The Silence of the Lambs was released on Valentine’s Day, 1991. Directed by Jonathan Demme and adapted by Ted Tally from the novel by Thomas Harris, it stars Jodie Foster as FBI cadet Clarice Starling, assigned to profile notorious criminal Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) as a rote exercise, but really to enlist his knowledge to help find serial killer Buffalo Bill. “If the movie were not so well-made, indeed, it would be ludicrous,” wrote Roger Ebert. In 1992, Silence swept the Academy Awards, a remarkable achievement for a horror film released more than a year earlier. Its record five major category wins has not been matched in the ensuing decades.
Shot in muted earth tones by Tak Fujimoto with a foreboding score by Howard Shore, Silence establishes its gothic, strange beauty right away with its no-frills title sequence. Block letters —THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS— appear over a trail in the woods. Starling comes running toward us, pulling herself up with a rope over a steep incline. Her uphill battle has already started. Throughout the film, Demme takes great delight in putting tiny Foster against groups of giant men—first in an FBI elevator, later in a funeral home surrounded by cops. Wrote Ebert, “The movie has an undercurrent of unwelcome male attention toward her character; rarely in a movie have I been made more aware of the subtle sexual pressures men put upon women with their eyes.”
For his part, Hopkins pitches Lecter as a gentleman with class; he was 52 when the movie was shot and is locked in an airtight dungeon when we meet him—the antithesis of a traditional horror monster. In later scenes, when he escapes in a brilliant, baroque way—he cuts a man’s face off!—the violence is much more disconcerting, with Demme resisting many of the obvious gross-out factors. Foster similarly keeps it reined in, playing off her character’s intense need for advancement and to please. When she does cry, after her first meeting with Lecter, Demme abandons the movie’s copious direct address close-ups with a medium shot of her sobbing against her car, respectful of the moment.
Though Silence is not without its detractors—accused of being anti-fat, anti-woman and anti-trans—as 20- year-old movies go, it holds up well. There’s not much technology (microfiche, adorable!) and the hair and costumes are of the generic suit variety. It made a case for horror movie as social commentary, or at least think piece, rather than a guts-fest for teen boys, and for putting a strong, independent woman at the centre (The X-Files‘ Dana Scully is based on Starling). Its legacy has been somewhat tarnished by the 2001 sequel Hannibal (Foster bowed out and was replaced, ably, by Julianne Moore) and especially Red Dragon, a remake of Michael Mann’s original Manhunter that in Harris’ novels takes place 20 years before The Silence of the Lambs yet still features a paunchy, 64-year-old Hopkins as Lecter.
That aside, it is a masterclass of acting, directing, writing and cinematography, of tonality, of pacing and of emotion. “We are frightened both because of the film’s clever manipulation of story and image,” wrote Ebert 10 years later in Great Movies, “and for better reasons—we like Clarice, identify with her and fear for her. Just like Lecter.”
Academy Awards Sunday, February 27 9:30pm, CTV
This article appears in Feb 24 – Mar 2, 2011.
It is an awesome film from a fantastic book.
The whole “great delight in putting tiny Foster against groups of giant men” is really evident in the book, especially at the funeral home.
The Buffalo Bill dancing scene with the penis tuck is one of my favourite cinematic moments of all time.
I cannot understand how the legacy of THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS is tarnished (even somewhat) by its sequels. Both HANNIBAL and RED DRAGON trade entirely on the existence of SILENCE, yet the first movie still exists, separate and apart.
HANNIBAL is sufficiently considered to stand as a legitimate work on its creative merits, as well as because it’s the product of an auteur of acknowledged skill and talent, collaborating with the original author and creator of its characters.
The second sequel, RED DRAGON, as a film is calculated and crass, even as it entertains. It suffers from being produced in 2003, too far out of time from the first film in the series, as well as being artlessly directed and critically miscast. Yet even RED DRAGON is still head and shoulders above most other Hollywood output of the modern era, owing to the magnetic pull of Hopkins’ Lecter, and the compelling nature of the inner worlds writer Thomas Harris portrays for Will Graham and Francis Dolarhyde.
If you choose to look at Demme’s movie in isolation, you can do so.
But still, it was no Porky’s!
I liked Hannibal more than most, I saw it three times in four days when it came out. But Red Dragon drags the whole arc down—”Hannibal Lecter” shouldn’t have been a franchise (yes I know about Manhunter). Hopkins embarrassed himself. The whole thing was a pointless cash grab, trading off Hannibal’s box office, which is a different thing because the book AND the film were highly anticipated follow-ups; Harris just bungled the story so badly by having Clarice and Lecter end up together.
It’s not a direct tarnish, but I think it diminishes Silence just a little bit. Anyway Dino De Laurentiis just died so hopefully the franchise did too.