Alternate Best Supporting Actor 1968: Klaus Kinski in The Great SIlence

Klaus Kinski did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Loco in The Great Silence.

In this film we are unfortunately not granted the proper Kinski vicious growl in his voice, being overdubbed as per usual for a spaghetti western. Luckily Kinski is not exactly an actor who struggles to speak without his voice. Kinski here plays the lead villain for the film, the evil bounty hunter that stands against Jean-Louis Trintignant's Silent bounty hunter named Silence who only kills in self-defense. Kinski's Loco on the other hand kills without much reservation at all. This is actually a rather interesting performance for Kinski, given it's Kinski and he's playing a character called Loco. Kinski actually takes a pretty low key approach to Loco never delving into his sort of madness found in so many of his performances. Even with the name of the character though Kinski's approach absolutely makes sense for the character given that Silence's greatest challenge in attempting to defeat Loco is that Loco knows Silence's methods, so Loco's plan is to merely avoid ever picking an even handed gunfight with the man.

Kinski makes for a good villain here in that he actually also downplays even the villainy in his performance, as even in his method of killing Kinski portrays this certain ease in Loco's behavior. An ease of a man not of some sort of sociopath indifference but rather that of man just doing his job the easiest way he knows how to. Kinski's portrayal emphasizes the idea almost as a man who has sort of figured out the way to manage the old west, and that is to take things as they come. Kinski's performance actually is a little oddly endearing in a way because of how honestly he presents Loco's behavior as a bounty hunter. When he collects the men he kills, he portrays no sadism in it, in fact his portrayal would actually almost be acceptable as a hero in another western as long as all those he killed were criminals. Kinski never plays Loco as an exact villain in his manner and his facial expressions are always of technically what would just be a cool customer nor more no less. Even in one of his worst actions, where he kills a woman, Kinski does show such earnest emphasis as he clears the killing as self defense since the woman did try to shoot him. Kinski is actually even rather humorous in his interactions with Trintignant's Silence by portraying such curiosity in his reactions, showing Loco's method to analyze rather than get emotional over the man trying to kill him. What Kinski's performance does so effectively is suggest why Loco's should be the one who wins over the day since he offers such a calm and carefully collected man throughout the film. Kinski gives a strong performance that offers a striking presence be presenting one man in the film he seems to be able to take everything in stride.