Silence Of The Lambs' 30th Anniversary: 10 Retrospectives On The Timeless Horror Movie
When The Silence of the Lambs was released in February 1991, the horror genre was just coming out of the declining slasher-sequel craze of the 1980s. Previously unbreakable killers like Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, and Jason Vorhees were fading quickly due to an oversaturation of mediocre sequels and a lack of substance.
1986's Manhunter, the first adaptation to feature Hannibal Lecter, failed to translate commercially with audiences or critics, leaving expectations for a sequel understandably low. Now, thirty years later, The Silence of the Lambs continues to thrive in the mainstream, generating conversations and comparisons that paint a lasting legacy for the psychological thriller.
10 Anthony Hopkins
Most conversations about the film begin with Anthony Hopkins' unshakable performance. Few actors can own a role as well as Hopkins does as the cunning, charming Lecter, whom the actor infused with a monotone voice and piercing eyes. Hopkins wanted his character to feel computeristic, like a silent shark, even basing his voice off of HAL 9000's emotionless tone in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
In a recent reunion video, Hopkins discussed that he initially thought it was a children's movie but wanted the part after reading only ten pages of the script. He also revealed thta he was excited, though intimidated, by Jodie Foster's involvement, who'd recently won an Oscar for The Accused.
9 The Quiet Horror
For a majority of its runtime, The Silence of the Lambs utilizes subtle elements that eat away at the viewers' sense of safety. These threats often creep in through striking sensory incongruities that create feelings of fear, panic, and discomfort in the audience.
When we first meet Hannibal Lecter, he's standing perfectly upright in his brightly lit plexiglass cell, staring directly at Clarice, and indirectly at the audience. In contrast to the dim, barred cells Clarice first passed, Lecter's cell feels oddly welcoming. Based on the earlier description of Lecter being uncooperative with the FBI, we expect Lecter to ignore Clarice's arrival. Yet, when we meet him and his eyes follow ours with curious intrigue, his polite "good morning" feels all too unsettling.
8 Oscar Glory
Only three films in history have ever won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor, and Best Actress at the Academy Awards: 1934's It Happened One Night, 1975's One Flew Over The Cuckcoo's Nest, and The Silence of the Lambs. In fact, as 0f 2020, the latter remains the only one of six Best Picture-nominated horror films to have won.
In recent years, thrillers have seen an uptick in Best Picture nominations, as well as acting and directing honors. Much of this success can be linked to The Silence of the Lambs' groundbreaking wins, which helped pave a road for non-"Oscar-bait" movies to receive their due.
7 Jonathan Demme
A fairly active Hollywood director of the 1970s and 80s, it wouldn't be until The Silence of the Lambs' release that Jonathan Demme would receive critical recognition. Demme would go on to direct other films like Philadelphia and the highly underrated Rachel Getting Married before his death in 2017 at the age of 73.
He left a sizeable impact on those he worked in the industry, including Hopkins and Foster. Hopkins remembers Demme as an energetic director who kept the set light and fun, while Foster memorialized him as "a guy so singular and dynamic you'd have to design a hurricane to contain him."
6 A Strong Female Heroine
Though the movie couldn't translate Clarice's thoughts from the book, Demme manages to visually portray her experience of battling for respect in a male-dominated profession from her point of view. The movie literally begins with Clarice running uphill and through an obstacle course, foreshadowing how hard she'll have to work just to get ahead.
She's later seen walking through a sea of men towards Jack Crawford's office and standing in an elevator surrounded by her taller male colleagues looking down at her. The male characters, like the creepy Dr. Chilton, almost always look and speak directly into the camera, making the audience feel Clarice's tension and discomfort. When they're not talking down to her, they're often commenting on her physical features or asking her out. Incredibly, the only male figure who sees and treats Clarice as an equal is Lecter.
5 Realism
According to Licensed Mental Health Professional Dr. Todd Grande, Lecter's character reflects more of a supernatural figure than a realistic serial killer. Lecter's incalculable intelligence and high-functioning physiological and mental characteristics make for a strong fictional villain, but don't quite line up with what professionals have witnessed in real-life psychopathy.
Dr. Grande acknowledges, however, that it might not have been the author's intention to make the character realistic. Considering that society has warmly embraced other murderous antiheroes such as Dexter Morgan or Walter White in the following decades, it's possible that the calm and collected Lecter was the right choice for the fictional thriller rather than a more realistic psychopath.
4 Jodie Foster
Similar to Hopkins, there may never be a better portrayal of Agent Clarice Starling than Jodie Foster's. Foster's career broke out in 1976 when she appeared in Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver at the age of 13. After her Oscar-winning roles in The Accused and The Silence of the Lambs, she'd continue her prolific Hollywood career both in front of and behind the camera.
As a character trying to hide her past, Foster plays Clarice's precision and subsequent vulnerability perfectly. Though her choice to not reprise her role in sequels may have disappointed fans, it could've been the best decision in the end, as she'll forever stand alongside other unforgettable one-and-done performances, such as Heath Ledger's Joker.
3 LGBTQ Issues
Jame Gumb, aka "Buffalo Bill," was not positively received by members of the LGBTQ community upon the movie's release. Though Hollywood and society have seen a dramatic increase in LGBTQ appreciation and understanding in the last 30 years, Gumb's violent representation could've been the basis for traumatic bullying or worse for those in the LGBTQ community.
While Demme initially explained that Gumb's actions reflect his desire to escape himself due to self-hatred, Demme later acknowledged the need for better LGBTQ representation in movies, and his next film, 1993's Philadelphia, reflected this. Thankfully, The Silence of the Lambs helped initiate some necessary conversations about how to continue moving forward in broadening LGBTQ representation in mainstream Hollywood.
2 Chemistry
There are certain elements of movies that are not quite noticeable on their own, but, in conjunction, help to form a complete whole. Howard Shore's musical score is one such element, as the famous composer wanted the music to not stand out, but fit into the fabric of the movie. Author Thomas Harris' novel provided such a striking framework for Ted Tally's script that relatively little was changed from the book to the movie.
The camerawork in the scenes between Lecter and Clarice is also telling. The camera remains fairly stationary in their first meeting, but more fluid in their last, reflecting Clarice's urgency in wanting to find Catherine Martin. However, the picture becomes frighteningly still when Lecter presses her about her childhood, slowly closing in on their faces as Shore's tense score begins filling the empty void.
1 Serial Killer Craze
The fascination with serial killers has exploded in the age of true-crime documentaries, but this intrigue was still gestating in the 1990s. The Silence of the Lambs became one of the most influential movies in the serial-killer movement, spawning three movie sequels as well as the television series Hannibal and Clarice.
The movie was released only two years after the execution of Ted Bundy, who was a partial inspiration for Jame Gumb. Series like Netflix's Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes and Mindhunter have allowed audiences to further explore the darker side of humanity. Infatuation with serial killers and antiheroes is unlikely to end anytime soon, indicating that audiences are more than happy to ignore Crawford's warning to Clarice: "trust me, you really don't want Hannibal Lecter in your head."
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