A One Mann’s Movies review of “The Silence of the Lambs” (1991, 4.5*, 15).
“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 a superb closing line. 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! (Ed: My thanks to “Patrick Didit-Again” on Facebook for commenting that this line is not actually in the original novel: only in the screenplay. See the original comment, pasted into the comment section.)
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 diminutive 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 side-lines her in front of a team of cops comes across as hugely cringeworthy through today’s lens.
(Ed. Again, “Patrick Didit-Again” on Facebook commented that this sexism is a key message of both the film and the book and not ‘accidental’. I still think if the film were made today that it wouldn’t be done in quite such an ‘on the nose’ way. See the original comment, pasted into the comment section.)
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.
One thought on “The Silence of the Lambs (4.5*): Uncork the Chianti For a Terrific Trip Down Memory Lane.”
Please leave a comment: your thoughts are much appreciated!
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Trailer for “The Silence of the Lambs”:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iB21hsprAQ.
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Ed: Adding an excellent set of comments from “Patrick Didit-Again” on Facebook to the shared post on the excellent “Screen Gems” Facebook site.
Great review from Bob Mann. If I may address a few points:
1 – Sexism – Maybe it comes across more clearly in the novel, but the sexism Bob finds so cringe is actually addressed in the film and denouncing it is the whole point. From the humorous early shot of short Jodie Foster surrounded by huge he-men in the FBI quarters elevator, to the inappropriately flirtatious behavior of the slimy prison director and the dismissive attitude of the rangers before the autopsy – which finally proves Clarice’s breaking point and leads her to stand up for herself to her superior on their way back, in a respectful but definitely firm manner. (In a nutshell: “Your attitude matters because everyone else take their cue from it. Whatever your reasons are for doing it, please stop.”)
This is a big part of what makes Clarice Starling a feminist heroine. All the odds are stacked against her in this man’s world, starting with everyone’s attitude from law enforcers to serial killers, and she still manages to come out on top. There is steely strength underneath her humility.
2 – How Clarice tracks down the killer – Once again it might be clearer in the novel, especially since it’s presented as a visual misdirection in the film, but I seem to recall that it’s a surprise to Clarice herself as she’s going around knocking on doors of people who were acquainted with the first victim (who, Clarice has deduced, might have known her killer as hers was the only body found in her own locality.)
In the book, a moth flies between her and Buffalo Bill (the same kind of moth found in the victim’s throat) and that’s what clues her in. In the film she hilariously misses that clue, which is literally framed over her head but it’s Buffalo Bill’s behavior that finally makes it clear he’s got a few in the attic.
(Spoiler for dog lovers: I think Precious comes out fine in both book and film. She gets the chicken bone and a free tour of that tantalizing pen at last, is the one beneficiary of the hostage’s Stockholm Syndrome – see Catherine Martin cuddling her all the way to the police car – and in the novel even gets adopted by the cop who was supposed to drop her off at the pond. And I know many b*** who would kill for that light shade of pink.)
3 – Famous last words – Contrary to what Bob writes, that famous closing line is not in the book (where Hannibal writes a letter to the same recipient, ending with the very words “the silence of the lambs.”) But it’s such an iconic line one it is forever associated with the film. While it is overall very faithful indeed to its source, I would urge anyone who loved the film to read the novel as it will probably enhance their enjoyment of both.
These small quibbles aside, I agree with most of what Bob wrote in his excellent review.
As I stated in an earlier post, I was lucky to discover that film in preview and was more terrified than I had ever been in a movie theater (so was everyone else around me, you could tell.) While the film introduced many tropes that are now commonplace in film and TV ( starting with the “location and time” caption at the start of almost every scene, which would become a staple of shows like The X-Files, to the “brilliant monster” battling minds in cat-and-mouse games with a vulnerable law enforcement figure themselves grappling with a traumatic past, and so on) it was all groundbreaking at the time.
Coming out of the theater, I knew right away this would be the “Psycho” for the 90s, in the sense that it was destined to become not just a classic but a blueprint for the genre, at the risk of seeing its original impact diluted over the years. Though, like Psycho and other masterpieces, it still packs a punch with its importance being recognized years down the line, as this thread and appreciative posters prove.