Hannibal Lecter. Ooooo...that name gives you the chills. A brilliant doctor and an astute person, yet, a callous serial killer. He was in the spotlight in Michael Mann's underrated Manhunter but not as a main character, but as a supporting character haunting Will Graham. He is a character that gets under your skin, not knowing what to expect or what he is up to in order to get what he can grasp to become free.
Yet, even though Manhunter came out with solid reviews, the movie fared poorly at the box office. But, there all based on novels. The Silence of the Lambs is based on the novel by the same name by Thomas Harris in 1988. But, because of the massive failure with the movie, producer Dino de Laurentiis lent the movie rights to Orion Pictures for free. Both writer Ted Tally and director Jonathan Demme met in 1989 to work on the adapted screenplay and there were not many revisions.
Strangely enough, Michelle Pfeiffer and Sean Connery were approached with the roles of Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lecter. Pfeiffer turned it down but "it was a difficult decision", however, Jodie Foster was fighting for the role and Demme got it. Demme casted Hopkins because of his performance from The Elephant Man. And, I'm glad that with those two actors because in the limited screen time together, there are no more compelling scenes. This is a thriller that holds up, teetering between the quiet, foreboding suspense and the disturbing psychological nature behind the characters.
FBI trainee Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) is pulled from her training at Quantico at the Academy to meet with Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn) in the Bureau's Behavioral Science Unit. Because of her excellent academic record and confidence, Crawford assigns Starling to interview Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), a brilliant former psychiatrist and incarcerated serial killer, to assist her on his insight in finding the serial killer nicknamed "Buffalo Bill" (Ted Levine), who skins female victims' corpses.
Starling travels to the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane where Dr. Chilton (Anthony Heald) gives her instructions before interviewing Lecter. Dr. Chilton leads Starling to Lecter's solitary quarters and she goes to Lecter to interview him. Even though he is initially courteous towards Starling, Lecter grows impatient with her and rebuffs her. Because of an inappropriate comment and gesture towards Starling, Lecter calls Starling back and to seek out an old patient of his. Starling goes to a storage shed to find a severed head and also later, she finds a moth's cocoon inside another victim's body, probably linking to Buffalo Bill.
Meanwhile, Buffalo Bill has abducted a Senator's daughter, Catherine Martin. Crawford instructs Starling to offer Lecter a fake deal to get him transferred to another prison if he provides more information that helps them find Bill and rescue Catherine. Lecter agrees after Starling agrees with a quid pro quo request in exchanging clues to find Buffalo Bill for Starling's revelation about her personal life.
SPOILER ALERT!
This is a strong psychological thriller tackling the subject of behavior in both physical and psychological angles, in terms of action and dialogue, sometimes in explicit terms. Jonathan Demme does a great job in its camerawork letting you become nervous as the characters also become nervous and sometimes scared, proven in one of its first scenes during the first interaction between Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling. Throughout the movie, there are closeups in which the eyes either a character is getting to you in your mind in a clever, evil way or in a challenging way to get you involved in the story. The close-up technique instills fear into the audience as the character is telling the audience something. For example, take a look at this scene when Jack Crawford assigns Starling to talk to Lecter...
He warns us, along with Starling, not to have Hannibal Lecter inside your head. Now, let's jump into one of two of the most iconic conversations in the movie...
The atmosphere and the score by Howard Shore immerses you into the inception of the "Buffalo Bill" investigation starting with the hellish basement of insanity with the cunning Hannibal Lecter in the end of the hall. With his soft, restrained speech impediment, he spooks you immediately without resorting to violence yet he warns Starling and us not to insult his intelligence, otherwise, well, he would eat "our liver with fava beans and a nice chianti". This is a way of direct communication between character and audience. That iconic quote grasps our attention and now it is too late because Hannibal Lecter is already in our minds throughout the movie, playing with Starling, Dr. Chilton, other characters and us, the audience.
Now, because of his cleverness, Starling starts to investigate using Lecter's clues, piecing it all together to find the real person identified as "Buffalo Bill". But, this is what is so interesting, there is a scene later on in which Lecter gives Catherine Martin's daughter, Senator Ruth Martin, misleading information regarding his name called "Louis Friend" as an anagram called "iron sulfide". However, even though the main challenge is to find the skinned serial killer, her biggest challenge is to interact with Hannibal Lecter. The question is because of the deal they had both agreed on earlier, did Starling reveal the story out of her free will or become forced to reveal the story? You can make a case about both because the story about a traumatic childhood event regarding lambs screaming as they are being slaughtered motivates Starling to rescue Catherine from being slaughtered as you may say. It is a motivation to end her nightmares.
That last clip I showed you is a masterwork of camerawork, cinematography, dialogue and acting and that scene definitely earned both Hopkins and Foster the Oscars. Now, it is an easy theme here in which Foster plays a strong female character in a den of male counterparts in the workforce. There are moments in which from mens' stares, for example, when she goes into the elevator to see Crawford as they stop talking loudly or when she goes into the coroner's room of the funeral home to thank all the local deputies but also to kindly go. I like the camera angle as she is a short woman but soon to become a woman of authority above all the local deputies.
But, there were a couple of men who seem to look down on her like Dr. Chilton as he presume that he got the assignment based on her looks or when a prisoner slings something nasty at her face. She is doing her job, but more than usual to get the respect and reputation. She is a woman trying to save another woman from a serial killer who wants to be a woman, yet, unsuccesfully. It does not hammer you with liberalism, it is just a natural part of the story that goes unnoticeable once you view the movie. In the end, the lambs stop screaming as she finds Bill and kills him in the dark in a terrorizing climactic sequence.
Identity is tackled very well here as Crawford tells you what Lecter is like but when you think about it, you think about a big, insane beast that will cannibalize you. But, no, he looks like an average everyday doctor who has done some cannibalistic things by nature. But, because of his brilliance and clues, Starling trusts him as he takes a fascination to her. He says in the end of the movie that the world is more interesting with her in it. But, also, what makes Buffalo Bill the way he is? He is a transsexual that is getting away from himself and becomes insane my making suits out of female victims' skin or aka a "woman's suit". He is a reclusive being that seems lost in his own evil ways that make you queasy just to look at him.
This is an excellent movie that gets you into the story right off the bat as one of those classical horror/psychological thrillers that does not seem to over-explain what is going on. Besides about the characters, the movie is about the process into solving the case with a personal backstory behind Clarice's motivation to solving the case and to finally let go of her nightmares. It is a personal character study mixed with a crime investigative thriller blended with psychological horror and it works on all three levels. This movie keeps you on your toes until its perfect last scene with a disguised Lecter slowly walking behind as a calculated, foreboding shadow creeping on his next victim which is Dr. Chilton. A great movie.
Here is the main sequence of the movie by the way which is my favorite scene:
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