User Reviews

Not so long ago, I was involved in a debate to decide what the best film of all time was. Not necessarily my favourite or the most re-watchable, but just the best film. Somehow, after a drink, a few arguments and a lot of contemplation, I singled out The Silence of the Lambs. The question remains though... was I actually onto something?

The Silence of the Lambs follows agent-in-training Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) who is desperate to apprehend the serial killer Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine). To try and help her gain insight into the mind of a psychopath, the aspiring agent must consult the genius, yet sinisterly manipulative psychiatrist turned cannibal, Doctor Hannibal Lector (Anthony Hopkins). From the very first scene, Silence of the Lambs' genius is obvious. During the opening credits, with eerie music displaced on top, the camera follows Clarice, with almost stalker-like intent, as she completes a training course in an initially empty forest. This immediately founds a cruel feeling of fear, dread and unease that continues to build throughout the film... though there are noticeable spikes during any visits to the film's most infamous character.

Hannibal Lector - "A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti."

The Silence of the Lambs is one of three films in history to win the big 5 awards at the Oscars (best picture, actress, actor, screenplay and director) and the reason for those wins is thanks in large part to every and any scene involving Clarice's interaction with the eponymous Hannibal Lector. Imagine, Heat's diner talk, The Dark Knight's interrogation, or The Godfather's meetings. This is the level Silence of the Lamb's interviews are at. With closeups of both characters faces capturing their psychological chess game in exquisite detail, both actors are at the top of their games and refuse to provide respite for their entranced audience. Jodie Foster perfectly encapsulates the intelligent, ambitious yet emotionally delicate Starling who along with Anthony Hopkin's now iconic portrayal of the psychopathic Lector create a pairing so iconic that their interactions have been parodied to no end (references range from The Batman to Stranger Things to even Tom and Jerry).

Hannibal Lector - "And what did you see, Clarice? What did you see?"

Clarice Starling - "Lambs. The lambs were screaming."

Commonly touted alongside Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley as one of the all-time-best movie heroines, Jodie Foster's Clarice Starling is an icon. Whilst this is largely down to the captivating performance at the heart of the film, another crucial reason is how the director (Jonathon Demme) frames our protagonist. Throughout the film, the camera will occasionally position itself in Clarice's point of view. This means that whoever Clarice is talking to (serial killer or otherwise) will often stare directly down the lens and thus directly at the audience. This allows viewers to become a pseudo-psychologist themselves and deduce the intentions and thoughts of multiple characters in Clarice's periphery. Furthermore, this technique also forces audiences to identify with Clarice, as she navigates a case that, due to her age, gender and position, involves all eyes being on her.

Jack Crawford - "Starling, when I told that sheriff we shouldn't talk in front of a woman, that really burned you didn't it? It was just smoke, Starling. I had to get rid of him."

Clarice Starling - "It matters, Mr Crawford. Cops look at you to see how to act. It matters."

Thankfully, to match the astounding performances at the heart of the film, The Silence of the Lambs bolsters a captivating, quick-paced and unbearably suspenseful story spread across a 2-hour runtime. By using the conversations with Hannibal almost like beginnings of a chapter, the film signposts where the story is heading, without giving any of its delicious twists away. This feat is even more impressive as Lector himself is only on screen for 24 minutes and 52 seconds, yet the pacing is so exquisite that his absence is never truly felt. Furthermore, the hunt for Buffalo Bill serves to keep both the audience and Clarice on their toes. By drip-feeding revelations surrounding Bill's psyche and own particular brand of horror, a sense of trepidation, tension and terror is expertly raised throughout the film. This then reaches a crescendo where, after a clever misdirect, Clarice finally confronts Bill in what has to be one of the most suspenseful battles ever put to screen. Does anybody breathe when the lights turn out?

Clarice Starling - "He won't come after me."

Ardelia Mapp - "Oh really?"

Clarice Starling - "He won't. I can't explain it... He - he would consider it rude."

With a haunting score, powerful performances and exquisite pacing, The Silence of the Lambs personifies everything a psychological thriller should be. It is thematically rich, touching on overt and covert sexism, childhood trauma and the philosophy behind serial killers all while brimming with endlessly quotable dialogue, a lightning-fast pace and iconic characters. Honestly, I doubt many could argue with The Silence of the Lambs' status as both a classic for its genre as well as the medium of film as a whole. However, although not everyone may agree with it being the best film of all time, after a rewatch, I'd willingly fight anyone who claims it isn't close.

It is a creepy and taken-by-storm experience with the film, background music is darker than the film itself and too ominous, plot is brilliantly constructed, conversations are thought-provocative, to crown the whole, Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkin are the cream. They take ownership of Clarice and Hannibal respectively, transforming them into the most unforgettable screen images.

The psychological path of Hannibal is hard to trace. He is so odd a mixture of intelligence, cruelty, insanity, grace and charisma. In the depth, fledgling FBI trainee Clarice is no match of him. She is still naive yet very ambitious. On the trail of the serial killer Buffalo Bill, she's sent to interview him, a psychiatrist-turned-cannibal. Hannibal is willing to provide clues to finding the killer but only in return for personal information about Clarice herself. He calls it Quid Pro Quo. In those mind games, the two dance backward and forward between cannibal and FBI agent, mentor and student, psychiatrist and patient, father and daughter. It is Clarice who breathes life into the multidimensional sophisticated psychopath and Hannibal who nudges the aspiring student FBI agent and helps her achieve her first success in a world of Y chromosome where her guru Crawford uses her, embarrasses her, excludes her; Doctor Chilton regards her no more than a simple-minded woman and tries to flirt with her. Frankly speaking, though no lack of other impressive scenes, it's really the nerves fights between Hannibal and Clarice that carries the film.

Some of the horrible scenes involve Buffalo Bill who, a transvestite, skins his victims, especially woman victims. But the most terrifying one is Clarice's single-handed trace in Buffalo Bill's gruesome den, which also has become another irony to the self-important testosterone-dominated world. Crawford's misjudgment and stubbornness makes him out of the right track, a special anti-terror deployment resulting in vain. But Clarice, though excluded from the business which she should be on, still holds onto her intuition and through on-the-spot investigation finds the serial killer at last. She has to take on him herself. (Demme uses "deceptive cutting" there to enhance the tension.) It is definitely a life-or-death fight, especially when Clarice is in the dark, groping her way in absolute terror. I have no doubt everyone holds the breath when the film rolls to that part.

A gripping film that well deserved its Oscars

For thirty years Norman Bates reigned unopposed as the number one movie villain of all time. But in 1991 along came Hannibal Lecter, the brilliant Baltimore psychiatrist, to challenge Bates for the on-screen mantle of unparalleled depravity. Cultured and erudite, Lecter reads Marcus Aurelius, listens to classical music, and drinks only the finest wine ~a glass of Chianti to go along with fava beans and liver. Oh.... and by the way, did I forget to mention that he's a cannibalistic serial killer?

Thomas Harris' diabolical shrink first appeared in the book "Red Dragon", adapted quite decently by Michael Mann in 1986 and retitled MANHUNTER ~later remade less satisfactory in 2002 under its original title. Despite Mann's film not making much of a splash at the time, plans were nonetheless underway to bring Harris' second novel "Silence Of The Lambs" to the screen. The unlikely person interested in turning it into a motion picture was Gene Hackman, who hoped to make this his directorial debut. Orion Pictures was onboard, but Hackman soon had cold feet over the grisly subject matter and dropped out. As writer Ted Tally was consuming himself with putting together a solid screenplay, Orion succeeded in convincing Jonathan Demme to direct.

The first actress slated to play Clarice Starling was Michelle Pfeiffer and, for the same reasons as Hackman, also had her apprehensions and bowed out. Replacing Pfeiffer was Jodie Foster, who'd just won an Oscar for portraying a rape victim in THE ACCUSED. As for Lecter, the original choice was Sean Connery (!), who declined. No knock against Connery, but that was a good thing too. Try to visualize, if you can, 007 saying "I do wish we could chat longer, but I'm having an old friend for dinner". Doesn't quite roll off the tongue so fluidly, does it?

The next one considered was Anthony Hopkins, based largely on his performance in THE ELEPHANT MAN, a choice which I thought was odd! His character of Dr Frederick Treves was a decent, compassionate man of medicine who transformed one person's heartbreakingly miserable life around for the better, whereas Hannibal Lecter possesses all the compassion of a Komodo dragon. It took the actor only ten pages of reading the script before realizing this was the best part he'd ever read, and heartily agreed to play Lecter. To capture the right accent for his character he based the voice partially on Katharine Hepburn and Truman Capote.

The heroine of THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS is Clarice Starling, an FBI trainee at Quantico nearing the conclusion of her apprenticeship. A native of rural West Virginia, Clarice was orphaned as a young girl when her widowed policeman father was shot to death in the line of duty. Jack Crawford, her superior in the Behavioural Sciences department assigns her to conduct an interview with one of the most infamous serial killers in the country. Crawford warns her in advance not to reveal anything personal to him, telling her "Believe me, Starling, you don't want Hannibal Lecter inside your head".

Dr Lecter's home for the last decade has been a Baltimore asylum for the criminally insane. He is so dangerous that he and three other inmates are segregated from the general population, which illustrates just how evil he truly is. Prior to her meeting him, Dr Chilton, the director of the institution, shows Clarice a photograph of an unfortunate staffer who made the grave mistake of turning her back to him.

We never actually see what Lecter did to the woman. With Demme's camera in an upward position facing towards Clarice, our heroine's stoic, yet revealing, reaction is enough to put our imaginations into overdrive....and give us the willies!!! Unlike the other garden variety psychos displaying the usual clichéd mannerisms, Lecter simply greets her with a casual, disarming "Good morning". Hopkins' phrasing of those two words will put a chill in the audience's spines.

Starling has been sent in the hopes that the not-so-good doctor will provide a psychological profile of Buffalo Bill, a serial killer who has been abducting and murdering young women. Intrigued by his visitor, Lecter begins insinuating himself into her psyche by giving an extraordinary accurate character analysis. Their cat-and-mouse interaction is fascinating to watch as Lecter alternates between co-operation ~somewhat~ and toying with her emotions.

Lecter's cryptic clues lead Clarice to the discovery of a severed head belonging to one of his former patients. Though admitting to preserving the cranium prior to his incarceration, Lecter insists he was not the killer. However, he does know the identity of the dead man's lover, the suspect known only as Buffalo Bill. He simply wants to torment everyone by taking his own sweet time before disclosing it.

The stakes suddenly get higher in the psychological chess match between Lecter and Starling. Buffalo Bill's next victim happens to be the missing daughter of a Tennessee senator. With pressure now coming from Washington, Clarice approaches Lecter with a (phony) offer of a transfer in exchange for his identification of the serial killer. Unfortunately, this quid pro quo is overhead by Chilton, a womanizing creep whose self-love is more than just a summer romance. His ego will lead to subsequent events that nothing positive will come of.

THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS is undeniably Jonathan Demme's finest hour. One of his visual trademarks is having his actors speaking directly into the camera, giving us the impression that we're the ones actually interacting with them, and thus putting us in the other person's shoes. Demme's technique is not always effective , but it certainly works with THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS because having Hannibal Lecter, in particular, addressing us face-to-face is enough to put us off balance.

In the decades since THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, critics and audiences alike have rhapsodized endlessly about the tit for tat exchanges between Lecter and Starling. It's an intriguing matchup for sure; he's a remorseless monster, yet somehow this tenacious Southern belle has tapped into his not-so-beautiful mind just as much he has with hers. As he admires Clarice's steely perseverance within a male dominated profession, she may be the only person in the world whom Lecter genuinely wishes no harm to come towards. And his ingenious escape at the ¾ mark makes for one of the tensest scenes in cinema history.

For all of its bona fide moments of fright, one aspect which I think Demme doesn't get enough praise for is his vivid depiction of America's rust belt. Thanks to the exceptional work by production designer Kristi Zea and cinematographer Tak Fujimoto, Demme gives us the most bleakly evocative portrait of lower middle class poverty since BONNIE AND CLYDE.

THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS became only the third movie to capture the 5 major Academy Awards: Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Ted Tally's first rate adaptation. Hopkins was knighted shortly after his triumph, and when asked by a reporter which honor was more satisfying, he replied "The Oscar. It changed my life". For Foster, this was her second win, but this performance was so towering that I'm not sure if anyone other than the most intrepid cinephile would remember what film her first Oscar was for.

Back in 1991, I remember reading a review of THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS where the writer of the article proclaimed that Hannibal Lecter may be the greatest movie villain of all time. I thought that was quite an audacious pronouncement for anybody to make. The film was still going through a strong theatrical run, and conventional cinema wisdom assumed that nobody would ever unseat Hitchcock's ultimate mama's boy. But as it turned out, that critic, whoever he or she was, ended up having the last laugh. 🔚

Silence of the Lambs (1991) follows the story of the young and ambitious Clarice Starling in her attempt to apprehend the serial killer named "Buffalo Bill" (Ted Levine). Starling goes to the infamous Hannibal Lecter (nicknamed Hannibal the Cannibal for his exotic tastes). Clarice relies on Lecter for his expertise and knowledge about the mind of a serial killer. Whereas Hannibal toys with Clarice in order to amuse himself. Clarice and her fellow agents are forced to rely on the help of a killer in order to catch another.

Jodie Foster does an excellent job playing the young and eager Clarice. She portrays her Southern accent as often painfully obvious, which Lecter pounces upon as an insecurity. Foster speaks with a wavering voice at times, showing Clarice's inexperience and disgust with the crimes committed by Buffalo Bill. Hopkins is completely absorbed into the role of Hannibal Lecter. To create his creepy and psychotic persona he stares unblinkingly, forcing both the audience and Clarice to return his cold gaze. Hopkins keeps as still as possible while acting, looking like a snake poised to pounce upon less intelligent prey, and in comparison to Lecter everyone is less intelligent, and is therefore potential prey. Hopkins keeps a soft smirk on his lips throughout the film as if to say he knows something no one else does. The film's soundtrack is absolutely haunting and mysterious. It works well with the film to create tension and anxiety in the audience. However, the director (Jonathan Demme) knows when silence is just as powerful. In a tense scene in complete darkness we are left with no sound save for the heavy breathing of Buffalo Bill. The cinematography is excellent for this film. The colors of the film are gray and lifeless, which complement the film's dark subject matter. At pivotal moments the camera angle switches to first person. This view works perfectly when Clarice rounds the corner and sees Lecter for the first time. We are able to truly appreciate Lecter's piercing gaze, because we see it first hand through Clarice's eyes. The performances of Hopkins and Foster would have been flat if it were not for the well written script. The small anecdotal stories about Lecter help to build his character even before we meet him. Lecter's lines are meant to sound sophisticated and cultured in order to create his paradoxical character as a gentleman-psychopath. Buffalo Bill refers to his victims as "it" in an attempt to destroy their humanity in another example of brilliant writing.

A key strength in this film is its character development. Not just Lecter or Clarice's development, but their relationship itself. The audience watches as Lecter and Clarice grow closer and closer in a bizarre exchange not unlike two friends sharing secrets. As Clarice learns more from Lecter, so too does Lecter learn more about Clarice. The audience can see that Lecter values this relationship because he does not hunt her down for as Clarice puts it, "He would consider that rude".

Silence of the Lambs is a gripping and disturbing film, filled with fascinating characters. It remains a timeless horror film that draws from the darkest and foulest corner of humanity's existence. It is a terrifying movie because it reminds us that the monsters in our world are not imaginary, but could pass us on the street any day.

Overrated doesn't mean bad. It just means that something is not as good as people say it is. "The Silence of the Lambs" isn't a bad movie. It's an okay movie. The best part of the movie is the music. It gives the movie a creepy vibe. The rest of the movie isn't so hot. This is the kind of movie that while you are watching it you think it's really good. But when it's over and you begin to think about what you just watched, you realize that it's pretty dumb. Hannibal Lector escapes by wearing a dead guy's face. Silly. Oh by the way, how did Lector steal the pen? They don't tell you because it would have been impossible for him to steal it. Now after all these years (and years of CSI type tv shows) the little gross out elements that "The Silence of the Lambs" has seem awfully tame. It's an okay, and I guess somewhat mandatory, watch.