My Life at the Movies 1.27.09: 1991 - The Silence of the Lambs
Posted by DC Perry on 01.27.2009
Buffalo Bill, won’t you come out tonight, come out tonight, come out tonight, Buffalo Bill won’t you come out tonight, and dance by the light of the moon.
There weren't many movies on my short list for 1991. Terminator 2, JFK, and Beauty and the Beast are all deserving movies in their own ways, (and of course, Hulk Hogan was brilliant in Suburban Commando), but when it comes to gripping performances and compelling story, none of them can touch The Silence of the Lambs.
1991 at a Glance
US President: George H. W. Bush
Median annual salary: $30,126
Gallon of gas: $1.14
Dozen eggs: $1.01
New house: $147,200
New car: $16,083
Movie ticket: $4.21
Boston Red Sox: 84-78, first place, American League East
Me: Running until I fell on my face every day during wrestling practice.
Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) is an up-and-coming FBI trainee who, as part of the Bureau's attempts to capture serial killer Buffalo Bill, is assigned to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), a psychiatrist turned cannibal mass murderer, for insight into the mind of a serial killer. Starling walks past the deranged inmates at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, but finds Lecter's cell a startling contrast. His clothes are clean. His cell is decorated with drawings. He speaks politely and eloquently.
You use Evian skin cream, and sometimes you wear L'Air du Temps, but not today.
He draws her into a conversation, and he gives her a riddle with a clue about Buffalo Bill's identity. She solves it and returns with more questions, which pleases Lecter. She also has an offer; the latest girl taken is the daughter of a United States Senator, so in exchange for his help solving the case before she dies, the Senator will arrange for Lecter to be moved to a facility with a view, among other perks. Lecter agrees to help, but demands details from Starling's childhood in exchange, including the death of her father and her failed attempt to run away from her foster home. Of course, the deal turns out to be bogus, which Dr. Frederick Chilton (Anthony Heald) discovers and manipulates to his own advantage. Lecter gives bogus information in exchange for a less appealing transfer, and after one last meeting with Clarice, he executes a bloody and delicious escape, murdering his guards, hanging one's disemboweled corpse on his cell and wearing the other's skin to get himself outside the facility.
A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.
While the FBI follows Lecter's wrong lead to palatial Calumet City, Illinois, Starling uses the information she's gleaned from her conversations with Lecter to track Buffalo Bill to the home town of his first victim, Frederica Bimmel. She finds dress patterns in Bimmel's house and realizes that Bill, who hates himself and wants to change, is trying to make a woman suit from the skin of his victims. While the FBI is bashing in the wrong door, Starling is face to face with the killer and slowly piecing together his identity. She draws her gun and begins a terrifying hunt through his labyrinthine basement (Take that, Blair Witch Project), where she finds his latest victim in a pit, but no Buffalo Bill. The lights go out, and we see Starling stumbling and feeling for her bearings through Buffalo Bill's night vision goggles. He enjoys his power for a while, waving a hand near her hair, and pulls a gun. Starling hears the hammer pull back just in time, spinning and firing, killing Bill.
It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again.
Hannibal Lecter is the terrifying glue that holds this film together. He is sophisticated, well-read, articulate, charming – the opposite of everyone Clarice has seen on her walk through the institution that holds him. Dr. Chilton rightly warns her not to be taken in by this, not to give him anything, because Lecter is disarming. He is Dracula. As frightening as his surroundings are, as many horrible things she is told he did, Clarisse never quite buys it – and neither do we, until we see it. Lecter's murder, disemboweling, and dissection of the two guards is unnerving and terrifying because Lecter is so sophisticated, so articulate, so charming. The fact that he is also a murderer and a cannibal creates such cognitive dissonance that we push it aside until we are forced to watch him act. In the end, we know he's going to murder, and probably eat, Dr. Chilton, but we don't fault him for it. On some level, we cheer it. Despite less than 20 minutes of screen time, Lecter's character is the one that haunts us.
Oh, and Senator, just one more thing: love your suit!
The other side of this movie's characterization coin is Clarice Starling's mixture of vulnerability and strength. From her walk down the hallway at the Baltimore State Hospital (I can smell your cunt, Miggs playing There's Something About Mary) to the male agents stepping out of the room to discuss details of the case to the very fact that all the victims were women all push down Starling's vulnerable position in this career. That physical vulnerability, which may be her greatest weakness, is overcome by her emotional vulnerability, which becomes her greatest asset, at least when dealing with Lecter. His curiosity about her, his genuine interest in her history that transcends his murderer's fascination with exposing weakness, compels him to keep feeding her clues so she will keep the information coming. The central metaphor of her life, and the basis for the movie's title, is her willingness to fight for innocents, even in lost causes. She hears the lambs screaming, and even though she won't be able to save them all, she might be able to save one, so she risks her own safety to try. And in the end, she does. Alone, without help, with her own abject terror weighing down every step she takes through the killer's horror show of a basement. She wins. Clarice is a powerful female character who doesn't have to graft on traditionally male traits to overcome adversity. She wins because she is intelligent and brave, and despite her weakness, despite her fear, despite her inexperience – and partly because of each of those things. I've no plans to call on you, Clarice. The world is more interesting with you in it.
