The Silence of the Lambs (film)

The Silence of the Lambs
The Silence of the Lambs
	File:SOTL poster.jpg
Directed by	Jonathan Demme
Written by	Ted Tally (screen writer); Thomas Harris (novelist)
Produced by	Ron Bozman; Edward Saxon; Kenneth Utt
Starring	Jodie Foster; Anthony Hopkins; Scott Glenn; Anthony Heald; Ted Levine; Frankie Faison;
Distributed by	MGM
Release dates	February 14, 1991
Running time	118 min.
Language	English
Budget	$19,000,000

The Silence of the Lambs is a novel by Thomas Harris, his second to feature Lithuanian count, sociopath psychiatrist and cannibal Dr. Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter. In the novel and the film based on it, Miss Clarice M. Starling, a young FBI trainee, is sent to question an imprisoned sociopath/psychiatrist to get information on one of his former clients, a serial killer given the name Buffalo Bill, who is abducting women and skinning them.

The film adaptation was released in 1991 and directed by Jonathan Demme, who won an Academy Award for Best Director. Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins both won Oscars (for their roles as Clarice Starling and Dr. Hannibal Lecter, respectively); the film won additional Oscars for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture. It is thus only the third picture to win the five most prestigious Academy Awards (after It Happened One Night, 1934 and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, 1975).

Plot summary

Template:Spoiler Note: This summary is based on the novel, but the movie adaptation remains rather faithful to the book. See below for differences between the book and film version.

The novel opens with Clarice Starling, a young FBI trainee, being asked to carry out an errand by Jack Crawford, the head of the FBI division that draws up psychological profiles of serial killers. Starling is asked to present a questionnaire to a serial killer named Hannibal Lecter, a former psychiatrist and genuine sociopath, currently serving a life sentence in a Maryland insane asylum.

Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins in the film version

We also learn of the hunt for a serial killer dubbed Buffalo Bill, who has abducted five different women, keeping them for up to three weeks before killing them, taking parts of their skins and dumping them in rivers. The nickname was started by Kansas City Police Homicide Division, on the theory that "he likes to skin his humps." Starling asks if she should ask Lecter about Bill, but Crawford tells her not to.

At the asylum, Starling is clumsily chatted up by its warden, Dr. Frederick Chilton. Eventually, Starling gets to talk to Lecter, who is seemingly quite polite and civil, but after toying briefly with Starling, he refuses to take the questionnaire. As she leaves, the prisoner in the cell next to Lecter flings semen at Starling. Lecter, offended at this display of bad manners, calls Starling back and gives her some cryptic information. He later talks this inmate into killing himself by swallowing his tongue. Lecter's revenge toward this man is a form of showing his admiration and respect toward Starling.

The information leads Starling to a rent-a-storage lot where the possessions of Lecter's last victim, Benjamin Raspail, are contained. Hidden in Raspail's vintage car is a severed head in a jar. Back at the asylum, Lecter explains that the head is that of a man named Klaus; he was Raspail's lover before, Raspail claimed, he killed Klaus in a fit of jealousy over a new partner. (Lecter is dubious about Raspail's explanation, telling Clarice "The Swede probably died in some banal erotic asphyxia transaction") Lecter predicts that the next victim will have been scalped. He suggests an insight on Buffalo Bill's motivation: "He wants a vest with tits on it." And finally he offers some thoughts of his own: he has been in a windowless, stone-walled cell for eight years and will never get out while he is alive. He draws pictures of his favorite sights ("The Duomo, as seen from the Belvedere" in Florence, Italy is brought to our attention early on) but these can be taken away. What he wants is a room with windows.

When Bill's sixth victim is found, Starling helps Crawford perform the autopsy. Crawford's wife has a terminal condition and is not expected to survive for much longer; many at the Bureau marvel at Crawford's ability to function. Regardless of home-life distractions, he and Starling fly to West Virginia to investigate. A moth chrysalis is found in the throat of the victim. She has been scalped. Triangular patches of skin have been taken from her shoulders. Autopsy reports, furthermore, indicate that he killed her within four days of her capture; whatever it is he does with them, he's getting better and faster at it. On the basis of Lecter's prediction, Starling believes that he knows who Buffalo Bill really is. Lecter, however, is not going to reveal such information easily.

Starling takes the chrysalis to the Smithsonian, where (much later in the book) it is eventually identified as the "Death's Head Moth," so named because of the signature skull design on its back. It lives only in Asia and, in the United States, must be hand-raised.

When Buffalo Bill kidnaps a new victim, Catherine Martin, the daughter of the junior US Senator from Tennessee, Ruth Martin, the urgency of the Buffalo Bill case is heightened even further. Starling is sent back to Lecter to obtain more information from him. She presents Lecter with a deal: if he gives information which leads to Buffalo Bill's arrest and saves Catherine Martin's life, Lecter will be transferred to a new institution and given greater freedom. Unknown to Starling, however, the deal is a phony, concocted by Crawford as a last-ditch effort to get Lecter to talk. (It is not a particularly good one, though it at least has windows.) Lecter, in a position of power, demands information from Starling: in exchange for details of her personal life, he will offer his views on who Buffalo Bill might be.

He starts by asking Starling about her worst childhood memory: the death of her father, a policeman who was killed by two crooks on a night patrol. In exchange, Lecter explains that Bill is seeking to change himself, and that he is a transsexual, or rather, someone who thinks he is a transsexual; Bill's obsession with moths stems from the metamorphosis they go through, caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly. He has probably tried to apply for gender-reassignment surgery and been rejected. Starling doesn't pick up on how this will help her, so he asks for more information. Starling relates her past: After her father's death, her mother couldn't support her and she was sent to an uncle's ranch in Montana. Two months later she ran away. Lecter, quid pro quo, explains that checking through the records of people turned down for gender-reassignment surgery because of convictions for violence would be a good place to start a search for Bill's true identity.

The quest to save Catherine Martin takes a turn for the worse when Chilton interferes with the investigation. He tells Lecter that Crawford's deal is a lie, then offers a deal of his own: If Lecter reveals Buffalo Bill's identity, he will indeed get a transfer to another asylum, but only if Chilton gets credit for getting the information from him. Lecter insists that he'll only give the information to Senator Martin in person, in Tennessee. Chilton agrees. Unknown to Chilton, Lecter has managed to fashion and conceal a handcuff key. He knows that once he is outside the asylum, he will be in the custody of police officers who will use handcuffs on him, rather than strait-jackets.

In Tennessee, Lecter toys with Senator Martin briefly, enjoying the woman's anguish, but eventually gives her some information about Buffalo Bill: his name is William Rubin and he has elephant ivory anthrax, a knifemaker's disease. This information in hand, the FBI races off to save Catherine.

The next day, with Lecter held in a makeshift cell, Clarice Starling confronts him. She suspects that Lecter has misled everyone about "Billy Rubin". Their conversation continues from before, with Lecter giving clues as to Buffalo Bill's identity in exchange for stories about Starling's childhood. One night at the ranch, she awoke to hear lambs screaming, as they were being slaughtered, and tried to save one by carrying it away. She was soon caught and the lamb returned to slaughter. Hannibal asks if she can still hear the lambs crying and wonders if she imagines that saving Catherine will finally give her some peace. Lecter now understands Clarice Starling, but Chilton interrupts the conversation, preventing Lecter from transmitting to her a parallel understanding of Buffalo Bill. Starling is escorted from the building. She is further ordered by Justice Department deputy Paul Krendler to return to Quantico and study like she's supposed to; failure to do so will result in her flunking out. (Krendler later figures prominently in the plot of the sequel Hannibal.)

That evening, Lecter uses his makeshift handcuff key to free himself, beats both guards to death with a truncheon, outmaneuvers the Tennessee PD and SWAT teams, and escapes to the airport in an ambulance. He kills the ambulance men and a tourist.

Starling's shock at all these events is put on hold when she realizes that Lecter has left some further clues for her. With the help of her roommate, Starling realizes that there is something significant in the way Buffalo Bill's first victim, Frederica Bimmel, was killed: she was killed first but found third, suggesting that Bill wanted to hide her body. Starling surmises that she knew Bill in personal life. She accepts that she will flunk out of Quantico and Crawford sends her to Bimmel's home town, Columbus, Ohio. There, Starling discovers that Bimmel was a tailor. Dresses in her closet have triangular templates on them, identical to the patches of skin removed from Buffalo Bill's latest victim. Recalling Lecter's summary of Buffalo Bill's motive - "He wants a vest with tits on it" - Starling figures that Buffalo Bill wants to make himself into a woman by fashioning himself a "woman suit" of real skin. She telephones Crawford, who is already on the way to make an arrest. Lecter's transsexual-surgery theory has yielded a positive ID from Johns Hopkins: a Jame Gumb who lives just outside Columbus. Crawford instructs Starling to continue interviewing friends of Bimmel. Meanwhile, while Starling is in Belvedere, Ohio, the FBI is in Calumet City, Illinois, following a business address.

Starling learns that Bimmel once worked for a woman named Mrs. Lippman, who lived in Belvedere, Ohio. At Lippman's house, however, the door is answered by Jame Gumb. Starling has no idea who he is, but when she spies a Death's Head Moth flapping around in the background, she knows who she is dealing with. Starling attempts to arrest Gumb, who flees into the basement. She follows him down. She manages to make contact with Catherine Martin, who is fortunately still alive, and is hunting Bill when the lights go out and Starling is left in darkness. Gumb, wearing night vision goggles, creeps up behind Starling and cocks his gun. Starling hears and fires back, killing him. Starling calls for back up and Catherine Martin is finally rescued.

Life returns to normal for Starling. She is not going to flunk out, but they are cutting her very little slack. With her roommate's help, she plans to graduate. She has approval where it counts, though: from Crawford, from some of her instructors, and of course from Catherine and Ruth Martin.

In a St. Louis hotel room (one with windows), we find Lecter writing farewell letters. He is planning some self-administered cosmetic surgery to keep his anonymity, but for now he has some loose ends to tie up. To Chilton, he promises horrible retribution. To Barney, a nurse at the ward who was civil, Lecter appends a generous tip. Finally, to Starling, he sends a promise that he will not come after her, "the world being more interesting with you in it." He also reminds her that she owes him an answer in future; he would like to know about it, should she ever defeat her inner demons, and find herself in the silence of the lambs.

Cast

Clarice Starling- Jodie Foster
Hannibal Lecter- Anthony Hopkins
Jack Crawford- Scott Glenn
Dr. Frederick Chilton- Anthony Heald
Roden- Dan Butler
FBI Agent in Memphis- George A. Romero
FBI Agent in Memphis- Kasi Lemmons
SWAT Commander- Chris Isaak
Barney Matthews-Frankie Faison
'Buffalo Bill'- Ted Levine

Comparison to the source

Starling's struggles as an FBI trainee are downplayed, with only occasional hints at difficulties, often based on sexism. It is not directly suggested that she was in danger of flunking out.
Crawford's subplot, regarding the death of his wife, is eliminated for simplicity(neither Crawford or his wife were in Hannibal either, and no mention of Crawford's wife is made in Manhunt). Likewise, Klaus is removed, with Raspail's head in the jar instead.
Lecter's red herrings are altered to include anagrams: Clarice is told to investigate "Miss Hester Mofet" (AKA "miss the rest of me") and his false Buffalo Bill name becomes "Louis Friend" (iron sulfide).
Bimmel's hometown is depicted as Belvedere, Ohio, the same as Gumb's. On Starling's first visit to Lecter, she comments on one of his sketches, which the doctor informs her is "The Duomo seen from the Belvedere." Some interpret this as Lecter having given Buffalo Bill's whereabouts to Starling from the get go.
Lecter never tells Starling that Buffalo Bill wants "a vest with tits in it." Starling deduces this specific motive of Buffalo Bill on her own after seeing a dress in Bimmel's closet.
After escaping from his cell in Memphis, Lecter is next shown at the end of the movie contacting Starling by telephone immediately following her graduation ceremony from the FBI Academy. Lecter, who informs Starling he is "having an old friend for dinner" is shown ostensibly on a Caribbean island while his nemesis Chilton nervously deplanes nearby.

Box Office Information

Domestic Summary:

Opening Weekend: $13,766,814 (1,497 theaters)
% of total gross: 10.5%
Close date: Oct. 10, 1991
Total US gross: $130,726,716

Worldwide gross: $272,700,000

The Silence of the Lambs was distributed by Orion Pictures.

Production facts

The majority of the film was shot in Pittsburgh because it has many different landscapes and architecture. This variety made it easier to display many different parts of the country.
Both the scene of Lecter in his cage and the Baltimore jail scene were filmed in the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial in Pittsburgh.
None of the action of the film takes place in Pittsburgh; however, the registration stickers on the windshields of all of the vehicles indicate a Pittsburgh residency.

Real life influences

Jame Gumb is evidently based on four real-life serial killers:

Ed Gein, a Wisconsin man who robbed graves and murdered women in order to flay their bodies and make clothing out of them.
Ted Bundy, who killed dozens of women in the 1970s, often luring victims by pretending he was injured with a cast on his arm, a technique Gumb used to lure Catherine Martin into his van. Similar to Lecter, Bundy also offered to help investigators find other serial murderers by "giving insights" into their psychology while he was in death row, specifically about the Green River Killer.
Ed Kemper, who killed his grandparents when he was an adolescent, just like Gumb.
Gary Heidnik, who held women captive in a deep hole in his basement.

Themes

By looking past the initial terror and suspense of The Silence of the Lambs, one can then discover one of the main themes of the film – the influence of father figures on Clarice and how they affect her in her everyday life. Both Hannibal Lecter and Jack Crawford influence Clarice like a father would influence his daughter. Both care about her even if they don't show it all the time. Additionally, the presence of shadow figures represents another main theme of the film. Throughout the film, Clarice battles with the intellect of Lecter since his personality is, in fact, a representation of her own.

"Manhunter" sequel controversy

Three of the characters from this film (Hannibal Lecter, Jack Crawford, and Frederick Chilton) also appeared in an earlier film, Manhunter, though portrayed by different actors. Though there is no evidence to suggest that any of the three actors were asked to reprise their role in "The Silence of the Lambs", some argue that The Silence of the Lambs is a sequel to Manhunter, but the fact that Orion was willing to produce the film without the rights to the three characters that previously appeared in Manhunter proves that it was never intended to be a cinematic followup to "Manhunter". In Ted Tally's second-draft script, he notes: "For legal reasons, the names of three of Tom Harris's characters have had to be changed. It is my hope, and certainly Tom's, that the original names can be restored in time for the making of this movie. For the purposes of this draft, however, Jack Crawford has become 'Ray Campbell,' Frederick Chilton has become 'Herbert Prentiss,' and Dr. Hannibal Lecter is called 'Dr. Gideon Quinn.'" Manhunter producer Dino DeLaurentiis saw little future potential for the characters and allowed Orion to use the characters of Lecter, Crawford and Chilton for free. Further distancing The Silence of the Lambs from Manhunter is the fact that Frankie Faison and Dan Butler appear in both films, but as completely different characters. This matter was settled in 2002 when Manhunter was remade as Red Dragon, in which Hopkins and Heald reprised their roles from The Silence of the Lambs, firmly establishing itself as the official adaptation of the book as it relates to the other two Hopkins films. It should also be noted that, in Manhunter, Lecter's last name is officially spelled "Lecktor", and no mention is ever made of cannibalism. He is merely stated to have killed people.

Awards

In 1998, won the 100 Greatest American Movies award from the American Film Institute Awards.
In 1991, won “best picture” from CHI Awards.
In 1991, won “best picture” from the Academy Awards.
In 1991, won “best film” from PEO Awards.
In 1991, was nominated for “best film” from British Academy Awards.
In 1991, won “best picture” from National Board of Review.
In 1991, Anthony Hopkins won an Academy Award for best actor.
In 1991, Jodie Foster won an Academy Award for best actress.
In 1991, Craig McKay was nominated for an Academy Award for best editing.
In 1991, Johnathan Demme won an Academy Award for best director.
In 1991, Johnathan Demme was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for best director.

Reception

At first, The Silence of the Lambs seems to be just an ordinary crime film; however, judging by its numerous awards, the general public enjoyed the film and thought highly of it. The nationally recognized actors of this film played a huge part in making the film what it is. They brought spice and variation to the film. By examining the box office information listed above, one can realize how much of a hit this film is. It made much more money than the average film.

Trivia

Frankie Faison is the only person to appear in all four Hannibal Lecter films, having played Lt. Fisk in Manhunter and Barney, the orderly from Red Dragon and Hannibal.
The personality and characteristics of Jack Crawford are based on John Douglas, a detective in real life. Douglas himself helped improve the character of Jack Crawford by coaching Scott Glenn.
The serial killer Albert Fish was the inspiration for the traits of Hannibal Lecter.
The cocoon of a moth that was found in the mouth of one of Buffalo Bill’s victims was actually made out of Tootsie-Rolls and gummy bears. This way, the actor would not be consuming any toxins if he swallowed it.
Gene Hackman, Louis Gossett Jr., Robert Duvall, Jack Nicholson, and Robert DeNiro were all considered to play the role of Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs.
Many people misquote the film by saying that Hannibal Lecter said “Hello, Clarice”. Instead, he said “Good evening, Clarice”.
A parody song and video was made based on the movie called "Lotion" by Greenskeepers. This video is based on Buffalo Bill: it is lewd and contains profanityGreenskeepers - "Lotion"
Pittsburgh native and fellow director George A. Romero as well as the screen writer Ted Tally appear in the film as SWAT team members.
Hannibal Lecter never blinks when he talks.
Was the first Best Picture Oscar winner to be commercially available in video stores at the time of the Oscar ceremony.

External links

The Hannibal Lecter Studiolo
The Silence of the Lambs at IMDb
SILENCE! Silence of the Lambs: The Musical - by Jon & Al Kaplan