Music in film: Le Silencieux (1973) (1/3)

Some clips of one of my favourite films starring one of my favourite actors, Lino Ventura, as the former French scientist Tibère, once abducted by the Russians and brought into the East, but kidnapped again by the British secret service during a trip in the West.
He gives them the names of some important English scientists about to betray secrets to the Russians. Provided with a new passport and his own name, Tibère's life, although officially a free man again, from now on becomes a constant run to stay ahead of the KGB killers activated world-wide to finish him off. His only chance is the capture and possible exchange of Boris Korodine, a Russian conductor touring through Europe, who is also a KGB agent and is used for smuggling information from West to East. Tibère manages to get hold of the information and passes it on to the Sureté, yet at the expense of revealing himself to his executioners. While the Sureté sets out to arrest Korodine at a concert, during Brahms' Academic Festival Ouverture, Tibère is trying to escape through the mountains, accompanied by a dog who befriended him en route. When he hears his persecutors shoot the dog, he decides he had enough and gives up.

Ventura is absolutely great in this film and his performance in the finale is breathtaking as well as deeply moving. His desperate attempt at escaping over the mountains reminded me of a line from a novel by Bert Schierbeek: "Man, as he goes against the earth."
The use of the Brahms Ouverture in the final sequence is truly stunning.


FILM: Le silencieux (France, 1973)
by Claude Pinoteau

Broadcasted by the WDR, so in German. Subtitles by me

Two typos in the third clip: a time mentioned as 5.10 p.m. should be 5.10 a.m.; the name of the conductor is spelled twice as Korrodine, which should be Korodine.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• brahms
• akademische
• festouverture
• kgb
• lino
• ventura