The Silence of the Lambs
(1991)
Review
by : Eric
Barker
Starring:
Jodie Foster (Clarice Starling), Anthony Hopkins
(Dr. Hannibal Lecter), Scott Glenn (Jack Crawford), Ted
Levine (Jame Gumb), Anthony Heald (Dr. Frederick Chilton)
Directed by: Jonathan Demme
Written by: Ted Tally, from novel by Thomas Harris
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A
female FBI trainee is assigned to gain the trust of a psychotic
genius held in maximum security, as part of the Bureau's attempt
to profile a serial killer who skins his victims.
Riveting
thriller-cum-horror tale which became an instant classic upon
its first theatrical release, rivalling Hitchcock's "Psycho"
(1960) and Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby" (1968) as media phenomena,
and establishing the character of Dr. Hannibal Lecter as a
modern cultural icon to rank with the likes of Dracula. A
decade later, "The Silence of the Lambs" has lost none of
its power as one of the most disturbing movies ever made,
a superior, modern gothic entertainment which gazes fearlessly
into the darkest labyrinth of human psychosis and leaves us
deeply unsettled, but safe, when it ends. At least, safe for
the moment.
The film
owed its initial, sleeper success to Anthony Hopkin's performance
as Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist with issues of
his own: in serial killer mode, the doctor likes to eat a
piece of his victims -- a liver here, a nose there, depending
on his mood and time constraints. Lecter made his first appearance
in novelist Thomas Harris' "Red Dragon" (1981), and the subsequent
film of that book, "Manhunter" (1986), where he performed
essentially the same narrative function as he does here, serving
as a kind of oracle for an investigator on the trail of a
serial killer. In the earlier film (directed by Michael Mann,
with character actor Brian Cox in the role), Lecter is a more
marginal figure whose villainy is discussed by other characters,
and implied in a surly attitude, but never really shown.
By the
time of his encore in "The Silence of the Lambs", Lecter has
become a supernaturally perceptive student of human weakness,
able to profile other serial killers with remarkable precision
and give the authorities all the clues they need to find their
suspects. The trick is in convincing him to open up and share,
a task he always uses to secure better living conditions in
prison, and to exact a psychological price from his interviewers.
In dealing with him, it is best for investigators to keep
in mind Nietzche's dictum that "when you look long into an
abyss, the abyss also looks into you."
As a character
in a realistic melodrama, Lecter is an outrageous conceit
-- serial killers just aren't that smart as a rule. They may
possess a certain flair for attracting victims or eluding
detection in everyday reality, because the monstrosity of
their intentions is so at odds with the experience of the
average person. But they rarely, if ever, come from upper
socio-economic backgrounds, nevermind higher education (unless
one counts politicians and/or corporate overlords, a whole
other category of mass murderer). The odds against a Lecter
being produced by our world -- an epicurean medical doctor
who embraces the furthest extremes of his own psychosis --
are astronomical.
But that
doesn't mean he could never happen. A story about the horrifying
world of serial killers, already so far beyond what most of
us can imagine for any length of time without feeling queasy,
cries out for an invention like Lecter to be our narrative
guide into hell. His psychoses, worn on his sleeve in captivity,
make him a much more reliable student of the abyss than some
dryly spoken investigator who has covered a few case histories.
Every moment spent with Lecter makes palpable the true nature
of the danger any detective faces in trying to think like,
and catch, one of these human monsters. It's better to let
the master do the imagining.
Enter
Foster's Clarice Starling, the film's moral center and, despite
the egregious popularity of her mentor/nemesis, the main character
of the piece. As realistically concieved as Lecter is a fantasy,
Starling is one of the first truly feminist characters in
modern American cinema. Physically strong and eminently competent,
her greatest asset as a budding investigator is also her greatest
weakness: she is driven by an overwhelming compassion for
others, with a particularly fine-tuned sense of duty to protect
the world's victims.
When these
polar opposites -- Lecter and Starling -- come together at
twelve-and-a-half minutes into the film, the fireworks are
astonishing, two of the best performances by a man and a woman
ever captured on film. Hopkins is indeed dazzling (though
some like to quibble he is over the top, despite the lack
of eye-rolling and hair pulling), and often very witty, investing
Lecter with a preternatural, malevolent stillness that redefined
the portrayal of evil onscreen. Relatively unknown to the
film audience before "The Silence of the Lambs", Hopkins obviously
realized that Lecter was the character role of his career
and he seized upon it with all the powers of a born maestro.
But the
indispensible catalyst for his performance is Foster's equally
stunning investment in Starling, a nuanced panoply of reactions
to Hopkins that not only work to make him a dominant presence
in every scene, whether he is there or not, they reveal reams
about her own character, moment-by-moment. Hers is an incredibly
giving performance, as richly befits Starling, and though
it risks giving a master scene-stealer like Hopkins even more
fuel for his creative flame, she, too, is in complete control
of her instrument, giving as good as she gets, never letting
us forget what he is.
The script
by playwright Ted Tally is a model of dramatic distillation,
extracting the core drama out of Harris' long conversations
between the two main characters and superbly balancing their
creepy dialogues with the more conventional suspense tale
that frames the relationship -- the search for a serial killer
nicknamed Buffalo Bill. Tally is keeping a dozen balls in
the air at once, populating the story with many fully drawn
supporting and minor characters, blending Harris' imaginative
mix of genre elements -- one part haunted house screamer,
one part police procedural, one part mytho-gothic character
study -- in just the right portions.
It's all
held together with great style and intelligence by director
Jonathan Demme, who clearly knows how to get the best out
of each actor and craftsperson in his charge, and who sees
the value of underplaying the most gruesome effects to achieve
a nearly unbroken line of tension. Demme (like his directorial
model for this film, Alfred Hitchcock) knows just how much
horror to show a modern audience, and when, in order to make
the viewer's imagination fill in the worst details. Perhaps
most important for this kind of popular movie, he is continually
injecting humor into unlikely moments along with the atmosphere,
giving the audience a breather before the next set of uncomfortable
thrills.
A once-in-a-lifetime
kind of film in which all the creative elements come together
just so, "The Silence of the Lambs" is not a movie for the
squeamish, and it still retains a reputation as an exceptionally
violent experience. The truth is, its body count (3 onscreen
deaths) is extremely low in comparison with the common slasher
film, or with many, more "acceptable" action-adventure movies
in which the death and destruction are sterilized and only
"bad" people die (and cleanly, at that). Its real violence
is psychological, imparted subtly through the reactions of
its humanitarian protagonist Starling, and overtly in the
thick, suspenseful world created by Demme and his crew, where
a new unspeakable terror seems to lurk around every corner.
But it is not a callous movie; it's a frightening movie that
pulls no punches when pulling no punches really matters, and
that tells an unbearable truth for those who can take it:
things do not always turn out all right, and for every dragon
that is slain, there is generally another lying in wait who
is worse. The lambs may stop screaming, but you can't save
them all.
Filled
with unforgettable moments, including: Lecter's entrance;
a chilling autopsy scene; Lecter's oh-no-cover-your-eyes escape
from custody; the moment Starling and her target recognize
each other; and the nail-biting finale in a monster's underground
lair. Unlike Lecter, Buffalo Bill is a very realistic amalgam
of actual serial killers, especially Ed Gein, who was also
the model for Norman Bates.
The music
score, photography and film editing are all first-class.
NOTES
IT'S JUST
BUSINESS: Recently re-released in a so-called "special edition"
DVD by MGM, the new disc is cheaper but is missing many of
the outstanding features that made the Criterion Special Edition
worth the money. Particularly distressing is the loss of the
commentary track, which featured Hopkins, Foster, Demme and
Tally. There is nothing to equal it on the new disc. The Criterion
DVD is now out of print.
AN OSCAR
SLEEPER, TOO: One of only 3 films in Oscar history to win
in the "top five" categories: Best Picture, Actor (Hopkins),
Actress (Foster), Screenplay (Adapted), and Director. (The
other films were "It Happened One Night", 1934, and "One Flew
Over the Cuckoo's Nest", 1975.) "Lambs" was also only the
third film in the thriller genre to even be nominated for
Best Picture, and the first Best Picture winner in several
decades to be released a full twelve months before nominations
were announced. Typically, Best Picture nominees are released
in the last quarter of any given year.
TOO SCARY:
Screen rights to "The Silence of the Lambs" were originally
purchased for Gene Hackman, who intended to both direct and
star as Lecter. He bowed out of the project with misgivings
over the intense subject matter. When Demme came on board,
he tried to interest his pal Michelle Pfeiffer in the role
of Starling, having worked with her on "Married to the Mob"
(1988), but she also declined because the story was too violent.
THE MASTER:
Welshman Sir Anthony Hopkins (b. 1937) was an understudy to
Laurence Olivier at the National Theatre in the 60s, and was
so good the maestro almost didn't hire him out of professional
jealousy. Hopkins does a letter-perfect imitation of his former
mentor, which led to his dubbing the deceased Olivier's lost
audio tracks for the restored "Spartacus" in 1991. A great
Shakespearean, Hopkins' theatrical reputation superceded his
film career for 3 decades before "The Silence of the Lambs"
catapulted him to international stardom at the age of fifty-four.
Some other great Hopkins performances on film: "The Elephant
Man" (1980), "The Remains of the Day" (1993), "Nixon" (1995).
THE EXCEPTION:
Jodie Foster (b. 1962) had been a professional actor for a
quarter century when she played Clarice Starling, and was
already an Oscar winner for her dazzling turn as the white
trash victim of a gang rape in "The Accused" (1988). A spectacular
exception to the rule that child stars are never successful
adult stars, she began as a Disney contract player but even
her childhood roles showed a remarkable range and sensitivity,
not to mention artistic daring. This was most obvious in her
portrayal of the child prostitute Iris in "Taxi Driver" (1976)
at the age of twelve, easily holding her own with De Niro
and Harvey Keitel. Since "Lambs" she has had the clout to
branch into producing and directing, which she has done with
modest success, confining her acting appearances to one film
every three or four years.
MENTORS,
MENTORS EVERYWHERE: Schlockmeister Roger Corman (b. 1926),
who gave Demme his first job as a director, appears as the
FBI director.
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