Week 30 : The Silence of the Lambs
We follow a young woman down stairwells, through halls and past gates that lock behind her. The bassline is low- we hear the rumblings of hell in the background as the woman decends into the mouth of madness- the abyss in which she will spend the remainder of her life. She nods in obidenice as she is given her instructions.
"Do not touch the glass. Do not approach the glass. You can pass nothing but soft paper - no pencils or pens. No staples or paperclips in his paper. Use the sliding food carrier, no exceptions. If he attempts to pass you anything, do not accept it."
The gate slams shut and she walks down the hall of the dungeon-like block in the asylum of the criminal insane. Two inmates leer at her passively while another hisses to her- " I can smell your cunt," the inmate says. The young woman remains steadfast in her resolve towards the end of the corridor, a chair parked in front of the aforementioned glass. The camera changes perspective and now we see her point of view. There is a man standing behind the glass. His posture is perfect and he stands at full attention. His skin is pale. With his eyes wide open and his arms rested tightly against his sides he looks at the camera and begins to speak.
There has never been an entrance in the history of the movies better than the one Anthony Hopkins gives playing Dr. Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs. I remember vividly my first time seeing the film and not knowing what to expect. As I followed FBI Agent in Training Clarice Starling (Jodi Foster) through the allegorical bowels of hell, I remember expecting some kind of elaborate set up. I expected Lecter to leer at her, be over the top, or overtly psychotic (i.e. Jack Nicholson in The Shining). I was surprised to find Lecter, for the first time, simply standing there waiting to speak. There is a coldness, a absoluteness, in the entrance of perhaps the most celebrated screen villian of all time that it becomes easy to forget what all of the previous fuss was about. We sit and look at evil in the face, all the while feeling simaltaneously intrigued and terrified. This feeling doesn't last long, but it's there in the beginning and it stays with us throughout the entire movie.
There have been hundreds of formal reviews and essays regarding Jonathan Demme’s film- so many that it becomes quite difficult to speak an original thought on it. Thus, I will keep my review relatively short. The Silence of the Lambs is a genre picture that defies its own genre. It is a horror film because it genuinely scares people by playing with their minds and showing them images that are among the most disturbing ever put out in mainstream cinema. It is also a psychological drama, a coming of age story for Starling, a exploration of feminism and a standard, run of the mill crime thriller. That is is perhaps the best film in all of its genre’s is a testimony to its power.
Anybody in their right mind will tell you that villians are almost always more interesting than heroes. There are few exceptions to this rule. Just think about it. I’ll name a couple of films for you. Star Wars, The Dark Knight, No Country for Old Men, Cape Fear, The Third Man, The Exorcist. I would imagine that based on the rules of word association you immediately think of Darth Vader, The Joker, Anton Chigurh, Max Cady, Harry Lime and Reagan McNeil. I don’t know exactly what that says about us as a society, but there it is. The darkness interests us- we look at it at first with horror and then with curiosity. The above villians are all, in their own right, classic examples of characters that have entire saga’s built around them.
What is special to me about The Silence of the Lambs is my inability to relate to one image when I think of the movie. Sure, I think of Lecter when I hear the film’s name, but I also think of Clarice Starling, the short girl in an elevator of crowded men. I think of Buffalo Bill and Ted Levine’s underappreciated performance. I think of Catherine Martin (Brooke Smith) both in the well and driving down the highway singing Tom Petty’s American Girl. I think of a moth with a skull on it and a man with night vision goggles. I instantanously remember that haunting Q Lazzurus song Goodbye Horses and the horrific dance that Buffalo Bill does to it. I think of close ups between two faces and entire sequences of dialogue. I remember Clarice standing in the hall, quietly speaking into the telephone to a caller that does not hear her.
Most great movies give us one or two iconic scenes. The Silence of the Lambs gives us no less than nine of them and strings them along seemlessly. There is a reason that it one of only three motion pictures to sweep the top five Academy Awards (Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay). There is a reason that it is, to date, the only horror film to win such honors. This is one of the shortest review's I have ever written- probably because there is not much more than can be said about the picture other that that it is a masterpiece. It does not age or become less disturbing with time. It stands alone on the shelf of video stores everywhere, cold, at attention, and prepared to haunt your thoughts. Like Dr. Lecter.
Review and Analysis by Shaun Henisey
Cast and Credits:
Dr. Hannibal Lecter: Anthony Hopkins
Clarice Starling: Jodi Foster
Jack Crawford: Scott Glenn
Jame Gumb/Buffallo Bill: Ted Levine
Orion Pictures presents A Jonathan Demme film. Written by Ted Tally, based on the novel by Thomas Harris
Original Score by Howard Shore. Produced By Edward Saxon, Kenneth Utt And Ron Bozman. Photographed By Tak Fujimoto.
Running Time: 116 minutes. Rated R: For intense graphic violence, nudity and psychological terror.