The Morricone Collection: “Il Grande Silenzio” (1968)

The Album:

Dagored’s 2016 double-coloured vinyl pressing of Morricone’s 1968 score (one of my all-time favourite Morricones) to Sergio Corbucci’s great Spaghetti Western, “Il Grande Silenzio,” represents the “the first re-issue ever” and is limited to 500 copies.

From the album sticker:

“The legendary soundtrack composed by the Maestro ENNIO MORRICONE for IL GRANDE SILENZIO, directed in 1968 by SERGIO CORBUCCI and staring Jean Louis Trintigant and Klaus Kinski.

A melancholic, emotive score, deeply moving and cold as the snow covered landscape of the film, is considered one of the best “western” work by Morricone since the collaboration with Sergio Leone.

FIRST VINYL REISSUE EVER
LIMITED EDITION OF 500 COPIES
DOUBLE COLORED VINYL

This edition © 2016 Dagored
℗ & © 1967 NEAPOLIS (SIAE)
Licenziata da Beat Records.”

Earlier Album Pressings:

The Film:

From A.O. Scott’s 2018 NY Times review:

“I’m not generally one for nostalgia, but I do regret the loss of a certain kind of craziness that used to flourish in movies — the kind that is on rich and ripe display in “The Great Silence,” a 1968 Italian western by Sergio Corbucci that is only now receiving a proper theatrical release in this country.

There is something about the film’s brazen mixing of incompatible elements that defies categorization, imitation or even sober critical assessment. It’s anarchic and rigorous, sophisticated and goofy, heartfelt and cynical. The score, by Ennio Morricone, is as mellow as wine. The action is raw, nasty and blood-soaked. The story is preposterous, the politics sincere.

In 2018, it’s possible — and perhaps inevitable — to view “The Great Silence” as a footnote to the oeuvre of Quentin Tarantino, whose admiration for Corbucci is well documented. Corbucci’s 1966 western “Django” was an inspiration for Mr. Tarantino’s “Django Unchained,” and “The Hateful Eight” shares a snowbound aesthetic and a gleeful commitment to cruelty with “The Great Silence.” The scholarly minded viewer can trace other connections and divergences as well — to classic American westerns and to the contemporaneous and better-known work of the spaghetti maestro Sergio Leone.

But this plate of pasta — bitter and pungent, nourishing and perhaps a bit nauseating — should be savored on its own. It takes place at the end of the 19th century in “Snow Hill, Utah,” a place name that sounds infinitely more exotic in Italian. There, farmers have been driven off their land and forced into banditry, leaving them at the mercy of bounty killers, the most fearsome and sadistic of whom is played by Klaus Kinski.

His character — referred to as Tigrero aloud and Loco in the subtitles — is a whispering sociopath and a symbol of the Darwinian brutality that governs Snow Hill. The actual governor wants to bring the area under the rule of law, and dispatches a bumbling, decent sheriff (Frank Wolff) to bring Tigrero and the rest of the bounty killers into line. The lawman’s earnest efforts are a sideshow to the main drama, though, which pits Tigrero and his minions against a solitary avenger known as Silenzio.

Played by the great Jean-Louis Trintignant, Silenzio is a tragic, poetic variation on Clint Eastwood’s taciturn Man With No Name. Silenzio is not a man of few words, but a survivor of horrific violence. When he was a child, the bounty hunters who murdered his parents severed his vocal cords to keep him from talking. He has grown up into Tigrero’s double and opposite, meting out justice for money and following a strict code of ethics. He will never draw his gun first, but he will always shoot faster than his adversary.

Silenzio’s services are solicited by Pauline (Vonetta McGee), the widow of one of Tigrero’s victims. The fact that she and her husband are black is at once a casual detail and a sign of the film’s anti-authoritarian, democratic ideology. The couple seems to have been welcomed by the other good people of Snow Hill, but their race is a big issue for the bad guys.

The plot takes a twist or two, but serves mainly as a thread linking shootouts and glowering confrontations, with a brief respite for love. The mood is sometimes jaunty, but “The Great Silence” is no joke, and the fatalism of its ending serves as an implicit critique of the sentimental optimism of many Hollywood westerns. Power speaks louder than silence.”

Perhaps the greatest influence “Il Grande Silenzio“” has had on contemporary cinema is on display in the snowy landscapes of die-hard Corbucci & Morricone fan Quentin Tarantino’s 2nd western, “The Hateful 8,” which also features (an Oscar-winning) score by Maestro Morricone.

Tarantino’s 1st western, 2012’s “Django Unchained,” was likewise inspired by another Corbucci Spaghetti Western, the one for which he is probably most famous, “Django,” released two years previously (1966).

Worthy of note in any discussion on “Il Grande Silenzio” is the performance by American actor Frank Wolff as the doomed sheriff first hired by the put-upon townspeople to go after Kinski and his fellow bounty hunters. Having worked extensively in the U.S. with the prince of independent cinema, Roger Corman, Wolff later distinguished himself in many Italian and European films that sprung forth as part of the boom of filmmaking in Rome (and other European cities) in the 1960’s and 70’s. Wolff was an extremely likeable character actor who met a very tragic end, “slashing” his own throat, allegedly over the unrequited love of a young woman, after being left by his wife for another man.

From Wikipedia:

(Frank Wolff’s) Death:

Wolff committed suicide by cutting his throat in the bathroom of a residence in his Rome hotel room, a few steps from the Hilton hotel, at the age of 43 on December 12, 1971.^[2] Long the victim of a deep depressive crisis, the actor was separated from his wife Alice Campbell, who lived like him in Rome. According to one hypothesis, Wolff would have injured himself for the first time with a razor blade. Having dropped the blade from his hand, the actor would have taken a second one, with which he would have cut the carotid artery. This second injury caused a cerebral anemia that led to his death in a short time.^[3]

His body was found by a 24-year-old Austrian friend on the same day, and police said he had slashed his throat.^[4] It was speculated that the unrequited love for the young woman might have contributed to Wolff’s fatal act, already suffering from a nervous breakdown for some time, after his wife had left him for another man.^[3]

His final two Italian-made films, Milano Caliber 9 and When Women Lost Their Tails were released posthumously in 1972. His voice in the English-language version of Milano Caliber 9 was dubbed in by his frequent co-star and roommate at the time of his death Michael Forest.

Additional Film Stills:

The Director:

Morricone is forever associated with the most famous of the “three Sergios” of Italian cinema, Leone, but equally great are the 7 soundtracks the Maestro scored for another Sergio, that being Mr. Corbucci, for whom Morricone composed the scores for “Compañeros,” “I Crudeli,” aka “The Hellbenders,” “Che C’entriamo Noi Con La Rivoluzione?“, “The Mercenary, ” “Navajo Joe,” “Sonny & Jed,” and of course, “Il Grande Silenzio.”

From Wikipedia:

Sergio Corbucci (Italian: [ˈsɛrdʒo korˈbuttʃi]; 6 December 1926 – 1 December 1990) was an Italian film director, screenwriter and producer. He directed both very violent spaghetti Westerns and bloodless Bud Spencer and Terence Hill action comedies.^[1]

He is the older brother of screenwriter and film director Bruno Corbucci.^[2]

Biography

Early career

He started his career by directing mostly low-budget sword and sandal movies. Among his first spaghetti Westerns were the films Grand Canyon Massacre (1964), which he co-directed (under the pseudonym, Stanley Corbett) with Albert Band, as well as Minnesota Clay (1964), his first solo directed spaghetti Western. Corbucci’s first commercial success was with the cult spaghetti Western Django, starring Franco Nero, the leading man in many of his movies.^[3] He would later collaborate with Franco Neroon two other spaghetti Westerns, Il Mercenario or The Mercenary (a.k.a. A Professional Gun) (1968) — where Nero played Sergei Kowalski, a Polish mercenary and the film also starring Tony Musante, Jack Palance and Giovanna Ralli — as well as Compañeros (1970) a.k.a. Vamos a matar, Companeros, which also starred Tomas Milian and Jack Palance. The last film of the “Mexican Revolution” trilogy – The Mercenary and Compañeros being the first two in the installment – was What Am I Doing in the Middle of the Revolution? (1972).

After Django, Corbucci made many other spaghetti Westerns, which made him the most successful Italian Western director after Sergio Leone and one of Italy’s most productive and prolific directors.^[4] His most famous of these pictures was The Great Silence (Il Grande Silenzio), a dark and gruesome Western starring a mute action hero and a psychopathic bad guy.^[5][6] The film was banned in some countries for its excessive display of violence.

Corbucci also directed Navajo Joe (1966), starring Burt Reynolds as the title character, a Navajo Indian opposing a group of bandits that killed his tribe, as well as The Hellbenders (1967), and Johnny Oro (1966) a.k.a. Ringo and his Golden Pistol starring Mark Damon. Other spaghetti Westerns he directed include Gli specialisti (Drop Them or I’ll Shoot, 1969), La Banda J.S.: Cronaca criminale del Far West (Sonny and Jed, 1972), with Tomas Milian and The White the Yellow and the Black (1975), with Tomas Milianand Eli Wallach.

Corbucci’s Westerns were dark and brutal, with the characters portrayed as sadistic antiheroes. His films featured very high body counts and scenes of mutilation. Django especially is considered to have set a new level for violence in Westerns.^[7]

Corbucci was born in Rome.

Later career and legacy

In the 1970s and 1980s Corbucci mostly directed comedies, often starring Adriano Celentano. Many of these comedies were huge successes at the Italian box office and found wide distribution in European countries like Germany, France, Austria and Switzerland, but were barely released overseas.^[8]

His movies were rarely taken seriously by contemporary critics^[9][10] and he was considered an exploitation director, but Corbucci has managed to attain a cult reputation.^[6][11]

He died in Rome in 1990, at age 63, of a heart attack.^[12]

His nephew Leonardo Corbucci^[13] continues the legacy of film directors in the family in Los Angeles.

In 2021 was released a documentary about Corbucci, directed by Luca Rea, Django & Django, that relies to a considerable extent on an interview with Quentin Tarantino.^[14]

In 2022 German thrash metal band Kreator released the instrumental song “Sergio Corbucci is Dead” as an intro to their album Hate Über Alles. According to vocalist/guitarist  Mille Petrozza, “Sergio Corbucci was someone who was very anti-authoritarian in his film. In all his films he has a protagonist who rebels against the authorities. Often these characters are very obscure. I was wondering if there are still people like that who make really political films without trying to preach anything to you. It’s a bit of a dig at the bands who don’t speak their minds out of fear of losing fans.”^[15]

Filmography

Director and writer

• Salvate mia figlia (1951)
• Foreign Earth (1954)
• Island Sinner (1954)
• Acque amare (1954)
• Baracca e burattini (1954)
• Carovana di canzoni (1955)
• Suonno d’ammore (1955)
• Supreme Confession (1956)
• Ángeles sin cielo (1957)
• I ragazzi dei Parioli (1959)
• Who Hesitates is Lost (1960)
• An American in Toledo (1960) *Only writer.
• Totò, Peppino e… la dolce vita (1961)
• Goliath and the Vampires (1961)
• Duel of the Titans (1961)
• The Two Marshals (1961)
• The Slave (The Son of Spartacus, 1962)
• Lo smemorato di Collegno (1962)
• The Shortest Day (1963)
• Il monaco di Monza (1963)
• Gli onorevoli (1963)
• Castle of Blood (1964) (uncredited)
• Grand Canyon Massacre (1964) (as Stanley Corbett)
• Minnesota Clay (1964)
• I figli del leopardo (1965)
• The Man Who Laughs (1966)
• Django (1966)
• Ringo and his Golden Pistol (Johnny Oro, 1966)
• Navajo Joe (1966)
• The Hellbenders (The Cruel Ones, 1967)
• Death on the Run (1967)
• The Great Silence (1968)
• The Mercenary (A Professional Gun, 1968)
• The Specialists (Drop Them or I’ll Shoot, 1969)
• Compañeros (1970)
• Er più: storia d’amore e di coltello (1971)
• La Banda J.S.: Cronaca criminale del Far West (Sonny and Jed, 1972)
• What Am I Doing in the Middle of the Revolution? (1972)
• The Beast (1974)
• Shoot First… Ask Questions Later (The White the Yellow and the Black, 1975)
• What’s Your Sign? (1975)
• The Con Artists (1976)
• Mr. Robinson (1976)
• Three Tigers Against Three Tigers (1977)
• Ecco noi per esempio… (1977)
• The Payoff (1978)
• Odds and Evens (1978)
• Neapolitan Mystery (1979)
• Super Fuzz (1980)
• I Don’t Understand You Anymore (1980)
• I’m Getting a Yacht (1980)
• Who Finds a Friend Finds a Treasure (1981)
• My Darling, My Dearest (1982)
• Count Tacchia (1982)
• Sing Sing (1983)
• Questo e quello (1983)
• A tu per tu (1984)
• I Am an ESP (1985)
• Rimini Rimini (1987)
• Roba da ricchi (1987)
• Days of Inspector Ambrosio (1988)
• Night Club (1989)
• Women in Arms (1991)

Actor

• Suonno d’ammore (1955) – Bank customer (uncredited)
• Who Hesitates Is Lost (1960) – Billiard player (uncredited)
• Totò, Peppino e… la dolce vita (1961) – Man waiting in the line for the telephone (uncredited)
• Lo smemorato di Collegno (1962) – Man waiting for the Minister (uncredited)
• Gli onorevoli (1963) – Manager of the hotel in Roccasecca (uncredited) (final film role)

References

1.  “Sergio Corbucci”. Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. Archived from the original on 11 May 2008. Retrieved 23 January 2019.
2.  Bondanella, Peter; Pacchioni, Federico (19 October 2017). A History of Italian Cinema. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. p. 490. ISBN 9781501307645.
3.  Cox, Alex (1 June 2012). “Once Upon a Time in Italy”. The New York Times. p. 16. Retrieved 23 January 2019.
4.  “Mondo Esoterica – Sergio Corbucci Film Reviews”. mondo-esoterica.net. Retrieved 24 April 2023.
5.  Scott, A. O. (28 March 2018). “Review: ‘The Great Silence,’ a 1968 Spaghetti Western Unchained”. The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 24 April 2023.
6.  Hoberman, J. (28 December 2018). “’68 Rides Again: The Return of Sergio Corbucci”. The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 24 April 2023.
7.  Tarantino, Quentin (27 September 2012). “Quentin Tarantino Tackles Old Dixie by Way of the Old West (by Way of Italy)”. The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 27 June2020.
8.  “SERGIO CORBUCCI BOX OFFICE”. BOX OFFICE STORY. Retrieved 24 April 2023.
9.  Wong, Aliza S. (15 December 2018). Spaghetti Westerns: A Viewer’s Guide. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 123–124. ISBN 978-1-4422-6904-0.
10.  Bondanella, Peter (25 July 2019). The Italian Cinema Book. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-83902-024-7.
11.  Mask, Mia (28 February 2023). Black Rodeo: A History of the African American Western. University of Illinois Press. p. 139. ISBN 978-0-252-05402-0.
12.  Flint, Peter B. (1 May 1989). “Sergio Leone, 67, Italian Director Who Revitalized Westerns, Dies”. The New York Times. p. 8. Retrieved 23 January 2019.
13.  “Behind the Scenes: The Legendary Series with Leonard Corbucci on Apple Podcasts”. Apple Podcasts. Retrieved 27 June 2020.
14.  DeFore, John (8 September 2021). “‘Django & Django’: Film Review | Venice 2021”. The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 6 April 2023.
15.  “Album review: Kreator – Hate Über Alles” (in German). 8 June 2022.

Film Posters:

Links:

Listen to the complete score on YouTube here:

Purchase a copy of the vinyl on Discogs here:

Watch Alex Cox’s introduction to “The Great Silence” here:

Watch the trailer for “The Great Silence” here:

Watch a 10-minute behind-the-scenes feature on the making of “Il Grande Silenzio” here:

Read J. Hoberman’s NY Times piece celebrating “The Great Silence” (and other Corbuccis) on the occasion of its digital streaming release here:

The above article links to A.O. Scott’s 2018 Times‘ review for “The Great Silence,” which you can read here:

If in the Toronto area, say hi to my Filmography podcast co-host Bjorn, and find a copy of “The Great Silence” on DVD or blu-ray at Toronto’s “last great video store,” Bay Street Video, in store or online at baystreetvideo.com:

Order the blu-ray on Amazon here: