Sergio Corbucci’s The Great Silence

Jean-Louis Trintignant had plenty of work in Italy (like The Conformist and Death Laid an Egg), but they usually dubbed the iconic French actor. Not in this case. The man Trintignant plays is not known as Silence (Silenzio) for no reason. His vocal chords were sliced as child to prevent him from identifying his parents’ killers. He will have a chance for some payback in this snowy Spaghetti Western, but justice is a just as frozen as the landscape in Sergio Corbucci’s The Great Silence (trailer here), which opens its long belated U.S. theatrical run this Friday at Film Forum.

Silence deserves its reputation as one of the darkest Spaghetti Westerns ever. Corbucci’s Django was not exactly Pollyannaish, but the producers of Silence forced him to film a cheerful and tidy alternate ending for the American market. As it turned out, there was no American market, so it remained unused—and do not go in expecting it now. Instead, there will be snow and death.

Utah, 1899. The state is about to be buried under the great blizzard and they are already plagued by rogue bounty hunters. The new governor has pledged to pardon the outlaws forced into the hills by the usurious banker and justice of the peace Henry Pollicut, but until the legalities are formalized, the swarms of bounty hunters will continue to shoot first and drop off the body for payment later.

Loco is the worst of the worst. His latest victim was African American outlaw James Middleton, whose wife Pauline is of particular interest to Pollicut. Instead of submitting, she recruits the wandering gunman known as Silence to avenge her husband. Silence has a knack for goading his prey into drawing first, allowing the shootist to blast them to their eternal judgement with no fear of prosecution. However, Loco understands his M.O.—and will seek to exploit it.

Supposedly, Silence is set in Utah (filmed in the Dolomites), but it has a decidedly Euro vibe. Partly it is due to Ennio Morricone’s soaring score, which sounds closer to Michel Legrand than his iconic Dollars trilogy themes. The pessimism and fatalism are also very European (seriously, how hard can it be to solve the bounty killer problem—just stop paying bounties).

Regardless, Trintignant is surprisingly hardnosed and badassed as Silence. Vonetta McGee (best known for blaxploitation classics like Melinda, Hammer, and Blacula) is terrifically fierce as the widow Middleton, while Klaus Kinski is supernaturally slimy as Loco. However, the late Frank Wolff is the unexpected X-factor, portraying Sheriff Gideon Burnett as a reluctantly righteous, decidedly un-shticky secondary hero figure.

Weird crippling and hobbling themes run throughout both Great Silence and Django. Antagonists are not merely beaten or killed. They are emasculated and broken. That makes both films grist for Freudian analysis, but Silence is also a feast for the eyes, thanks to Silvano Ippoliti’s dramatically stark widescreen cinematography. The result is a Spaghetti Western that is both a compelling morality play and an idiosyncratic oddity. Highly recommended for western fans in the mood for something darker and different, The Great Silence opens this Friday (3/30) in New York, at Film Forum.

Comin’ at Ya! in 3D (or 2D, Depending on Man-Cave)

It launched the mini-3D boom in the early 1980s, but it was also the last gasp of the Spaghetti Western. It seems like the least likely of hits in retrospect, but its timing was perfect. Apparently, the world was ready for another round of 3D gimmickry and a band of American expats and Italian filmmakers were just the folks to deliver it. Prepare for a barrage of sundry items falling towards the camera in Ferdinando Baldi’s Comin’ at Ya! (trailer here), which is now available on DVD and 3D BluRay from MVD.

Without Comin’ at Ya! there would probably be no Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone or Treasure of the Four Crowns (also from Team At Ya!), so let’s thank our lucky stars this film exists. Kind of known for the “Stranger” films, Tony Anthony knew his way around a Spaghetti western, so he had street cred with the core fan base, despite looking a bit soft around the edges for a stone-cold killer like H.H. Hart. Presumably, Hart is a former desperado of some sort, but he had resolved to settle down with Abeline, his newlywed wife as of just after the opening credits (and what credits they are, featuring no end of falling dry goods.

Unfortunately, the Pike and Polk Thompson, a pair of Mexican white slaver brothers crash the ceremony to abduct the bride and leave the groom for dead—but not nearly dead enough. With the help of a drunken old Scottish former seminarian (they are always handy in a tight spot), Hart will ride south to rescue Abeline and serve up some payback. It quickly becomes personal for the Thompson Brothers too, especially Pike, the mastermind. As a result, all sorts of lethal weapons will be hurled at the screen.

Anthony is no Clint Eastwood or Franco Nero, but he has a pretty good badass strut. Victoria Abril (now most famous for her work in Pedro Almodóvar’s Kika and Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!) is more than sufficient as the woefully helpless Abeline (watching her and the captive women shriek at a laughably fake bat attack is pretty cringey). However, Gene Quintano, who was later celebrated as the genius responsible for writing Police Academy 3 and 4, is quite decently dastardly as Pike Thompson.

Baldi throws everything at the lens except the kitchen sink, but frankly that blatant ridiculousness is the whole reason to watch it. On the other hand, the level of violence directed towards women is a bit eyebrow-raising. Well beyond lax Spaghetti Western standards, it approaches Giallo levels. In fact, the entire film is wildly politically incorrect, allowing Hart full license to kill Mexican and Native American white slavers without a twinge of guilt. It is impossible to imagine to imagine Hollywood distributing At Ya! today, so it is nice to have its shamelessness preserved for posterity. Recommended for fans of Spaghetti Westerns and 1980s nostalgia, Comin’ at Ya! is now available on 3D BluRay and regular DVD from MVD.

The Original Django, Accept No Substitutes

Italian spaghetti western maestro Sergio Corbucci only helmed one official sequel to his classic 1966 western gundown Django, but scores of scruffy bootleg Django follow-ups were produced.  In fact, they keep on coming, don’t they?  None of them, including the recent homages from Takeshi Miike and Quentin Tarantino cannot hold a cigarillo to Corbucci’s original Django (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York at Film Forum.

A stone cold killer comes to town wearing Union Blue and dragging a coffin.  Much mayhem ensues.  Basically, that is what the film boils down to.  Like A Fistful of Dollars, there is an element of Yojimbo in Django, turning the title character loose in a town embroiled in a war between Maj. Jackson’s ex-Confederate white supremacists and a band of Mexican revolutionaries (who all look more or less the same), but attitude and action are more important than plot, per se.

Temporarily Django throws in his lot with his old associate, “General” Hugo Rodriguez, but that is only because he needs a few men to stage a daring gold heist from the Mexican army depot just across the border.  He also holds a mysterious grudge against Jackson, whom he saves killing for last.  Along the way, he rescues a fallen woman who duly falls for Django, but he is not really at a place in his life where he is looking for a serious relationship.

Notoriously violent in its day, Corbucci’s Django does not seem so shocking at a time when the Weinsteins will release Tarantino’s pseudo-reboot on Christmas Day (regardless of the unforeseeable national tragedy).  However, its body count is still impressive.  Django’s action scenes are not really shootouts, they are massacres.  After all, that casket holds a heck of an equalizer, courtesy of Mr. Richard Gatling.

In a career defining role, Franco Nero is all kinds of steely badness as Django.  There is something deeply existential about his presence, yet he is strictly business when it counts.  Eduardo Fajardo is also thoroughly despicable as Jackson, providing the anti-hero with a worthy antagonist. 

Frankly, some of the details do not make a lot of sense, like the racist Klansman Jackson being buddy-buddy with the Mexican army.  At times, extras literally walk into the line of Gatling gunfire, which is awfully convenient of them.  Yet, the metaphorically muddy environment and gritty action more than compensate for any pedantic grousing.  Plus, it is truly impossible to watch Django and not hum the iconic theme song in your head for several days afterward. 

Alex Cox suggests Django’s name is indeed a reference to the great Roma jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, in a way that would be spoilerish to explain.  If so, it adds another layer of cult weirdness to the film.  Regardless, Django delivers enough unrepentant action to satisfy any genre fan.  An essential Italian western, Corbucci’s 1966 original is the Django to see when it opens tomorrow (12/21) at Film Forum.