The cold that can't be defrosted

Roxanne 2022-10-05 09:47:45

The winter scenes are beautifully shot, especially the dumb horse riding in the forest. The exterior scenes are all taken from the Alps where summer is located, although I haven't experienced winter there yet. The genre of the film also imitates Sergi Leoni, but it has an irony to the heroes of the West. It seems to say, "Don't be heroes, go home and take pictures of yourself and then come out again. There is a kind of cold that can't be defrosted." I don't like the ending very much. The kind people are dead, and all the wicked people are left behind. The dumb hero was finally stupid enough to die, without the cunningness of Eastwood. After watching it, you can't help but hate the villain role played by Kinsky, cold, selfish and cynical (I am afraid it is his magical nature that attracted Herzog and made him shine in the hit movie). Although most of the reality is that wicked people are rampant and rogues are in charge, and we have not gotten rid of the law of the jungle, Western movies should give people the right to dream and allow justice to be done, and I believe that karma has a time course, after all. People's hearts are good, and the sky net is restored. Moreover, the most important thing is that justice must be done, but there is no need to be so foolish as to speak the rules with the beasts that despise the rules. Where there is no way to talk, you must use the human way and the human body.

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Extended Reading

The Great Silence quotes

  • Ending title card: The massacres of 1898, year of the Great Blizzard, finally brought forth fierce public condemnation of the bounty killers, who, under the guise of false legality, made violent murder a profitable way of life. For many years there was a clapboard sign at Snow Hill which carried this legend: MEN'S BOOTS CAN KICK UP THE DUST OF THIS PLACE FOR A THOUSAND YEARS, BUT NOTHING MAN CAN EVER DO WILL WIPE OUT THE BLOOD STAINS OF THE POOR FOLK WHO FELL HERE.

  • [Silence remembers his first encounter with Pollicut... a candle in the present match-cuts to a candle burning several years earlier, as Pollicut and two bounty killers ride towards Gordon's house, who is loading a rifle]

    Silence's Mother: No, dear. You can't... you'd better surrender!

    [Pollicut and the two killers walk up to the house]

    Fake Sheriff: Gordon, I've got a warrant for your arrest. There's no sense for resistin'. Better let a lawyer prove you're innocent! I'll answer for your safety before you come to trial. Now act sensible. Safer for you if you're put in prison! But if you're not... some bounty hunter'll kill you for the reward!

    Gordon Sr.: Okay, sheriff. I'm surrenderin'.

    [Pollicut gestures to the two bounty killers to kill Gordon and his wife, and they do so by shooting them]

    Silence as a Boy: Ah! Dad, dad! Mama! Mama! Mama!

    [as Gordon's son cries over the body of his mother, the bounty killer disguised as a sheriff enters, and throws away his star]

    Fake Sheriff: Well, Pollicut? You got no call to worry about Gordon now.

    Pollicut: Maybe not. But the kid...

    Fake Sheriff: Nah...

    [the fake sheriff pulls out a bowie knife]

    Fake Sheriff: He'll never talk again.

    [Match cut from candle in flashback to candle in the present: Gordon's son is Silence himself]