Into the mind of evil...

...we go.

You know the rundown by now.  AFI Top 100 Films (10th Anniversary Edition).  I watch 'em all in a year, I write about 'em.  You read about 'em.  Rules are here.

Film 17

17.  "The Silence of the Lambs" (AFI Rank #74)
I'm not 100% positive about this, but I believe this is the first film on the list that I've watched this year that I saw first-run in the theater.  By that, I'm not 100% sure I saw this in the theater.  I cannot remember.  I'm thinking no, however.  I think the communal feel with the audience, on this film especially, would have stuck with me.  I also can't imagine that I skipped it.  So.  Maybe I saw it in the theater, maybe I didn't.

I try, as I write these, to find a photo that is not cliche or way too familiar to head each blog post.  Not this time.  This is "...Lambs" 101.  Clarice/Lecter, him in reflection, over her shoulder; her staring into the face of evil.  It's too good an image, and one that I had to use.

"The Silence of the Lambs" is the third Best Picture winner in a row that I've watched, and the fifth in the last six movies.  Released in 1991, directed by Jonathan Demme, it is one of only two films that has won the "Big 5" Oscars:  Best Picture; Best Director; Best Actor; Best Actress; and Best Screenplay (Adapted).  The other is 1975's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."  Now, in "...Lambs'" case, one could argue that a lack of competition certainly helped.  However, I'd argue just as fiercely that the performances by everyone involved would stand up to stiffer competition, as well.  (EDIT, 2020:  I was mistaken on this.  There are THREE films that have done this.  The other is "It Happened One Night.")

The plot of the film is fairly simple.  A young FBI cadet is used to help connect one of the most perceptive, albeit evil, minds with the FBI as they investigate a serial killer nicknamed "Buffalo Bill."  That's really it.  Except, as those of us have seen the film know, it's so very much more.

I'm going to assume you've seen this film, so I may give away the ending, and I'm not going to expound upon the plot.

What drives "The Silence of the Lambs," as I saw it this time, was a commitment to excellence on the part of everyone involved in it, whether to character, to plot, to visual imagery or to pace.  It is a gorgeous film to look at, if at times gruesome, but the camera leaves us with lush imagery in nearly every frame.  Shown in the bowels of the mental hospital where our anti-hero, Hannibal Lecter, is imprisoned; in the blandness of the FBI training facility in Quantico; in the courthouse where Hannibal makes his to-that-point imagined brutality visual; or in the simple set that turns into a nightmare maze in the film's concluding showdown between Clarice and Jame Gumb; everything is right.  It all provokes our mood.  It all surrounds us, permeates us.  It holds us and doesn't let us go.  Demme was on top of every moment.  Every single moment.

I'm gushing.  I love this film.  I've seen it...well...I've seen it A LOT OF TIMES.

Any discussion of this film, of course, starts with Anthony Hopkins' chilling portrayal of serial killer, Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter.  It is easy to forget just how little he appears on screen, as his presence so dominates the film.  Hopkins is masterful in this film.  Subtle when he needs to be, always in calm control, we see not only the sick, twisted fuck that killed and ate his victims, but the incredibly intelligent, perceptive genius that he was...when he wasn't doing that stuff.  With an unblinking gaze, Lecter immediately impresses himself into our psyche the moment he first appears on screen.  We already start to feel a little...icky...when we watch him move, calculatedly, in his cell.  In fact, the first meeting with Lecter contains the ups and downs of Hannibal, and gets us right on board with him.  Asking Clarice what "Multiple Miggs in the next cell" said to her, she responds, "I can smell your cunt."  Lecter, without showing a moment of satisfaction, nor remorse in saying what he says next, says, "I see.  I, myself, cannot.  You use Evian skin cream, and sometimes you wear L'Air du Temps, but not today."   He is all at once so decidedly creepy, yet so sophisticated...how can you not be sucked in by him?  We understand, the longer that we live with Lecter, that this is an extremely dangerous man, a mind that we cannot hope to harness, nor one that we can hope to heal.

Now, Hopkins could devour the scenery, were it not for his equally engaging plaything, Jodie Foster.  Shown to be a woman of great ambition, Clarice is always just on the edge of a breakdown, always just on the edge of exceeding her competence.  She pushed Lecter when perhaps she should back off, and is brought to some very painful memories through this work.  Yet, she never flinches, never wavers.  Not publicly, anyway.  Playing with just a hint of a southern accent, Foster's Clarice Starling is a deeply wounded individual who is taking responsibility for altering her reality.  Physically smaller than almost everyone else on screen, we never questions Starling's strength, nor her courage.  We just question what those qualities could do to her.  In an exceptional scene, Clarice describes to Hannibal a particularly traumatic memory of her running away from a relative's home because of the "screaming of the lambs" on the farm that relative owns.  She runs away, taking one of the lambs with her.  The scene is taut, incredibly visual, while being described only with words.  It is a story that we see in front of us...yet don't.  Demme had planned on shooting a scene in Montana to actually show the story to us visually.  When Foster and Hopkins got done performing the scene, Demme is rumored to have shouted, "Well, we're not going to Montana!"

Also worthy of discussion is Ted Levine as Buffalo Bill.  Playing the second serial killer in a film where your crimes are the reasons for the film at all, Levine so brilliantly underplays the evil in Bill, that he lets Lecter shine, while still carving a place for himself.  When we really get to see Bill, we see a really sick bastard, one who is not evil by choice, necessarily, but one who is so tormented by whatever demons haunt him that we...get it.  Sure, we can't imagine ourselves behaving like that, but we can sure understand why he does.  His interview with Clarice, the one that sets in motion the finale of the film, is haunting.  He starts out so effusive, so happy, but at one point, he flips.  He can't help but reveal how clever he is.  "Wait.  Was she a great big fat person?"  It's a telling moment, and one that helps seal his fate.

Scott Glenn is great, also, doing what Scott Glenn always does. Anthony Heald is wonderful as the opportunistic, if incompetent, head of the mental hospital.  It was also fun to see recently deceased actor Daniel Von Bargen, and to recognize him, even though he's in about 5 seconds of the film.  Also present are Roger Corman and George Romero.  Demme knows his horror.

What I was left with, watching this film this time, is just how meticulous it is.  It is incredibly quotable, especially Lecter, but the visual is also incredibly quotable.  Remember the disemboweled cop hung up in the courthouse?  Well, I put the picture of it above, but I guarantee you could remember it if I hadn't.  How about Levine tucking his penis between his legs as he dances in his basement?  Yup.  You remember that.  You also remember the head in the jar, and the shot of Buffalo Bill in his night vision glasses.  Hell, I can just say "It puts the lotion on its skin, or else it gets the hose again," and you'll be brought right back to the visual of that moment.  How about if I say, "Oh, and Senator?  Love the suit."  Yup.  You got that one, too.  

Less obvious, but something I've caught the last few times is the brief, maybe unintentional, reference to "Psycho" as Lecter talks to Starling on the phone at the end of the film.  A fly lands on his forehead, and Hopkins doesn't flinch.  Doesn't move.  Just like Norman Bates, whose mother tells us how harmless Norman is because he won't even swat that fly on his hand.  It may not be on purpose, but I caught it.

 This film is part of our cultural consciousness, and it's not going away.

There is a lot of discussion about visual imagery to be found here.  I admit, I read this before I wrote this.  I'm not going to try and expand upon this, as Mr. Ebert has already done a nice job.  I caught some of this, however, particularly the use of the Stars and Stripes.  Not sure what point Demme was trying to get to, but he's making one.  Often.  Ebert also wrote an essay on this one in his "Great Movies" series.  It's here.

Well.  I love this film.  I get why it's in the Top 100, and viewing it this time, I saw why, 25 years from now, it will still be relevant, as it is now, 24 years after its release. Yup.  It's been nearly a quarter century since this film came out.  Feel old?  I do.