Revisiting The Silence of the Lambs for the AFI Project
From September 27, 2009:
What's the AFI Project, you ask? For more information, or if you just enjoy my bemused ramblings, read here:http://www.spout.com/blogs/pippin06/archive/2008/3/1/25756.aspx
The Silence of the Lambs is on the following AFI lists:
The Original Top 100 (#65)
100 Most Heart-Pounding Movies (#5)
100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains (Dr. Hannibal Lecter is the #1 villain, and Clarice Starling is the #6 hero)
100 Movie Quotes (#21 - Dr. Hannibal Lecter: "A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.")
The Revised Top 100 (#74)
Because I've seen The Silence of the Lambs a fair few times, I secured a copy the old-fashioned way by finding someone who owned it rather than using a Netflix rental on it. With better timing, I could have tried to locate it on cable, since it sees ample rotation, albeit edited for language and content. The Silence of the Lambs is, without question, a modern classic. Even those who have not seen the film can discern the many pop culture references to it, including iconic images of Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) in his restraints or his creepy little sound effect after suggesting that he ate a man's liver with fava beans and a nice Chianti. If it weren't for the type of film it is, I would probably love it more, but I'm not gonna lie. There is a palpably high disgust factor with this film, either in its images or suggested images, that truly prevents me from watching it too many times and also from thinking it's the greatest film in history. I am putting this out there up front, as I only rated the film four stars. I would have given it five, if the squeamish quality weren't as potent for me. It may not be the Saw movies (which I've never seen, naturally, either), but cannibalism and serial murder should not be taken lightly.
The Silence of the Lambs is a complex and intelligent thriller that is one of only three films and the most recent film in history to win the major five Academy awards (Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Screenplay). In addition, as this page notes, Hopkins won the Actor award for some of the most electrifying 16 minutes of screen time in all of cinema. Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) is a top-honors FBI trainee. Her talent for profiling serial killers catches the attention of her superior, Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn), who wants Clarice to interview Dr. Lecter. Though in an asylum for serial cannibalism and other gross acts of murder, he is also a brilliant psychologist, and the FBI is investigating a string of serial murders by recently labeled Buffalo Bill, who targets young, curvaceous women and cuts away parts of their bodies as trophies. Crawford wants Clarice to perform this interview because she is an attractive woman, which he believes might entice Dr. Lecter to provide his psychlogical insight into and clues to the Buffalo Bill case. As it turns out, Dr. Lecter actually knows something about Bill, but he will not share information until he gets his own way: a more comfortable facility away from his current warden (Anthony Heald) and an in-depth conversation with Clarice about her past. Clarice reluctantly consents, but Dr. Lecter is a master at getting inside his subjects' heads. He manipulates her cooperation and forces her to reveal childhood traumas at the expense of her forced position of strength as a woman in a male-dominated profession and all at a jarring parallel with the progression of Bill's murders and the FBI's time-sensitive scramble to figure out his true identity.
The Silence of the Lambs is a taut and satisfying thriller that provides all sorts of goosebumps (its high position on the AFI Thrillers list and, in fact, on all of the AFI rankings is well earned). The goosebumps come from one man and one performance - true, the adaptation of the original source novel has some underlying credit, but I doubt the words of the novel's pages could have been made so alive without the performance of Anthony Hopkins. It is his turn as Dr. Lecter that engages the viewer and sinks its teeth in without letting go. He is all at once funny, scary, tantalizing, disturbing, disgusting, and debonaire. You almost want to like him, even to pity him his stone prison and his lack of creature comforts, until he starts speaking in that cool, even, but creaky tone barely masking his obvious insanity. His affectations, his unblinking stares, his poetic descriptions of eating people all mix to formulate a disturbing picture that simulataneously steals the film even as it punctuates the movie's other events.
Jodie Foster, an accomplished actress in her own right, also gives a sympathetic performance that almost walks a fine line between professional distance and admiration if not outright obsession with her subject. Her facial expressions betray a willingness to see Dr. Lecter as a human being while, at the same time, experiencing the horror of her past traumas and the realization of his talent at probing her innermost psyche (and at the fact that he is an infamous monster). While she may not have been as charismatic as Hopkins and Hannibal, she was an excellently-cast match for Hopkins and his spooky turn as the serial killer.
The story was also great and ultimately satisfying. The denouement, while open, is quite possibly one of the most chilling endings to a film ever - but, then again, I don't watch too many horror films or graphic thrillers. The film is also expertly paced and brilliantly directed by Jonathan Demme; there are no wasted frames, and many of the simplest details seem like bone-chlling twists with the way that each scene is set up and staged. The best scenes are those between Lecter and Clarice when a pane of glass separates them in his basement corner of the asylum, as the camera interchanges between close-ups of either character's face while they interrogate each other in an inquisitive tete-a-tete.
The only flaw I see in this film is in the awkward performance behind Buffalo Bill. Granted, Buffalo Bill's existence and motivations are awkward, but the actor portraying him renders him so eccentric, he becomes far less disturbing by comparison than Dr. Lecter, even as he is committing gross acts of mutilation and stuffing moth larvae down the throats of his victims. Also, Dr. Lecter's actual knowledge of this man feels almost like a deux ex machina in the grand scheme of the story - it feels too convenient even as Dr. Lecter's hold over Clarice and manipulation of his captors is so hard-fought and carefully orchestrated. I don't know if this detail is more attributable to the novel or to the adaptation, but this whole Buffalo Bill side of the story also becomes less interesting in the big picture as a result. The scenes between Bill and his latest victim (Brooke Smith) almost feel as if they don't mesh with the rest of the film, and I don't know if Demme or the actor or both served to create such an odd caricature of a man pursuing his particular trophies. His role in the story is central; it just didn't seem as interesting or as rivetingly believable as Dr. Lecter and his psychosis, which, upon analysis, doesn't seem right.
Perhaps I'm being too nitpicky; after all, The Silence of the Lambs is undeniably a great film and something of the beginning of a tradition in the modern thriller. There are scenes that I can't watch because of the "icky" factor, too, so that may be coloring my views of the picture somewhat. Still, The Silence of the Lambs just may not be absolutely perfect either, so I feel resigned in my decision to rate the film an 8 on the patented ratings scale for having minor flaws but being very good (very very good). As to the test, it does not pass. I've seen it a handful of times, as I've stated, and more than enough to preclude having to own it. Ultimately, if being squeamish or startled doesn't deter you, The Silence of the Lambs is a wonderful film, a scary film, and the most chilling and best reason to watch it is for Anthony Hopkins and his frightening Hannibal the Cannibal.