The silence of the lambs
Year of release : 1991
Run time : 1h54m
Genre : Horror / Psychological Thriller
Cast : Anthony Hopkins, Jodie Foster
The movie is based on Thomas Harris’ 1988 novel of the same name.
Clarice Starling, is a young FBI trainee, who is recruited by the Behavioral Science Unit chief at Quantico, Jack Crawford, to interview doctor Hannibal Lecter, a psychiatrist who turned cannibalistic serial k1ller, imprisoned in the maximum security wing at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.
Clarice is the top student in her class. Jack Crawford tells her they are interviewing all serial k1llers to create a psycho behavioral profile, to help them in their future cases. Crawford tells her they interviewed all of them, but the one they want most is Hannibal Lecter, who refuses to talk to them. He thinks that he’d talk to a woman.
Doctor Frederick Chilton tells Clarice Lecter hasn’t seen a woman in 8 years, and she is exactly his type, which is probably why Crawford sent her. He tells her not to touch the glass of his cell, to not pass him anything nor take anything from him, as he is very dangerous, and he manages to hurt people viciously when close to him. He also tells her to walk near the other side of the wall, to stay away from the other inmates.
Talking to Lecter, he seems to pick a lot about her, just by smelling her and reading her behavior. He starts talking about a serial k1ller on the loose, who is k1lling women, “Buffalo Bill”, because he takes the skin off the women’s back. Lecter asks her why does she think he skins the women, and Clarice thinks it’s because it excites him, and likes to keep souvenirs.
Lecter insults her after reading the questionnaire, and sends her to find one of his former patients.
When she gets home, Crawford tells Clarice, Lecter put a patient who insulted her in more ways than one in his place, through the things he said to him, to the point the man k1lled himself by eating his own tongue.
Clarice couldn’t find any patient by the name Lecter gave her, but she found a storage unit under the anagram of that name, belonging to Lecter, where he kept his belongings, and she found the preserved head of one of his patients.
Lecter tells Clarice he didn’t k1ll the man, that’s how he found him after he went looking for him for missing his appointments. He is hinting he was a transvestite and maybe he was k1lled by Buffalo Bill.
He is asking to see his file, but Clarice is more interested in what she found in his storage unit.
Lecter offers to help them with the case, in return asking for a cell with a window with a view.
Telling Crawford, he admits he sent her to Lecter with that exact purpose in mind, but he had to offer himself to help, for he would have refused otherwise.
Buffalo Bill pretends to be a man with a broken arm who tries to lift a couch by himself in the truck, to get his next victim. ( First of all, who the hell does that by themselves, second of all, what woman, in the middle of the night, or whatever, when she sees a random person on the street (he was pretty far from her, I’m surprised she saw him and offered to help) trying to lift a couch, offers to help? I don’t know any woman who would offer to help strangers with lifting anything heavy especially when they aren’t anywhere near them (my sister wouldn’t even help my father with the bags he brought her! She would let him go downstairs many times to get them all to the point I helped him!), and I’m talking about bags, and this was a couch! I’ve had men passing by me when I struggled with carrying luggage on the staircase, who just smiled to themselves, and walked on! But I digress.) The woman helps him, and becomes his new prey, willingly getting into his truck to lift the couch (Again, what woman does that?!). No good deed goes unpunished.
Clarice is asked to go with Crawford to see a body washed out by the river. While they take pictures she sees something stuck in her throat, and they find out it’s a butterfly cocoon.
Lecter says it represents Buffalo Bill’s transition, just like a butterfly, from a man to female.
The woman Buffalo Bill kidnapped now is the only daughter of a Republican senator from Tennessee.
Because Lecter finds out the deal offered to him by the state was made up by Clarice, he offers to help the senator for the same things, and the senator agrees to meet him, while they take him to a facility with less security. Lecter plans his escape.
I personally liked the movie, but I wasn’t impressed by it, like so many have been. It’s just like other movies in the genre, “Copycat” and “Jennifer 8”, even “Solace”, “The bone collector”, “Seven”, “Fallen”, “Taking Lives”, ”Along came a spider” and “Kiss the girls” which I actually liked more.
The title of the movie comes from Clarice’s childhood memory, when she lived at a farm for 2 months, and she heard the screams of the lambs slaughtered one night. When talking to Lecter, he realizes she wants to be an FBI agent thinking if she helps people the nightmares of screaming lambs will stop.
Clarice’s father was a sheriff who was k1lled in the line of duty. Because her mother died before him, when she was a kid, she became an orphan, and ended up living with her uncle at his sheep farm, where they slaughtered lambs. Because she ran away scared the first time she heard their screaming, her uncle put her in an orphanage.
Buffalo Bill is not well portrayed, as in, he’s just another serial k1ller, who seems to mock his victims, or maybe tries to imitate them, either way, he just seems cruel and unhinged. The movie director said that he’s a tortured man who hates himself and thinks turning into a woman he’d stop self hating, if he becomes someone else. Problem is, we don’t see any of that in the movie. If I didn’t read that, I wouldn’t have known that. There’s no scene of him talking to anyone about it, nor doing anything to give that impression. He just seems to hate all these women he k1lls in order to use their skin to become one himself. We only see him kidnapping them, keeping them imprisoned in a hole, while making a suit from their skin!
Clarice is the only woman in a land of men. Sometimes the misogyny is annoying.(The book was published in 1988, and the movie released a few years later, so..)
The director was praised for his direction and won awards, but I was not impressed.
The acting was good, especially from Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster.
Although she played a 22 year old student (in the movie, as in the book Clarice is 25 years old), Jodie Foster was 28 years old when she filmed the movie. She doesn’t look 28, she does look younger. Now is the other way around with young people.
Singer Chris Isaak makes a cameo as a SWAT commander.
The soundtrack by Howard Shore (who wrote scores for “The lord of the rings”, “The hobbit” or “The cell”- the soundtrack for the latter being a masterpiece) was good but not impressive. I barely noticed it.
The movie has a sequel “Hannibal” (2001), and 2 prequels “Red Dragon” (2002) and “Hannibal Rising”(2007). The movie is the second to have the Hannibal Lecter character, the fist being released in 1986, “Manhunter”, based on the first Hannibal Lecter book ,”Red Dragon” (1981).
The movie has a score of 95% from the audiences and critics of Rotten Tomatoes, and an 8.8 user score against an 86 critic score on Metacritic.
Cinema Score audiences graded the movie an A-.IMBD graded it an 8.6.
The movie grossed 272.7 million dollars at the box office, against a budget of 19 million being the 5th highest grossing movie of the year 1991.
The movie won 5 Oscars for Best Director, Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay, among other nominations and wins.
Michelle Pfeiffer and Meg Ryan were first considered to play Clarice but they declined.
Gene Hackman was first set to direct and play Lecter or Jack Crawford. Sean Connery refused to play Lecter, while Daniel Day-Lewis, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman and Jeremy Irons were considered for the part.
Viewer discretion is advised, as the movie contains mature content (language and nudity).
Rating : Worth a watch !