A One Mann’s Movies review of “The Silence of the Lambs” (1991).
“The Silence of the Lambs” was the 5th highest grossing film from 1991 with a worldwide gross of $272M: a good return for an estimated $19M budget. (For those interested, it fell behind “Hook” ($300M); “Beauty and the Beast” ($346M); “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” ($390M) and “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” ($521M)).
The film cleaned up on the main categories at the 1992 Oscars, winning Best Picture, Best Director (for Jonathan Demme); Best Actor (for Anthony Hopkins); Best Actress (for Jodie Foster); and Best Adapted Screenplay (for Ted Tally).
This was another of the recent “Throwback” screeings that Everyman Cinemas put on in the UK. It’s justly regarded as a classic of the horror/thriller genre, although the film is a curious beast: it’s almost two separate and distinct stories bolted together. It feels like it shouldn’t work, but it just does.
Bob the Movie Man Rating:
“The Silence of the Lambs” Plot:
Trainee FBI agent Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) is approached by her boss (Scott Glenn) who is in pursuit of a mass serial killer of young women called Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine). In order to try to get an inside track on the killer’s profile, she is instructed to interview another infamous and psychotic serial killer, Hannibal Lector (Anthony Hopkins), incarcerated in a secure facility.
Certification:
UK: 15; US: R. (From the BBFC web site: “Strong violence, gore, sex references, very strong language”. This is the BBFC classification for the re-classification of the film in 2017… it was originally classified as an “18”.)
Talent:
Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Jodie Foster, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine, Anthony Heald, Brooke Smith, Diane Baker.
Directed by: Jonathan Demme.
Written by: Ted Tally. (From the novel by Thomas Harris).
Running Time: 1h 58m.
“The Silence of the Lambs” Summary:
Positives:
- Astonishing performances from Foster and Hopkins, particularly in their interchanges.
- A clever script that weaves together two discrete stories into a unified whole.
- One of the cleverest (and most gruesome!) escapes in film history!
- One of the best closing lines in film history!
Negatives:
- The film’s mysoginist feel is appropriate for the year made but hasn’t aged well.
- After watching it again after a very long break, I still got confused by some elements of the plot.
Review of “The Silence of the Lambs”:
(Note: as this film is 24 years old, I have included a few spoilers in the comments below. But, if you haven’t seen this film by now, what HAVE you been doing with your life??)
Chilling encounters of the Hopkins Kind.
It’s surely one of the most chilling and most referenced face-to-face meetings in cinema. Jodie Foster’s vulnerable Clarice is locked into a corridor of cells containing loony inmates and has to walk slowly down the row to get to the glass ‘enclosure’ of Lector. The reveal of Hopkins just standing there in the middle of his cell, like a spider at the centre of his web, makes your blood run cold. The epitomy of evil and he hasn’t even said a word yet.
The exchange between the pair is the stuff of acting legend (for which their Best Actor/Actress Oscars were well-deserved). Lector sniffing the air like a wolf and commenting on her fragrence; probing into her back story; mocking her Southern accent (unscripted: the insulted reaction of Foster is genuine outrage); before the classic line…
“A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.”
Simply brilliant.
A clever script.
I have never read the source book for this film: I really must do so. I assume the script follows the book pretty faithfully, but it struck me on this rewatch just how odd a structure it is. The stories of Hannibal Lector and Buffalo Bill are almost distinct from each other. It’s like a Venn diagram where there is virtually no overlap. It feels like it shouldn’t work, but it somehow does.
Both of the strands are fascinating in their own right:
- Buffalo Bill’s tale, (or Jame Gumb (Ted Devine) as he is found to be) is suitably chilling as we focus in on his seventh victim, Catherine Martin (Brooke Smith), who is the daughter of Senator Ruth Martin (Diane Baker). The film, having kept the identity at arm’s length, suddenly opens up and shows us the man abducting Martin. We later get to see his ‘holding pen’ and get an insight into his methods and motivations. But Catherine has some nous and demonstrates some serious empowerment in her efforts to escape (although dog-lovers might object to the methods used).
- Hannibal Lector’s arc is equally enthralling, leading to one of the most innovative and horrific prison breaks in movie history. It’s so clever it made me smile with delight. In fact, every scene that Anthony Hopkins is in is riveting. I particularly enjoyed the part where he is (literally) wheeled out in front of Senator Martin and the pair have an intense confrontation. I’d forgotten that from my original watch.
The two strands do overlap, in that Lector is providing relevant information about Buffalo Bill’s identify to Clarice, but it is little more than glancing.
This is maybe me not paying attention (it was a late night screening!) but I still managed to get a bit confused as to how Clarice managed to track down Gumb from the information she had….. I’m going to have to give it another watch!
A brilliant closing line.
Ted Tally’s script also includes the famous closing line from Thomas Harris’s book. As Lector is watching his old nemesis Dr. Frederick Chilton (Anthony Heald) get off a boat in South Bimini Island in the Bahamas he is on the phone to Clarice and comes out with the classic:
“I do wish we could chat longer, but I’m having an old friend for dinner.”
Classic!
The sexism hasn’t aged well.
I know that 1991 was a lifetime ago in terms of sexual equality (and indeed gay rights). But the film really doesn’t age very well in its portrayal of the reactions to Clarice within the predominantly male environment of the FBI and police teams. There is a very funny shot of the diminuative Foster (I never realised she was only 5’3″) riding in a lift (sorry, elevator for my US readers) with a bunch of towering FBI agents crammed in with her. But the sort of lascivious looks she gets from them would not be included in a remake of the film today. Furthermore, a scene where her boss Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn) belittles and sidelines her in front of a team of cops comes across as hugely cringeworthy through today’s lens.
Summary Thoughts on “The Silence of the Lambs”
A stone-cold classic about stone-cold killers. It’s a film that’s eminently rewatchable, and yet another delight to see on the big screen again.
Where to Watch it (Powered by Justwatch)
Trailer for “The Silence of the Lambs”:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iB21hsprAQ.
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