The Great Silence

A mute gunfighter defends a young widow and a group of outlaws against a gang of bounty killers in the winter of 1898, and a grim, tense struggle unfolds.

Austin Lugo: Hi, I'm Austin Lugo. I'm Andrew Hart. This is with nothing to

Andrew Harp: say. Let's talk about the great silence

Austin Lugo: before we get started this week. Next week we are gonna be watching the American Friend. A VIN Vendors film. You and I have both only seen one, uh, vem Vendors film before you've seen Paris,

Andrew Harp: Texas. That's not true. I've also seen, I've also seen Bun Vista Social Club.

Austin Lugo: Oh, oh. Well, I guess I've also seen One's A Desire.

Okay. So I guess we've each seen two Vem vendors films, but neither of us have seen, I've only seen one

Andrew Harp: of his features. Yeah.

Austin Lugo: Okay, well I think this is gonna be an exciting time. I thought I had seen a lot more of his work before. I've seen the wings of Desire probably three or four times. Really?

Andrew Harp: Yeah. Why do you like it so much?

Austin Lugo: I don't think it's so much that I like it so much, it's just, it's kind of the, uh, cannon and film. So I saw it in film school and I also saw it when I took a film class at Butler. You saw it in school? Yeah. So it's just, you know, it's, it's considered the cannon of film, of sorts. Beautiful film. I thought I had seen a lot more of his work, but according to Letterboxed, I have not.

So I'm excited to see something new from him. Mm-hmm. . But this week we were talking about the great silence. You called this film a spaghetti western, but I always think of a spaghetti western as like an American film shot in Italy. But this is just an Italian Western. I mean, is that the same thing? I don't understand

Andrew Harp: I thought spaghetti westerns. I thought they were made by Italians. That's the point. I

Austin Lugo: thought the point was that they were shot in Italy because it was cheaper to shoot in Italy than it was in the us and it looked like the

Andrew Harp: us. They're all directed by Italian people though. I didn't

Austin Lugo: know if that was

Andrew Harp: the case or not.

Like if you go in the great silence right now and look at the cruise section, I mean, it's just all Italian people. Right.

Austin Lugo: You know? I mean this is obviously an Italian film. Yeah.

But

Andrew Harp: the cast for all these movies, whether you're talking about Sergio Kochi film, who we watched, or, uh, Sergio Leoni, they have diverse casts.

Americans, Italians. Sure. Klaus Kinsky is in in this movie. He's a German guy. So Yeah, I see what you mean. But yeah, I think the idea, right, like is that they're American movies. They take place in America, but they're filmed Maid in Italy by Italians. And of course, like they all have like similar Styl.

Themes and stuff going on as well.

Austin Lugo: It's a very surreal experience watching a American Western in Italian. I've seen a couple of spaghetti westerns, but they've all been in English. Even if like. They were badly dubbed. They were originally made for English.

Andrew Harp: So one thing I will say is that when I first watched the movie last year, this is a movie that like isn't like very common.

It doesn't show up on streaming services too often. So this is the first time I've ever seen it appear like on a streaming service. Criterion has like this nice collection of snow westerns, which is very nice. And when I first watched it about a year ago, it was on the internet archive. It was the English dub.

Oh shit. How was that? I think either way is fine. Whether you're watching it in English, obviously, like in this movie, it's clear that they're talking in English. The actors are mm-hmm. . I wasn't expecting it to be an Italian dub. Either way, it's fine. I guess it depends on whether or not you want to read, but

It seems like the subtitles matched up with the dialogue being set on screen, so you're not really losing any of the content.

Austin Lugo: Yeah, and I mean, as far as this movie goes, the dialogue really is second to the visuals, as is the case with. Every Western and what beautiful visuals they are. A shot in the middle of it's crazy winter.

It looks freezing cold, like everyone just looks really cold the entire time.

Andrew Harp: It's such a good ass looking movie. It's so good.

Austin Lugo: It's wonderful. It's always snowing. Wherever they are, they're in like six feet of snow. , everyone's covered up at like 20 layers. It takes a while for me to kind of grasp who's who, who the different characters are, because I mean, they're literally, you know, from head to toe covered except for, yeah.

Their eyes and maybe their nose. .

Andrew Harp: Yeah. I think they're in Utah, if I'm not mistaken. Yes.

Austin Lugo: They're in the territory of Utah. Yeah.

Andrew Harp: I like this movie just because I think it, um, you know, the spaghetti westerns, they're like kind of subversive to like westerns before them. I think this movie is even more subversive than other spaghetti westerns in a lot of ways.

I really kind of like the, uh, just the whole thing with like the economy of like bounty hunting. is very interesting to me. I found that very, very neat.

Austin Lugo: Yeah, this film is a lot darker than I would thought it'd be, and a lot sadder than I thought it would be. It reminds me of a Western I saw a couple of months ago, and I'm on letterbox right now trying to figure out if I can remember the name of this.

Western is the one with

Andrew Harp: the battle star Galactica actor in it.

Austin Lugo: The ballad of, uh, Gregorio Cortez. Yeah, it has some very similar themes. Also a very sad film, but this one's

Andrew Harp: just, this one has a terror as a fucked up ending.

Austin Lugo: Yeah, . It's a fucked up ending, and there's no justice and this film at all. It's just shitty people doing shitty things and just having the shittiest of lives.

But our hero, El Grande Sencio, the great silence. Yeah, is this classic, you know, superhero esque cowboy who lacks speech, but hunts bounty hunters,

Andrew Harp: he hates those guys. Played by, um, John Louis Trina. He's awesome. He died earlier this year. He's in a ton of fucking movies. Um, he was in like Mihail Hek movies and stuff like that, and

Austin Lugo: he's great.

Truly spectacular performance and a challenging performance when you're in the bitter cold. And again, you only really see their eyes and nose and he doesn't talk through the whole film. So an entirely silent performance, which I imagine is pretty challenging. Nevertheless, who have our great hero. Yeah, he is awesome.

Introduced just as the greatest shooter in the west, right?

Andrew Harp: Yeah. It's like all, all, all these spaghetti westerns, it's like the guys, the, the hero, the lead characters are always like, they're the fastest shooter of all time. But this movie, I think once again, kind of subverts that later on in the movie and we'll talk about that.

Of course. Mm-hmm. .

Austin Lugo: And we're introduced to all of our different characters parts in this. We have great Sencio, El Grande, Sencio. Is shooting down bounty hunter just doesn't give a fuck. That's the shooter

Andrew Harp: in the west. But he has like a code too,

Austin Lugo: though. He doesn't kill first, right? He waits until someone else pulls out their gun.

So that's

Andrew Harp: in self-defense. Yeah,

Austin Lugo: so it's entirely legal. So technically whenever he kills someone, it's never illegal cause it's always in self-defense. And then we have our group of bio hunters who are hiding in the mountain. because they don't want to be killed or arrested, because I guess if you're arrested, you're just gonna be hanged anyways.

So it's not really any different.

Andrew Harp: They're not bounty hunters. They're, they're the hunted. That's right. Yes. They're bandits. , but it's like basically a town of people. And they established the fact that like all these people had to steal because they don't have jobs or money, and so they would start to death.

So like all these people have stolen, but they haven't really done anything wrong, but the price in their heads are like thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars. And of course you enter with the villain of the movie played by Klaus Kinski, who is one of the greatest villain actors of all time.

Absolutely. And Loco is like one of the greatest like villains of all time in a movie. He's incredible. He's insane. He's a crazy

Austin Lugo: motherfucker. I love how they don't give local any sort of ethics or morals. I mean, at the end of the day, this is just a guy who's in it for the money. Like there's no justification.

There's

Andrew Harp: no, there's like no honor. He has no honor. He doesn't really, he doesn't care about anything but money, which is very, uh, engaging rather than like a guy, like, you know, it's about honor, it's about revenge, it's about this, it's about that. But no, for Loko, it's all about money. ,

Austin Lugo: I love it. He just doesn't give a shit.

He just does whatever it takes. He has those cold, piercing blue eyes.

Andrew Harp: Have you ever seen Carl Kinsey in a movie before?

Austin Lugo: I don't think so. What are some of his more famous performances?

Andrew Harp: He was in like one of the Sergio Leoni movies, like as a villain, but he's mostly famous for like appearing in a bunch of Herzog movies.

Austin Lugo: Okay. I haven't really been through much of Herzog's filmography, so I don't think so.

Andrew Harp: Yeah. Kinsky, he's so weird looking. Terrible guy though. Terrible person. Why's

Austin Lugo: that? Like in what

Andrew Harp: sense? He, he just abuses family a. I think he like, like horribly abused them. He was just like a monstrous individual. Yeah, he was absolutely a fucking terrible person.

And, uh, even though he was in a lot of zog movies, like he worked with him a lot. Like, I think they also had a tumultuous relationship, a very infamously like bad relationship. Oh shit. But he's fucking, he's cra. Yeah, he's crazy looking. He's a very weird looking guy.

Austin Lugo: I mean, he definitely plays the villain very well.

He just looks pure evil in every sense, every look he gives, every disgusting smile, every smirk, all of it is just gross. Like it filthy is the only way to describe it. And then we are also introduced to the new sheriff in town. I don't know what happened to the old sheriff. Was he killed? I wasn't sure if that was covered.

Who knows?

Andrew Harp: They knew your sheriff to go out there and find out what the hell is going on , because there's like a

Austin Lugo: new governor. Is there a new governor or is there going to be a new governor? Because they keep saying throughout the film, like the whole thing is the banditos are waiting for the new governor to.

Forgive all of their crimes. So I wasn't sure if the new governor had already like come into office or if he was soon to come into office, but whatever the case, there's a new sheriff in town. And he doesn't take shit from anybody. This character is great. I love our introduction to the sheriff because it's not your classic sheriff where again, you know, fastest shooter in the west.

It's someone who is immediately taken advantage of by the Bandi toes. Like he's just walking around in his, on his horse, just trying to get to. and the bandits come up to 'em and they got 'em surrounded. There's like 30 of 'em and there's one sheriff, and of course his gun is frozen. Solid , he fucked up.

But they show that the banditos aren't bad people. They just want to eat his horse, which I mean, you gotta eat what he gotta eat.

Andrew Harp: It also gives him firsthand experiences as to the conditions of their lives at this point. And

Austin Lugo: the sheriff. He gives in because there's nothing really else for him to do. ,

Andrew Harp: that horse in that scene, it really looks like it's having a hard

Austin Lugo: time.

All the horses do. I mean these horses are struggling.

Andrew Harp: All these horses have to like trekk through like feet of snow and it's like, wait, I don't think you can do that anymore. It's crazy. I mean, yeah, the horses, they look cold and yeah, they can't like move through the snow. It's scary. .

Austin Lugo: So they take the horse and we have this wonderful moment where all of our main characters are putting a stage coach together.

We got Loko, our evil villain, the great Silence, our hero and the sheriff all in a stage. Coach. The, the thing about

Andrew Harp: the great silence is that like once you watch it, it kind of unlocks stuff for you. I think most people have seen Tarantino's, the Hateful Eight. I like Tarantino's movies, but this is another case in which Tarantino has just blatantly like ripped off this movie for that movie, which is most of his.

Which, you know, Sergio Koru Koi, another movie that he directed, he directed quite a few of these movies, but his most famous movie is Jengo, which is a great movie, by the way. Yeah. Cor Tarantino. He loves KCI and he loves, he obviously loves a great silence. So you know, just basically ripping off that movie for the hateful aid, which hate file eight is good.

You know, it's just when you watch the Great Silence, it definitely like Enlo unlocks that

Austin Lugo: for you. Yeah, most certainly. And I love the stage code scene because at this point we know who all of our characters. . We know their morals, their ethics, their goals, all this sort of thing. And they're all thrown into this space where they're not necessarily, they can't escape.

Yeah, they, they can't escape. They're not necessarily enemies yet, but they're definitely not friends. You kind of see how. They function in this world. And you can see how just absolutely terrible loco is, you know, just carrying dead bodies on top of a stage coach. Yeah, he is like, you

Andrew Harp: gotta, you gotta put him in a, in a, in a wood or steel and da, da da.

And he is like, whatever, dude, ,

Austin Lugo: he doesn't give a shit. No, but we see that Loco doesn't give a shit about anyone. He just cares about that cash money. Yeah. The sheriff is a big law and order man. He cares less for doing the right thing and more just for following what the law says for the most part. And the gray silence just, uh, doesn't give a shit.

He's just doing his thing. Everybody

Andrew Harp: kind of, it's constantly talking about the law, about like what you can and can't do because yeah, technically like loco, like he's like bounty hunting these bandits, but they do have a price on their head. Bounty hunting I feel like is a very common thing. You've seen Western movies, but in this movie it's at a scale that is like outta control, where, like I said earlier, like just tons of people have like bounty on their heads.

And as Loco establishes in the movie, he just like kills people. He just

Austin Lugo: likes to kill people. Like he just enjoys murderer

Andrew Harp: and, and like, I think it's like they're all dead or alive or whatever, and he is just like, it's too much trouble, like to take them alive, so I'm just gonna kill them. And he clearly, yeah, he, you're right.

Like he loves killing people. He loves like torturing people. He just,

Austin Lugo: that's what's so. Subversive about this film, despite the fact that loco is an insane human being, murdering other people technically from a legal standpoint, he's not in the wrong at almost any point in this film, and they make that very clear like he is legally doing the right thing. All of these people are dead or alive bandits.

He can legally kill all these people. He's not committing any crimes, and yet, despite the fact that he is legally in the. , it's very clear that he is the worst human being to have ever existed. Yeah. I mean, he is not doing the right thing. . No, but he's also under the control of, I don't remember the guy's name, but the banker.

The guy basically runs the town.

Andrew Harp: Yeah. Like poly cut.

Austin Lugo: Yeah, poly cut. He's just this meiser of a man.

Andrew Harp: Like a rich crime boss, essentially. I mean, loco is obviously the one who's really in charge, but Poly Cut is rich and I think he's the one that he keeps getting like robbed or like stuff keeps getting stolen by, from people, from him.

Cuz he's essentially like a monopoly, right? Like he's the richest person in the town and everybody's been run out because they're too poor. Like they go into town and like there's no one there . Like there's no one doing anything like productive. It's just. Bounty hunters, poly cut, and um, some madams. And like that's it.

Like there obviously used to be people that live there, but they've been run out because they're essentially just too poor, is basically why. Right. It

Austin Lugo: seems to be the case that pretty much all of the husbands have been stealing food to feed their families, and so we're run out of town and then what few wives are left are either in town or have disappeared entirely.

So even though the banker kind of owns the town, there's not really a whole lot to own because there's nothing. There's no one there. There's like a couple people in the bar, some Adams, and that's about it. But I wanted to ask you, what exactly is the banker's motivation for the bounty hunter? Like, why is he so adamant about this bounty hunter, you know, doing what he does?

I

Andrew Harp: think maybe just to continue to control the town, maybe just to continue to have a monopoly and, and continue to kind of like hoard, like supplies and stuff like that. Because he has like a little like of chop, right?

Austin Lugo: Yeah. He owns like the town chop,

Andrew Harp: but it sounds like no one can afford it. He's also the, uh, judge of peace.

Yeah. He does it all. Oh, actually, and, and another thing too, he wants their property. Uh oh, okay. That's why they're just trying to run them out of town cuz So they just place like these stupid, like price, once again, it's just like, like the, the bounty hunter debtor alive system is like completely like corrupt and like absurd.

Cuz instead of like, Dead or alive. This guy killed like a bunch of people get him. Now. It's just like this person like stole a little bit of food and because everybody's kind of like working together to like run these people out of town, it's just kind of like this like absurd structure in which just, yeah, once again, like poor people get like punished.

And also like people who aren't willing to maybe stoop to the level of abject violence. that the bounty hunters are willing to

Austin Lugo: do, that makes a lot more sense. Now, I knew the banker was a bad guy. I knew he was in it for the money, but I wasn't entirely sure of his intentions. But the idea of him wanting all of their land so he can have even more money makes a whole lot of sense.

So the bankers talking to the bounty hunter, you know, commend all these crimes, getting people. Murdered. And while this is going down, silence himself has been pulled into town by a woman whose husband had been murdered by the bounty hunter. And she wants vengeance. She's pissed. She's gonna do whatever it takes to murder this man.

And I believe this is not when we learn how he became the great silence, but it's the first time that we see the giant scar across his neck. Yeah. Which is hard. Establishing. That's a mute. It's intense. .

Andrew Harp: Yeah. I think she shows her and she's like, oh, okay. Sorry. This

Austin Lugo: film is funnier than I thought would be.

You typically, when I don't, when I think of a western, I don't think of them as very funny, but there's a lot of humorous moments kind of dry. I wouldn't say like, you know, not like big humor, but there's some pretty silly moments like when. Sheriff I think is asleep and he wakes up and there's the corpse right outside his window or when the woman keeps yelling at him and.

Of course he's a mute and a lot of just like little things like they're kind of just these throwaway little moments. There's no like big comedic moments. I wouldn't say this is a funny film. It's pretty dark and sad, but it's got his

Andrew Harp: moments, especially with the sheriff. The sheriff is kind of like affable guy.

He, when he talks to like loco and everybody, he's like, so, um, smarmy about them cuz he like does not like them at all and he thinks that they're crooks. , but he can't really outright do anything, so he kind of just like kind of makes fun of them, kind of pokes at them, which I like. Yeah, the

Austin Lugo: sheriff is wonderful and this is when we learn how.

The great silence became the great silence, a dream sequence of sorts. The great silence is like falling asleep, , and just a really depressing way of becoming, uh, mute.

Andrew Harp: Yeah, it's fucked up. Which by the way, I, I do find this origin a little bit flawed, but it's okay because it is very hard and it's very great, but I don't know.

There are other ways to communicate that. Um, like how and who killed your parents besides talking, like, I don't think you necessarily need your voice to be able to identify people. It would make more sense if they're just like, fuck it, kill the kid, you know, whatever. Like, That's just my opinion, but it's still hard.

Like it's still like really like cuz you know, he has the big scar in his neck and like he doesn't talk at all throughout the movie and that's why he hates bounty hunters because they killed his parents.

Austin Lugo: So yeah, it's a pretty tough scene. I mean, these bounty hunters just go in, murder his dad, murder his mom for no reason and then decide to not kill him.

But I think it would've been a little more interesting as if they had tried to kill them and he just survive. Because how, how does one cut one's neck and not kill them? Like that's gotta be an expert

Andrew Harp: cut or just like, maybe like a cut that wasn't very deep or something. Yeah. It's like I don't, I, I guess I don't know the physiology behind like our vocal chords.

Like where are they? Like I have no idea

Austin Lugo: how that

Andrew Harp: works. I feel like yeah, there's something off, but I get the idea. I get it. He can't talk. He can't talk cuz of bounty hunters. That's why I get some, I.

Austin Lugo: So we're learning about him. The sheriff finally confronts loco and the peace of justice, and he is like, I'm not gonna do this shit.

Like, you can't just pay this guy to just murder people. He's gonna go on an investigation, he's gonna investigate these people, make sure these things actually happened. And so he goes and tries to find the wife and while he is looking for the wife, he runs into the great silence. And the great silence is shooting up potatoes.

He's throwing potatoes into the air.

Andrew Harp: Yeah, he is epic. He's super good at

Austin Lugo: shooting. And they have a little pissing contest where they each, you know, throw up a potato and they cut half and all that sort of thing. Classic western moment. You have to have it. Yeah.

Andrew Harp: You have to have some shit like that. Yeah.

Yeah. To, once again yeah. Establish the fact that yeah, he's really good at shooting his gun,

Austin Lugo: but he is got this weird mechanical gun, like it's very strange looking. It's, it's almost. Science fiction looking. Do they ever give a reason why he uses that specific type of gun? I don't think that

Andrew Harp: they do. He just likes it.

He can shoot really fast with it. It's like not a revolver, so he can shoot faster. I guess.

Austin Lugo: It's a cool looking gun. But while they're doing this, the wife needs a thousand dollars because she's poor and she has to pay the grace silence cuz he's gotta make his money too. He's gotta make his living. She like insists to pay him.

But the only way she can pay 'em is by selling her house, which means she has to go to the banker. And the banker likes her a lot. Yeah. . He's got some rapy feelings towards her. He

Andrew Harp: wants

Austin Lugo: to rape her. He wants to rape her. . That's kinda his

Andrew Harp: thing. Yeah. Like she shows up and he's basically like, I'll just give you the thousand dollars.

But you know, you could, uh, you know, like he's just insinuating that if you have sex with me, I'll just give you a thousand dollars. And she's like, no, . She's like, fuck you. And so that, that doesn't work. , you think you'd be like, Ooh, more property for me. Very nice. But it, I guess it doesn't matter because

Austin Lugo: he, he wants.

That sweet, sweet sex. He's gotta have it. Yeah. He's special. And our villain loco is warned by the banker that the fastest shooter in the west is here.

Andrew Harp: Yeah. He's gonna fucking shoot you. But

Austin Lugo: unfortunately he can only shoot him if it's in self-defense. Cause he's got those morals, he's got those ethics, he's gotta Right.

Andrew Harp: Loco is a great villain because, uh, you know, he's like, sup. He's pretty smart. Uh, he's not really stupid. That's a great bar scene where they're playing poker and, and silence shows up and he's kind of egging him on. He's like throwing like his match and then his cigar into his drink, which is great. And then like he's like, I know what you're trying to do.

I'm not stupid. You're trying to get me to shoot at you, but I'm not gonna do that. But they do have a fight. There's a real

Austin Lugo: fisticuffs and he does murder everyone. In the room. Right.

Andrew Harp: Silence. He kills all of his

Austin Lugo: buddies. Yeah. because they pull out their guns. So we just, he just nails 'em. He just nails 'em all at smithereens.

But unfortunately Loco is, he's too smart. He is. He's a clever villain and he refuses to play local's game even when, you know, they go hand to

Andrew Harp: hand and he gets, uh, he gets arrested too. I think Loco also gets

Austin Lugo: arrested. He gets arrested because they're fighting and at the last moment, loco almost grabs for his gun.

He's close and if his see had just grabbed it, grace silence could killed him. It would've all have been over, but right before he grabs it,

Andrew Harp: yeah. That Sheriff insists on arresting him.

Austin Lugo: Yeah, he insists on, he shoots the gun. Classic Western move. Yep. And arrest him for something. I, I don't remember why he arrests, I guess attempted murder, I think.

Andrew Harp: Yeah. He was like, he was about to shoot his gun. So he is like, I saw you're going to jail. And he arrests him and stuff and I like, yeah. I like the part where he is like in jail and they're talking and stuff. There is one scene where he, like, he triess to Punch Loco, the sheriff does it, and he just hits the, the jail door and he's like, ah, fuck.

And then like, yeah, right after that, um, Holly comes in with some goons and they're like, we want him back. And he's like, Nope, fuck you. He's going to jail. And it's like, okay. The movie is like, things are starting to get a little bit better. Okay. Like they, they arrested Loco, you know, the sheriff is kind of cool.

Like he's kind of defying like all of these, like really powerful and fucked up and violent people. I think right after that too, like silence and, um, Pauline. Yeah. Silence. And Pauline, they have sex. Great. You know, whatever. They did it. Very tasteful. Yeah, it's pretty, it's a pretty tasteful test sex scene.

It's not like, it's fine. I guess it's a spaghetti western. It's an Italian movie, so, and you know, things are on the up and up. And then I think the sheriff now, which is kind of ridiculous that he did that. He's doing this, but the sheriff by himself, Hester, transport Loco very far. To a jail. So they have to do a lot of trekking in the snow and horseback because

Austin Lugo: there's no jail in town.

He's got a, again, he's a law and order man. He's gotta run the law correctly. So he is gotta get this guy back and he's the only, there's no deputies. It's just him. It's just him. The sheriff. He should have deputized silence or somebody. Somebody, yeah. anybody but. The banker pretends to be all distressed because the bandits are gonna come down and they're gonna create havoc.

And because the

Andrew Harp: other thing the sheriff does is that like, he's like, we need to gather a bunch of food and have them invite these bandits back into town, because obviously they're not bandits like, they're just like regular people. So he is like, yeah, we need to gather a bunch of food and have 'em come into that town so they can eat because they're starving, like in the snow, like in the mountain.

you know, he's doing the right thing. He's like trying to like distribute goods and stuff to the people that need it. When before, I think it was just being hoarded and just wherever, I guess it's like, yeah, everything is like kind of okay. Things are like improving a little bit in town in Snowhill or Snowhill or whatever it's called.

Snowhill. Yeah. And then, yeah, like they, he has to transport him to the jail. So of

Austin Lugo: course, immediately upon transport they run into the Banditos. Right. And loco. You need to uncuff me. Like, I need to kill all of these people. I need to save you. Yeah. I need

Andrew Harp: to save you. I don't know. It's kind of hard to tell if he actually does feel that way about them.

I don't think he actually does. Right. He doesn't actually, like, he kind of just is like, I think he just has to continue to pretend that they're a, a, a danger. Right. I think he's playing a role. Yeah. But he doesn't actually think they're a danger. Like he like knows that like it's bull. Yeah,

Austin Lugo: I don't think the bounty killer really gives a shit about anybody.

I think he's just really good at playing the role of the, you know, bounty hunter who's saving lives, you know, getting the bad guys. I don't think he has any sort of morals or ethics. Because as we see very early in the movie, he's willing to drag people by their necks via a whip.

Andrew Harp: Yeah. Like he'll torture people just outright shoot people in the face like he's such a good ass villain.

Austin Lugo: Great villain. But the sheriff informs the banditos that there is food at the edge of town. And you should go get it. I'm surprised that the bandits don't send a scout out first, or maybe just like one or two guys to like make sure everything's go, they just all go at once, which I guess when

Andrew Harp: they get there, I guess it's, it's okay.

I guess they're maybe think like, oh, Loco is getting out of town, which means that it's safer, so he is gonna go to the jail.

Austin Lugo: I guess that's true. So they're thinking it's all gonna be okay. They go their separate ways and Loco's Escape plan is. He has at some point in time buried a series of guns on these trails.

They

Andrew Harp: kind of do it a little bit where he's just like, he's traveling in the carriage and he tells him to stop. Yeah. And he's like, I buried a, uh, you know, a body right here Yeah. That I wanted to get later. So I think they established the fact that like he knows the area well. So he kind of knows where things are hidden that he hit under the snow and.

He works in his favor here. He was like, I have to, I have to poop. That's his

Austin Lugo: plan. So the sheriff gives him his space, and of course Loco has hidden a rifle of some kind in the snow. Yeah. And instead of shitting the sheriff directly, he shoots the ice below the sheriff. It's like a fucking Loony Tunes cartoon, which made me think for the rest of the film, and I was kinda hoping this would happen.

but it doesn't,

Andrew Harp: yeah, maybe that's why they put that in there. They don't, he doesn't shoot him outright just to make you think that like, oh, he's gonna come back. Right. That would be the

Austin Lugo: classic Western thing to do. They pretend to kill this guy, but you know, he somehow survives and comes back and kills all the bad guys.

That's not what happens. The sheriff never comes back . He dies in this terrible fashion, and that's just the end of it. Like there's no satisfying ending for the sheriff, right? He never gets his justice. He never gets what he came out there for. I'm

Andrew Harp: remembering something. Do you know this movie has a couple alternate endings Really?

And there's a happy ending in which, yeah, the sheriff does come back and he kills

Austin Lugo: loco. I don't know how I feel about that. I mean, it sounds satisfying, but I like

Andrew Harp: the official ending more. They also had an ambiguous ending. What happens in the

Austin Lugo: ambiguous ending?

Andrew Harp: The ending depicts silence being shot by Lokos henchman in both of his hands before he can draw his gun wounded.

He collapses on the ground as Pauline watches in shock appearing to show a change of Heart Loko gestures to his meant to lead the saloon. As a result, the Fs of silence, Pauline and the Outlaws are left unknown. That's kind of like a very blame ending. I would not would've

Austin Lugo: wanted to. I'm glad they didn't go with that ending.

The ending doesn't make any sense. I would loco do that. Exactly.

Andrew Harp: Its just, you know, he was obliged to make a couple endings Kochi, I guess. But anyway, before we get to the. Loco kills him and he is able to swiftly get to town af after having basically killed the sheriff. And yeah, like we said, we, we maybe think that the sheriff is gonna be back, but maybe not.

They're back in town. And now Loco and his buddies are like, all right, round up the bandits and let's fucking get silence. We gotta murder him. And, um, there's an attempt made by poll cut and his henchman

Austin Lugo: to murder, sencio and also rape Paulina. Another horrific scene. The banker's just the worst

Andrew Harp: person in the world.

Well, and then also outta nowhere we get the fucking like background on the banker. The

Austin Lugo: backstory, the

Andrew Harp: backstory. I did not expect that. I didn't, I I kind of forgot about that. When I watched it again, I was like, oh fuck. That's right. He doesn't have like a. And it's like as he is trying to rate Pauline, you get a flashback of.

Silence as an adult killing the bandits that killed his parents. But instead of killing Pollock, who was a guy that was there when his parents got killed, he just shoots his like thumb or thumbs off or something like that. And he's like, for shooting off my thumbs, get this. And they like burned the fuck out of his hand.

They put his hand in like hot coals.

Austin Lugo: What a cringe worthy scene. I mean, just watching him like scream in silence and his hand over those hot coal. Oof.

Andrew Harp: Oof. Yeah. . And it's super sad because basically like he's done, right, he's able to overpower the henchman and, and they're able to kill him. And poly cutt before poly cutt does anything drastic.

But basically from that point forward, silence is basically like disabled. Like he can't shoot a gun. It is

Austin Lugo: not the direction I expected this film to go in at. Of course classic Western. Now you got your good guy, you're a bad guy. They're going back and forth and you have that final, and you know that

Andrew Harp: at the end they're gonna shoot at each other.

Yeah. They're gonna shoot at each other. And they're both the fastest guns in the west. And now you get the, the, the scene at the end where they shoot at each other. , that scene is kind of here, but it's like not really the same at all. It's

Austin Lugo: a little mind boggling. And as you have pointed out, many times it's very subversive because if there's one thing you know about a Western is they're gonna have that shootout.

You may have never seen a Western your entire life, but you know that they've gotta have that shootout. And now that is Hannah's injured. You're like, fuck, how are they? I'm still waiting for the shootout. At this point. I'm like, they're gonna have to have the shootout. Like you can't, you can't have a Western and not have a shootout.

That's. It's not

Andrew Harp: possible. They definitely shoot some things.

Austin Lugo: Things are definitely shot,

Andrew Harp: like for some reason, silence, even though he's completely fucked up. He's a man of his word and honor. He goes out to the saloon where all the bandits are. He's like outside of the saloon, and once again, just to kind of like throw salt in it.

Once again, these bunny hunters, like, they don't quickly care about having like a stupid, like, like shootout, right? They don't take any risk. There's a guy with a rifle that just shoots his hands. Even though like his hand is already burned, they're just like, I'm gonna shoot his hands. Well, they shot has other hands, which is insane.

You don't really see that in westerns where someone just kind of like, let's make for sure that he can't shoot his gun. Let's a hundred percent make sure that he can't shoot his gun. And once that happens, you're just like, he's not gonna be able to do anything. And Yeah, like he just gets, he just gets dumped.

He just gets shot at. Yeah,

Austin Lugo: because one of the big things about pretty much all westerns is this idea of honor both good guys and bad guys, right? There's this certain ethic, there's these moral codes that everyone lives by,

Andrew Harp: at least in the universe of like Western MO movies.

Austin Lugo: Exactly. Even the evilest of men has a one-on-one with the good guy because that's basically the laws of the land.

Like there's certain ways this world works and exists, and so of course you expect and you hope and desire almost. This one-on-one interaction and even Loco promises that that's why SL CIO's out there in the first place. Cause he's like, I'm gonna murder all these people if you don't do a Yeah. Classic Western one-on-one with me and Pauline's like, This is clearly a trap.

Like it's very obvious that this is a trap. He's just gonna murder you. Well, he's the most evil

Andrew Harp: person of all time.

Austin Lugo: Like he doesn't give a shit. He has no honor, he has no ethics but sl he is like, I gotta do it. Like I can't, you know, if I don't go out here, all these people are gonna die. And he's a good man at heart.

So he goes out there and as you say, they just like

Andrew Harp: kick him in the stomach. Like he can't even shoot when he gets there and he can't even shoot even more. Like right when he gets there, it's just like, I don't know, there's something like, like yeah. When he is like looking at his hands and they're all bloody and stuff, like he's just completely, he's just destroyed even before And uh, it sucks cuz he is such a badass, you know?

And you want him to like kill all these people. But loco and all these buddies are just willing to do more depraved acts of violence than

Austin Lugo: an awful and depressing. And in a certain way you could describe it as anti-climactic because you've been waiting this whole film for this great shootout, you know, for this moment where the two finally go up against each other and silence doesn't even get a shot at it. He's just, he's already got a hand that's ruined.

And the moment he walks basically into town, they fuck up his other hand and he is just killed. Like that's it.

Andrew Harp: And then Pauline is killed just out. Like no moment. I think she just tries to pick up her gun to shoot at him, but there's just no chance. And then they all turn around and of course they do what you ex basically expect them to do, even though it's still like pretty amazing where they just kill all the people in the saloon.

They just murder everyone. They just murder everyone. And they're just like, yeah, whatever. It's awful. And it's just like, yeah, that whole part of the movie, the whole ending is just one of the creative. Craziest endings of all time. It is just like, it's really unexpected when you see it for the first time cuz it's just so dark and it is so.

Pessimistic. You know, and I'm sure you could read into a little bit more when you're talking about like politics, whether in Italy or the United States, in terms of like how the hero prevailing isn't necessarily what has happened in history, right? Like eventually those who have the most resources and money and who are also willing to do vehemently violent acts eventually is able to crush people who do have like good intentions and good.

You know, ideas, whether it be, you know, giving food to people or not doing crazy fucked up like bounty hunting shit like this, or just like everybody has like a bounty on their head. Once again, it's just so interesting like the economy of like the bounty hunting and these people who are just like getting paid off of just like violence, just outta control, unnecessary violence.

It's just, it's just so good. It's an incredibly

Austin Lugo: powerful ending. Contemplating. Systematic oppression of both the United States and of course Italy. You can't count Italy Al, even though it is a film that takes place in America, quote unquote, and it's about a bunch of Americans. It is, at its core, an Italian film, and there is a lot to be said for the Italian government, which in 1968 or before or since, hasn't been the greatest.

So you can definitely. Frustration expressed in that film, in which just the shittiest people, merely because they have the power, merely because they are willing to commit these acts of violence, climb to the top and there's no sort of justice. There's no logic. There's no reason they're just willing to do literally anything for that.

Andrew Harp: It's like the most realistic western ever. I, I imagine situations like this end the way that this movie ends. So is

Austin Lugo: this based off of a real thing that happened? Because there's like that probably not

Andrew Harp: like bar for bar, you know what I mean? With all the different Sure. Right. But I'm sure like situations like this probably did happen in the United States, right?

Because it's like, I think bounty hunting is still a thing. . You know, obviously at one point people were like, maybe we shouldn't do dead or alive Bounty hunter. Like that's kind of fucked up, right? Like, why would we want a dead guy? We want the guy to be alive, you know, . So I think like, yeah, like bounty hunting is still a thing.

But yeah, I think, I think it probably had to reach like an absurd level, like in the great silence in order for people to be like, that's bad . That's really bad. We should stop doing that. Yeah,

Austin Lugo: what a depressing.

Andrew Harp: But it's so fucking good, dude. Oh, so fucking good. And you know, once again, like, and we talked a little bit about it.

I love the snowy setting. It's such a good setting. It's real. It. It really is. They're out there. I like a nice, like sweaty, sunny, kind of dusty western, but I think that the snow western is like very underrated. I think there's a lot you can do with like visual wise of like, you know, people kind of like riding horses on just like mountains and planes of just like snow, you know?

I don't know. What's more difficult, like extreme snowy weather? Extreme like, you know, summer we weather. I don't know. It's like, I think either way, you know it. It's difficult and I think just like, like it's just a really badass setting and it's like perfect for this movie and this story.

Austin Lugo: Yeah, I don't think this film could take place in any other, uh, time other than the middle of the winter.

Just the juxtaposition of this extremely white snow. And all of our characters who are almost all wearing completely black is beautiful and terrifying. And the score of this film is wonderful. Yeah. More

Andrew Harp: recon, scorer like it's pretty, yeah. It's obviously good. It's

Austin Lugo: got all those kind of classic Western motifs to it.

Yeah. It reminds me a lot of Once upon a time in the west, Very similar score to once upon Time

Andrew Harp: in the West. You know, I watched that movie for the first time semi-recently. And um, these movies are, both, those movies are very similar. I think they have similar, like, they have sort of similar endings. They kind of have similar like ideas.

They both ha kind of like really like get into kind of like, they're like respective like, um, economies. They're both very similar but of course very different. And I would. , you know, once upon a time in the West and this movie are like maybe head to head in terms of like the best spaghetti, worst western I've seen probably What's up there?

Austin Lugo: These are some of the greats.

Andrew Harp: If you like this movie, everyone should watch. Jingo. Same director. Yeah. He made way more movies too than uh, Leon. I think Leon made like six or seven or eight and this guy made like dozens. Awesome. They're not all westerns, obviously. Italian movie directors, they direct all kinds of different genre movies around this time.

So he is got like action movies and like, I think science fiction movies and stuff like that. So, but Django's really good. Django's, like really like violent. He's very violent. This movie's very violent too , but django's like a really like toy dusty kind of blood caked, uh, movie. It's really

Austin Lugo: good.

Definitely a lot more to explore. What a wonderful film. All right. Should I go first or do you want to go. That's fine. For which one? . Oh, you can go first. This film, as I hope I've made Claire, is a spectacular film. It is beautiful. It is extremely well written. It is depressing. The score is magnificent.

Everyone in it is so dirty and grimy and disgusting and filthy. There's nothing bad that I can say about this film from the moment it started to the moment. I was absolutely in love with this film and I am partial to the Western, so I guess one should take that into account. If I see a Western, I'm probably gonna fall in love with it because it's just one of my favorite genres.

There's just something magical about it, but each and every turn, it moved in directions that I did not expect. It was a very subversive film. It played on the heartstrings in a lot of different ways, , and just such a depressing. Ending and I could not have enjoyed it more. So I'm gonna give this film a nine

Andrew Harp: out of 10.

That's right. Me too. Great movie. Like I said, I think it's up there with one of my favorite spaghetti Westerns are not my favorite. And it's just got like, like I said, great ending great characters. Just like any spaghetti western, you know, it's, it's violent, it's tough to watch. And like I said, I really like the snowy location.

It looks real. It looks very, very real. And I just, yeah, I think I've said what I wanted to say about. Qualities. It's just, yeah, like a really devastating film and it almost kind of feels like the conclusion of the Western genre almost. Obviously. Like there have been plenty of good westerns that have been made since like the late 1960s, but I don't know.

This one just kind of like, for some reason there's something about it that just feels very like putting a stamp on it. Like, like this is the end of the west. You know, they even talk about earlier in the movie too, right? Like, we have to stop all this, like, you know, bandit, bounty Hunter Cowboy. If you were to make like a, a history of like the Western from its beginnings up until the spaghetti Western era, like you would, this would be like the last movie you would watch I think.

Yeah. There's

Austin Lugo: something thematic about the ending. It, it feels as if the. Western has come full circle. Very powerful. Yeah. Rocks. All right y'all, thank you for listening. You can find everything I do at Austin Lugo one,

Andrew Harp: two. Uh, you can find me on Twitter at ad har 24. I'm also on Letterboxed, uh, R e retro Andrew, r e t r zero Andrew, and

Austin Lugo: you can find this podcast wherever you hear podcast.

You can also find us on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube at Theater 40. And thank you all for listening. Thanks so much.