[Note: I am reviewing the film with it's original Italian ending.]
The Western genre was both saved and damned by the Italians who took up its gauntlet when it was passed from American filmmakers. They injected it with brooding characters, psychopathic villains, and bloody, gruesome violence the likes of which had never been seen before. The West was not the romantic place that it once was. They inspired countless filmmakers, many of whom would go on to found the Revisionist Western genre. And why? Because spaghetti Westerns stripped the West of its naive optimism. Cowboys couldn't be separated by the color of their hats anymore. Now, the only morale that ruled was who had the fastest gun. Sergio Corbucci, one of the true auteurs of the genre, made dozens of films that affirmed this new identity. But few were as harsh and pessimistic as the earth-shattering The Great Silence. Pitting two of the most infamous characters to haunt the genre in history, the mute gunfighter Silence and the sociopathic Loco (played by the magnificent Klaus Kinski), The Great Silence dares to examine a West where the good guys don't always win and the world is as bleak as the snow covered mountains of Utah. It was because of masterpieces like this film that happy endings could never again work for Westerns.
8/10
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