It was brave to end it like that but I don't see the positives in terms of the story
Well I can try to explain you why that ending makes this the most radical, if not altogether the greatest, Western ever made.
What Corbucci did with TGS is to take a much maligned, made-for-mass-consumption genre (the "Spaghetti Western", as imagined mostly by Leone), put in the fighting arena with the its most respectable counterpart (the "old" Western, as depicted by Ford above others), make them fighting each other to death and let us watch their carcasses being consumed by vultures; sorry for the outlandish metaphor there but I'll try to be more concrete.
Corbucci's Westerns are more numerous and varied in themes, consistence and quality compared to Leone but what sets them apart more is the fact that while Leone did not try to convey any political message into them, Corbucci did when the occasion arose even though, in this case, he brilliantly keeps any open political aspect implicit rather than above the surface as his (or many other's) "Mexican revolution Westerns" did, and what we got here is something that, despite respecting the conventions of the "lone gunslinger" themed movie to a strong degree, pushes the theme to an whole different level not even modern film-makers dare to touch; despite Tarantino claiming his "
Django Unchained" being a straight Corbucci-derived affair, he fails to notice the fact that Corbucci would never in a million years portray bounty killers as straight-out heroes as he does (a bit cowardly I'd like to add).
Corbucci coherently believed they were nothing more than licenced murderes, absolutely false mythological figures of "justice" and undeservedly elevated to "heroes" statuses in too many pictures and writings before.
Never that counter-argument was made so brutally clear as in this movie, though others in the future became brave enough to point out this contradictory and ambiguous element of that fascinating time in American history (Eastwood's "
Unforgiven" is a great example), I think Corbucci also needs to be thanked for that to a certain degree.
There simply has never been another Western, before or after, that has taken apart, thrashed to pieces and thrown in the deepest sewage the many "Fordian" myths that where estabilished regarding the "taming" of the old West. And what's more amazing is that TGS does that without even hinting at the most obvious aspect that has always been used to criticise white colonization: the treatment of native Americans (aka Indians), which is the predictable route that so many "deconstructivist" Westerns took in the following years ("
Soldier Blue", "
Little Big Man" or "
Dance With Wolves" among many).
The two most highly celebrated Westerns made around the same time as TGS also deal with the fading of the old Western myths: Leone's own "
Once Upon a Time in the West" and Peckinpah's "
The Wild Bunch", both are stylistically superior to this or any other Corbucci's Westerns and both glorify, as well as condemn, the disappearance of that era.
With Corbucci there's no glory, no redemption, no hope, no positive human figure or value to hold on to: it's like staring right down the bottomless hellpit of the human condition. This can alienate a lot of critics and general filmgoers and that's why
The Great Silence is not usually praised alongside those two movies, but for the few of us who really see this as the masterpiece it really is it matters little.
Whatever you think the experience is any use to you, regardless what artistic qualities you may think this movie has, I can't think of many other movies in history that dare to punch its audience right in the stomach as this does: that's something almost impossible to find considering how commercially driven the medium is, plus Corbucci doesn't do it gratuitously, not at all, and that alone is something that deserves high praise.
Never forget that this movie was "shot" round about the same time Martin Luther King and Bob Kennedy were also shot (pardon the pun), and the US was also escalating one of the most pointless and bloodiest wars in modern history.
I can't personally think of another work of art in that precise period of time that captures the darkest inner feelings that many where harbouring at the time so vividly, if not in the US, certainly throughout Europe, regarding the biggest empire of the era, even if it disguises itself as merely a "Spaghetti Western": a product of mass consumption.
What sets the ending apart is the fact that this is not a mere case of throwing away the clichè of "the good guys win in the end" because that's not at all what TGS does, quite the contrary!
If you have seen this carefully you'd have figured out that what are the "bad guys" to the viewer here are infact the "good guys" in the truth of the historical context, they are not only condoned for their massacres, but also encouraged in what they do by the "law", they will happily get away with what they did and also get paid a fortune to live a long "respectable" life.
Any parallels with the political situation of the time (or even current) perhaps or am I reading too much into this? Having seen Corbucci being interviewed at the time doesn't shake away my personal interpretation, quite the contrary, though he never makes any explicit statements on meanings.
...or else you can just see that as a non-conventional ending, ahead of the time.
Whatever suits you.
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