusual. Most SWs, apart from some of the Leone films, have a smaller scale.
Regarding Curly, both Kowalski and Paco knew him from before I think, at least Kowalski did, but this isnāt developed very much at all, here we could do with a bit more info, too bad.
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Yeah, one of the biggest SWs ever made. It is a great action movie. If one wants to watch just a big budget action SW then there is no better choice.
The flashback structure is also quite unusual and works really well. (Corbucci used this again for Companeros as you know).
Paco has ended up as a rodeo clown after most of the film has been told in a flashback. There is even some voice-over by Kowalski explaining what happens in the film. Then the three main characters meet for a final showdown in the arena. But after that the film starts again, as Arch Stanton says.
Kowalski is a rather arrogant person, not very likeable. But at least he saves Paco in the end from being shot in the ambush. 
And this is as unusual for a genre film as is the ending of TGS. Not only that the film starts again, but also that this happens after a flashback structure, which logically should also end the movie. Both film by Corbucci circumvent audience expectations, and he goes with these endings beyond what Leone did in his Spags.
And there is another point where the audience must expect the ending, after another big shoot-out, after Nero and Musante have had some closing dialogues, the kind the audience could had expected already directly after the arena duel. At that point it could be a positive ending with Paco emancipating himself from Kowalski (I have a dream), who accepts this with a smile. For a SW a kinda typical happy end, and now even the directing suggests that the film must be over, with Paco riding away in the distance accompanied by music.
But the big closing total with the vanishing Paco is still not the end, when the pan suddenly shows men with rifles ready for an ambush. The dream would have been quickly over, if not Kowalski had been also there. And by that the positive message of the before ending turns into a negative one, gets at least a negative twist, cause again only the money saves the ideal . (Dream, but with your eyes open)
In Companeros the flashback structure is done in a more conventional manner, as nearly everything in the film. The final shoot-out is also not the direct ending, but what comes after is nothing special, but again the ending has a twist. And unlike Il mercenario it is an open one.
I think that Il mercenario is a very cleverly plotted film with an incredibly stylish directing, and Companeros is its simpler brother, but also in places brilliantly directed.
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This makes me think of another movies with similar ideas.
The ending of Johnny Yuma also undermines the expectations of the audience. You think Carradine missed Samantha and that Johnny Yuma will go after her and it will end up with some kind of confrontation between Samantha and Johnny Yuma but then it turns out Carradine had actually hit what he had wanted to hit. I found that quite ingenious that you learn what really happened only retrospectively.
In a Coltās Shadow you expect a final duel after the shootout between Duke and Steve and Duke losing it (the same expectation Duke had) or just Duke leaving but then Duke checks the Steveās revolver and realizes he made it 50/50 and it ends up with a fist fight.
Go For Broke has like 3 endings. 
El Puro and A Minute To Pray a Second to Die have both double endings.
In Arizona Colt you expect Arizona to collect his reward but he leaves.
It could be a whole topic. 
No, these are all different examples.
I donāt remember the Go for Broke aka Copperface ending, but donāt remember it as being something special. I have to check that one.
Unexpected endings are of course not that seldom, in the 60s you got them more often than before, but the endings of TGS and TM are still extraordinary imo.
The ones of Johnny Yuma, Coltās Shadow and Arizona Colt are nothing special, but the one of Johnny Yuma is still a good and original one the way it was done, in the other 2 films they do exactly what I had expected.
El puro and A minute to Pray have obviously a not really expected ending, but it comes after the filmās story was finished, thatās unusual of course, and also goes against the happy end mentality of genre films, but TGS goes still a lot further with the bad guys winning over the good.
Leone established the genre topic that something happens after the filmās logical climax. It has the function of an encore in the Dollar films, when a minor baddie tries to shoot the hero, or when Tuco once more has to put this head in the noose, but in Il mercenario a lot more happens after the Lāarena sequence, and somehow the encore scene comes on top.
You expected that Duke would check Steveās revolver? I surely did not. I think that is the scene that gives the ending more depth.
We are on the same page here with this āan encoreā. So you see the only difference in how much you add after what seems to be the logical ending of a movie?
Go For Broke does imo the same thing as The Mercernary but it still eventually puts more emphasis on the real ending than on the fake one. In The Mercenary the duel is the highlight of the movie for sure. It surely is weird. You get this ādĆ©jĆ vuā feeling already during this long āan encoreā.
Uhh, I donāt remember that detail, the ending itself was what I expected, that Duke does not get killed. I saw the film only once, and that was some 15 years ago.
Not only how much, il mercneario is so much more than an encore, the film starts again instead of having the expected ending. The encore would be if the later scene came directly after the Lāarena scene, with the denied offer from Kowalski and the āI have dreamā line directly after the shoot out, and then the last rescue from Garcia as the encore, that would have been what Leone had established, but Corbucci goes far further.
The scenes after the final duel in OuTW may go longer than in Mercenario, but they end the film in connection with what was before, and the fate of Cheyenne after the duel has also that encore feeling, but it is not the same as the long Mercenario ending.
And in Il mercenario the directing of Paco riding away is just the kind of directing to end a typical SW, and this is also different to the usual encore endings.
But at least El puro and A Minute to Pray do for that something similar.
Nah, I still think that the endings of TGS and TM are unique, for SWs, for westerns, for genre films. Corbucci has not got enough appreciation for these, especially as both also show him in the zenit of his style.
Well, and Go for Broke I still have to check.
That is a good Spagie btw, much better than expected, but my copy is terrible.
That is indeed a long time. I am even surprised that you remember anything from the movie. 
You have probably seen like another 100+ SWs in between. If you watched this again you would imo like it more in that context.
It is strange that Corbucci is virtually unknown outside SWās fans while everyone knows Leone. The Mercenary has like everything to be a big hit. It is objectively better than FoD and bigger than FFDM.