"To enter the mind of a killer she must challenge the mind of a madman."
Directed by Jonathan Demme
Produced by Kenneth Utt, Edward Saxon, Ron Bozman
Screenplay by Ted Tally
Based on "The Silence of the Lambs" by Thomas Harris
Starring: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine
Music by Howard Shore
Cinematography: Tak Fujimoto
Edited by Craig McKay
Distributed by Orion Pictures
Release date: 14 February 1991 (United States)
Running time: 118 minutes
Country: United States
Budget: $19 million
Box office: $272.7 million
"The Silence of the Lambs" is a thriller crime drama film directed by Jonathan Demme and based on Thomas Harris' novel of the same name. The story is about a young F.B.I. cadet who must confide in an incarcerated and manipulative killer to receive his help on catching another serial killer who skins his victims.
Cast
- Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling
- Masha Skorobogatov as young Clarice
- Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Hannibal Lecter
- Scott Glenn as Jack Crawford
- Ted Levine as Jame "Buffalo Bill" Gumb
- Anthony Heald as Dr. Frederick Chilton
- Brooke Smith as Catherine Martin
- Diane Baker as U.S. Senator Ruth Martin
- Kasi Lemmons as Ardelia Mapp
- Frankie Faison as Barney Matthews
- Tracey Walter as Lamar
- Charles Napier as Lt. Boyle
- Danny Darst as Sgt. Tate
- Alex Coleman as Sgt. Jim Pembry
- Dan Butler as Roden
- Paul Lazar as Pilcher
- Ron Vawter as Paul Krendler
- Roger Corman as F.B.I. Director Hayden Burke
- Chris Isaak as S.W.A.T. Commander
- Harry Northup as Mr. Bimmel
- Don Brockett as cellmate and "Pen Pal"
The first time I saw "The Silence of the Lambs" was when I was really small: of course, I didn't understand much that time but nevertheless I decided it was a cult film. The years rolled by, but I still think so - the only difference is that now I get every detail of rhis masterpiece.
Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Hannibal Lecter is so classy (the first villain in AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains (2003)). I'm absolutely in love with the character played by him: yes, Hannibal is a psycho, yes, he's a cannibal, but he's so attractive - not least becuse of his criminal mind. No words, everyone must see the main role in Anthony Hopkins' career.
As for Jodie Foster's Clarice Starling, I'm quite dissapointed: her character seems clever but too insensible. And that's all.
To sum up, I want to say "The Silence of the Lambs" is so classical that everyone who thinks he's a cinemaddict or just keen on good thriller films must watch it.
Advantages
- Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Hannibal Lecter
- Scott Glenn as Jack Crawford
- Ted Levine as Jame "Buffalo Bill" Gumb
- Music
- The story
- Unexpected twists
Disadvantages
- Violence (if someone is against it)
"Strangenesses"
- Cannibalism
Clue Moments
- Meeting with Dr. Hannibal Lecter
- Kidnapping of Catherine Martin
- Buffalo Bill's costume
- The truth about Jame Gumb
- Hannibal's escape
- Relationships between Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lecter
As for cannibalism, it's the act or practice of humans eating the flesh or internal organs of other human beings. A person who practices cannibalism is called a cannibal.
In some societies, especially tribal societies, cannibalism is a cultural norm. Consumption of a person from within the same community is called endocannibalism; ritual cannibalism of the recently deceased can be part of the grieving process, or a way of guiding the souls of the dead into the bodies of living descendants. Exocannibalism is the consumption of a person from outside the community, usually as a celebration of victory against a rival tribe. Both types of cannibalism can also be fueled by the belief that eating a person's flesh or internal organs will endow the cannibal with some of the characteristics of the deceased.
In most parts of the world, cannibalism is not a societal norm, but is sometimes resorted to in situations of extreme necessity. The survivors of the shipwrecks of the Essex and Méduse in the 19th century are said to have engaged in cannibalism, as are the members of Franklin's lost expedition and the Donner Party. Such cases generally involve necro-cannibalism (eating the corpse of someone who is already dead) as opposed to homicidal cannibalism (killing someone for food). In English law, the latter is always considered a crime, even in the most trying circumstances. The case of R v Dudley and Stephens, in which two men were found guilty of murder for killing and eating a cabin boy while adrift at sea in a lifeboat, set the precedent that necessity is no defence to a charge of murder.
There are numerous examples of murderers consuming their victims, often deriving some degree of sexual satisfaction from the act of cannibalism. Notable examples include Albert Fish, Issei Sagawa and Jeffrey Dahmer. These individuals are usually considered to be mentally ill, although the compulsion to eat human flesh is not formally listed as a mental disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Cases of autophagia, or self-cannibalism, have also been reported.
In pre-modern medicine, the explanation given by the now-discredited theory of humorism for cannibalism was that it came about within a black acrimonious humour, which, being lodged in the linings of the ventricle, produced the voracity for human flesh.
Soundtracks
- Howard Shore - Main Title
- Howard Shore - The Asylum
- Howard Shore - Clarice
- Howard Shore - Return To The Asylum
- Howard Shore - The Abduction
- Howard Shore - Quid Pro Quo
- Howard Shore - Lecter In Memphis
- Howard Shore - Lambs Screaming
- Howard Shore - Lecter Escapes
- Howard Shore - Belvedere, Ohio
- Howard Shore - The Moth
- Howard Shore - The Cellar
- Howard Shore - Finale
Quotations
* * *
Hannibal Lecter: Well, Clarice - have the lambs stopped screaming?
* * *
Hannibal Lecter: A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.
* * *
Hannibal Lecter: You know what you look like to me, with your good bag and your cheap shoes? You look like a rube. A well scrubbed, hustling rube with a little taste. Good nutrition's given you some length of bone, but you're not more than one generation from poor white trash, are you, Agent Starling? And that accent you've tried so desperately to shed: pure West Virginia. What is your father, dear? Is he a coal miner? Does he stink of the lamp? You know how quickly the boys found you... all those tedious sticky fumblings in the back seats of cars... while you could only dream of getting out... getting anywhere... getting all the way to the FBI.Clarice Starling: You see a lot, Doctor. But are you strong enough to point that high-powered perception at yourself? What about it? Why don't you - why don't you look at yourself and write down what you see? Or maybe you're afraid to.
* * *
Clarice Starling: Where are you, Dr. Lecter?Hannibal Lecter: I've no plans to call on you, Clarice. The world is more interesting with you in it.
* * *
Jack Crawford: Believe me, you don't want Hannibal Lecter inside your head.
* * *
Hannibal Lecter: I will listen now. After your father's murder, you were orphaned. You were ten years old. You went to live with cousins on a sheep and horse ranch in Montana. And...?Clarice Starling: [tears begin forming in her eyes] And one morning, I just ran away.
Hannibal Lecter: No "just", Clarice. What set you off? You started at what time?
Clarice Starling: Early, still dark.
Hannibal Lecter: Then something woke you, didn't it? Was it a dream? What was it?
Clarice Starling: I heard a strange noise.
Hannibal Lecter: What was it?
Clarice Starling: It was... screaming. Some kind of screaming, like a child's voice.
Hannibal Lecter: What did you do?
Clarice Starling: I went downstairs, outside. I crept up into the barn. I was so scared to look inside, but I had to.
Hannibal Lecter: And what did you see, Clarice? What did you see?
Clarice Starling: Lambs. The lambs were screaming.
Hannibal Lecter: They were slaughtering the spring lambs?
Clarice Starling: And they were screaming.
Hannibal Lecter: And you ran away?
Clarice Starling: No. First I tried to free them. I... I opened the gate to their pen, but they wouldn't run. They just stood there, confused. They wouldn't run.
Hannibal Lecter: But you could and you did, didn't you?
Clarice Starling: Yes. I took one lamb, and I ran away as fast as I could.
Hannibal Lecter: Where were you going, Clarice?
Clarice Starling: I don't know. I didn't have any food, any water and it was very cold, very cold. I thought, I thought if I could save just one, but... he was so heavy. So heavy. I didn't get more than a few miles when the sheriff's car picked me up. The rancher was so angry he sent me to live at the Lutheran orphanage in Bozeman. I never saw the ranch again.
Hannibal Lecter: What became of your lamb, Clarice?
Clarice Starling: They killed him.
* * *
Hannibal Lecter: You still wake up sometimes, don't you? You wake up in the dark and hear the screaming of the lambs.Clarice Starling: Yes.
Hannibal Lecter: And you think if you save poor Catherine, you could make them stop, don't you? You think if Catherine lives, you won't wake up in the dark ever again to that awful screaming of the lambs.
Clarice Starling: I don't know. I don't know.
Hannibal Lecter: Thank you, Clarice. Thank you.
Clarice Starling: Tell me his name, Doctor.
Hannibal Lecter: Dr. Chilton, I presume. I think you know each other.
Dr. Frederick Chilton: Okay. Let's go.
Clarice Starling: It's your turn, Doctor.
Dr. Frederick Chilton: Out!
Clarice Starling: Tell me his name!
Boyle: I'm sorry, ma'am. We've got orders. We have to put you on a plane. Come on, now.
[Chilton and the guards start leading Clarice out]
Hannibal Lecter: Brave Clarice. You will let me know when those lambs stop screaming, won't you?
Clarice Starling: Tell me his name, Doctor!
Hannibal Lecter: Clarice, your case file. Goodbye, Clarice.
* * *
Clarice Starling: Did you do all these drawings, Doctor?Hannibal Lecter: Ah. That is the Duomo seen from the Belvedere. Do you know Florence?
Clarice Starling: All that detail just from memory, sir?
Hannibal Lecter: Memory, Agent Starling, is what I have instead of a view.
* * *
Hannibal Lecter: Look for severe childhood disturbances associated with violence. Our Billy wasn't born a criminal, Clarice. He was made one through years of systematic abuse. Billy hates his own identity, you see, and he thinks that makes him a transsexual. But his pathology is a thousand times more savage and more terrifying.
* * *
Jack Crawford: Starling, when I told that sheriff we shouldn't talk in front of a woman, that really burned you, didn't it? It was just smoke, Starling. I had to get rid of him.Clarice Starling: It matters, Mr Crawford. Cops look at you to see how to act. It matters.
Jack Crawford: Point taken.
* * *
Clarice Starling: If you didn't kill him, then who did, sir?Hannibal Lecter: Who can say. Best thing for him, really. His therapy was going nowhere.
* * *
Hannibal Lecter: Jack Crawford is helping your career isn't he? Apparently he likes you and you like him too.Clarice Starling: I never thought about it.
Hannibal Lecter: Do you think that Jack Crawford wants you sexually? True, he is much older but do you think he visualizes scenarios, exchanges, f*cking you?
Clarice Starling: That doesn't interest me Doctor and frankly, it's, it's the sort of thing that Miggs would say.
Hannibal Lecter: Not anymore.
* * *
Hannibal Lecter: All good things to those who wait.
* * *
Dr. Frederick Chilton: We've tried to study him, of course, but he's much too sophisticated for the standard tests.
* * *
Jack Crawford: I remember you from my seminar at UVA. You grilled me pretty hard, as I recall, on the bureau's civil rights record in the Hoover years. I gave you an A.Clarice Starling: A-minus, Sir.
* * *
Clarice Starling: Hester Mofet. It's an anagram, isn't it, Doctor? Hester Mofet, "The rest of me". "Miss the rest of me," meaning that you rented that garage?
* * *
Murray: Is it true what they're sayin', he's some kinda vampire?Clarice Starling: They don't have a name for what he is.
* * *
Hannibal Lecter: You fly back to school, now, little Starling. Fly, fly, fly...
* * *
Dr. Frederick Chilton: Do not touch the glass. Do not approach the glass. You pass him nothing but soft paper - no pencils or pens. No staples or paperclips in his paper. Use the sliding food carrier, no exceptions. If he attempts to pass you anything, do not accept it. Do you understand me?
* * *
Clarice Starling: I graduated from UVa, Captain; it's not exactly a charm school.
* * *
Jame "Buffalo Bill" Gumb: YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT PAIN IS!
* * *
Dr. Frederick Chilton: You still think you're going to walk on some beach and see the birdies? I don't think so. I called Senator Ruth Martin. She never heard of any deal with you. They scammed you, Hannibal.
* * *
Clarice Starling: But I thought the "yourself" reference was too hokey for Lecter, so I figured he's from Baltimore, and I looked in the phone book, and there's a "Your Self Storage" facility, right outside of downtown Baltimore, sir.
* * *
Boyle: Welcome to Memphis Dr. Lecter, I'm Lieutenant Boyle, this is Sergeant Patrick. Now we'll treat you as good as you treat us, you be a gentleman and you'll get three hots and a cot.
* * *
Dr. Frederick Chilton: Crawford is very clever, isn't he, using you?Clarice Starling: What do you mean, sir?
Dr. Frederick Chilton: A pretty young woman to turn him on. I don't believe Lecter's even seen a woman in eight years. And oh, are you ever his taste. So to speak.
* * *
Dr. Frederick Chilton: Oh my, does he hate us. Thinks I'm his nemesis.
* * *
Brooding Psychopath: HANNIBAL THE CANNIBAL!
* * *
You may see the trailer here.
Plot: 10/10
Entertainment: 9/10
Acting: 8/10
Originality: 9/10
Music and Sound: 8/10
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