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Dissection of The Silence of the Lambs

Synopsis:

Promising FBI Academy student Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) is pulled from hertraining at the FBI Training Facility at Quantico, Virginia by Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn)of the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, who tasks her with presenting a VICAPquestionnaire to the notorious Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), a brilliant forensicpsychiatrist and incarcerated cannibalistic serial murderer. After learning theassignment relates to the pursuit of vicious serial killer Buffalo Bill, Starling travels to theBaltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane and is led by Dr. Frederick Chilton toHannibal Lecter, a sophisticated, cultured man restrained behind thick glass panels andwindowless stone walls. Although initially pleasant and courteous, Lecter growsimpatient with Starling's attempts at "dissecting" him and viciously rebuffs her. As

Starling departs, another patient flings fresh semen onto her face, enraging Lecter whocalls Starling back and offers a riddle containing information about a former patient. Thesolved riddle leads to a rent-a-storage lot where the severed head of Benjamin Raspailis found. Starling returns to Lecter, who links Raspail to Buffalo Bill and who offers tohelp profile Buffalo Bill if he is transferred to a facility far from the venomous, careeristDr. Chilton.Hours and miles away, Buffalo Bill abducts Catherine Martin, the daughter ofUnited States Senator Ruth Martin. Starling is pulled from Quantico and accompaniesCrawford to West Virginia, where the body of Bill's recently-discovered victim resides,and where Starling helps perform the autopsy and extracts the chrysalis of a Death's-head Hawkmoth from the victim's throat. At Quantico, as news of Catherine Martin'sabduction sweeps the country, Crawford authorizes Starling to offer Hannibal Lecter a

fake deal promising a prison transfer if he provides information that helps profile BuffaloBill and rescue Catherine Martin. Instead, Lecter begins a game of quid pro quo withStarling, offering comprehensive clues and insights about Buffalo Bill in exchange forevents from Starling's traumatic childhood. Unaware to both Starling and Lecter, Dr.Frederick Chilton tapes the conversation and after revealing Starling's deal as a sham,offers to transfer Lecter in exchange for a deal of his own making. Lecter agrees andfollowing a flight to Tennessee reveals Buffalo Bill's real name, physical description andpast address to Senator Martin and her entourage of FBI agents and JusticeDepartment officials.As the manhunt begins, Starling travels to Lecter's special cell in alocal Tennessee courthouse, where she confronts him about the false information hegave the Senator. Lecter refuses Starling's pleas and demands she finish her story

surrounding her worst childhood memory. After recounting her arrival at a relative'sfarm, the horror of discovering their lamb slaughterhouse and her fruitless attempts atrescuing the lambs, Lecter rebuffs her, leaving her with her case file before she isescorted out of the building by security guards. Later that evening, Lecter escapes fromhis cell. The local police storm the floor, discovering one guard barely alive and theother disemboweled and strung up on the walls. Paramedics transport the survivor to anambulance and speed off while a SWAT team searches the building for Lecter. As theteam discover a body in the elevator shaft, the survivor in the ambulance peels off his

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own face, revealing Lecter in disguise, who kills the paramedics and escapes to theairport. Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal LecterAfter notified of Lecter's escape, Starlingpores over her case file, analyzing Lecter's annotations before realizing that the firstvictim, Frederica Bimmel, knew Bill in real life before he killed her. Starling travels toBimmel's hometown and discovers that Bimmel was a tailor and has dresses with

templates identical to the patches of skin removed from Buffalo Bill's victims. Realizingthat Buffalo Bill is a tailor fashioning a "woman suit" of real skin, she telephonesCrawford, who is already on the way to make an arrest, having cross-referencedLecter's notes with Johns Hopkins Hospital and finding a man named James Gumb.Crawford instructs Starling to continue interviewing Bimmel's friends while he leads aSWAT team to Gumb's business address in Calumet City, Illinois. Starling's interviewslead to the house of "Jack Gordon," who Starling soon realizes is actually James Gumb,and draws her weapon just as Gumb disappears into his basement. Starling pursueshim, discovering a screaming Catherine Martin in the dry well just before the lights in thebasement go out, leaving her in complete darkness. Gumb stalks Starling in the darkwith night vision goggles and prepares to shoot her when Starling, hearing the

machinations of his revolver, swivels around shoots Gumb dead.Days later at the FBIAcademy graduation party, Starling receives a phone call from Hannibal Lecter, now inthe Bahamas. As Lecter assures Starling he has no plans to pursue her, he excuseshimself from the phone call, remarking that he's "having an old friend for dinner," beforehanging up and following Dr. Frederick Chilton through the streets of the village.

Lightning and Shots

The Silence of the lambs is filled with shots of characters looking directly into the

camera, directly acknowledging the fact that we are in the audience looking back atthem. Throughout the film, characters look at pictures, at televisions, at bodies, duringflashbacks, during funerals, during autopsies, through glass, through bars, throughbottles, through the windows of a helicopter, down into a well, through night-visiongoggles, etc. The film is about spectator ship, about what happens when we see, aboutthe dangers of seeing, and especially about why (and what) we want to see. For most ofthe film, we see Hannibal through a glass wall that functions much like the film screen.We can see through it but are seemingly safe from the danger that lurks on the otherside. In addition to being about what we see, the film is also about what we can't (ordon't want to) see. In the climax, Clarice is in complete darkness and must defeatBuffalo Bill while unable to see. We are also, in a sense, blinded throughout much of the

film, not privy to the many acts of violence that occur, continuously subject to a camerathat cuts away just as we are about to see something happen.

Cast

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Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling

Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Hannibal Lecter

Scott Glenn as Jack Crawford

Ted Levine as Jame Gumb, "Buffalo Bill"

Anthony Heald as Dr. Frederick Chilton

Brooke Smith as Catherine Martin

Diane Baker as Senator Ruth Martin

Kasi Lemmons as Ardelia Mapp

Frankie Faison as Barney Matthews

Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling:

Starling is a student at the FBI Academy. She hopes to work at the Behavioral Science Unit,

tracking down serial killers and ultimately apprehending them. Her mentor, FBI director JackCrawford, sends her to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist and cannibalistic

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serial killer. He is housed in a Baltimore mental institution. Upon arriving at the asylum for herfirst interview with Lecter, the asylum manager Frederick Chilton makes a crude pass at her,

which she rebuffs; this helps her bond with Lecter, who also despises Chilton. As time passes,Lecter gives Starling information about Buffalo Bill, a currently active serial killer being hunted

by the FBI, but only in exchange for personal information, which Crawford has specifically

warned her to keep secret from Lecter.

Anthony Hopkins as Dr Hannibal Lecter :

Lecter assists an FBI agent-in-training named Clarice Starling in catching a serial killer known

as"Buffalo Bill". Lecter and Starling form an unusual relationship in which he provides her witha profile of the killer and his modus operandi in exchange for details about her unhappy

childhood. Lecter had previously met Buffalo Bill, the former lover of his patient (and eventualvictim) Benjamin Raspail; he keeps this information to himself, however, preferring to give

Starling information in the form of clues and riddles designed to help her figure it out for herself.Lecter eventually stages a dramatic, bloody escape from captivity and disappears. While in

hiding, he writes one letter to Starling wishing her well, and another to Chilton swearinggruesome revenge. Chilton disappears soon afterward.

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