Jeez, I just watched the bleakest movie ever...

[BigMcLargehuge]

The Great Silence (1969)
Dir: Sergio Corbucci

This was the Spaghetti western taken to its logical conclusion (Spoiler below).

Anyone ever see this?

Jeez... I am going to bed to try and sleep it off...

MAN, what a bleak movie.





spoiler below...











The villain, Loco (Claus Kinski) shoots the hero dead, his girlfriend dead, and massacres all the hostages he used as bait to lure Silence to the final shootout.

Fuck!

[Blue_Tires]

1. thanks for the heads up

toss that on the pile of 'things not to see'

[Robeson]

2. Claus Kinski certainly has some memorable roles....

...doesn't he...

[AtomicKitten]

3. I thought the Ice Storm was the most depressing movie ever.

[WCGreen]

4. Try reading the book......

[Starbucks Anarchist]

8. House of Sand and Fog is very depressing.

[brentspeak]

5. You want bleak? Watch "Midnight Cowboy".

You'll be depressed for a whole year.

[WCGreen]

6. Yea, but it has a peppy song....

[Twillig]

18. "Orange Juice on Ice!"

"So nice!"

:-)

I've turned off my irony detector today.

[Az]

7. Nope, but it is a Claus Kinski film: Aguirre: The Wrath of God

Do not watch this movie unless you are very very happy. If there is any bit of depression in you this movie will suck the entirety of your life out. Want to kill a party, this movie will do it.

[BigMcLargehuge]

12. I've seen it, and Fitzcardo (or however it's spelled)

I love Werner Herzog films. And yes, they are best to watch when you are at your happiest as they provide a striking counterpoint.

[darkenedhalo]

9. It sounds like

the typical spaghetti western. We have to remember that they weren't all like the ones with Clint Eastwood. Most of them were low budget stinkers that never even made it to VHS let alone the big screen.

[BigMcLargehuge]

11. I've seen about a hundred films in the genre

everyone from Serio Leone to Sergio Corbucci and all the sergio's in between. What set The Great Silence apart from the pack was not that it was a "low budget stinkers that never even made it to VHS let alone the big screen" but that is was both beautifully filmed and defied convention. It's not really a surprise that it came at the end of the genre lifespan (the Italian film industry was already moving into horror films and police dramas by 1969) but like Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, it provided a sharp and melancholy coda to the storytelling style.

Bleak, bleak movie.

[radwriter0555]

10. 21 Grams is bleak as well....

tragic, sad, depressing... heart wrenching.

[Enraged_Ape]

13. See "Dancer in the Dark" with Bjork

That'll cheer you up. :evilgrin:

Also makes a great double feature with "Leaving Las Vegas".

[hyphenate]

14. The Day After

NOT the insipid film released in the past couple of years, but the one that Nicholas Meyer directed on TV as a mini-series in the 80s. It's available on DVD now. It's literally the "day after" a nuclear war. Powerful.

[Midlodemocrat]

15. There was another one in that same vein that was a British

film that was even better...for the life of me I can't remember the title. I think it started with a 'T'.

On edit: It was called Threads. Very, very powerful film.

[Flammable Materials]

16. You haven't seen bleak until you've seen ...

... Gaspar Noe's "I Stand Alone" (Seul Contre Tous)

Gives nihilism a whole new meaning.

[RandomKoolzip]

17. Klaus Kinski in a bleak movie?

Jeeez, there's a surprise.