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'''The Silence of the Lambs''' is a 1991 Academy Award-winning film directed by Jonathan Demme and starring Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins. It is based on the novel by Thomas Harris, his second to feature Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer. In the film, Clarice Starling, a young FBI trainee, is sent to see the imprisoned Lecter in order to ask his expert advice on catching a serial killer given the name Buffalo Bill, who is abducting women and skinning them. The film won five Academy Awards including Best Picture and it is the only horror movie to win the top prize.

Contents

Plot

Production

Response

Box office

Awards and controversy

Cast

Differences from the book

Influences

''Manhunter'' sequel confusion

Trivia

Parodies

References

See also

External links

Plot

The FBI is in a desperate search to find a vicious serial killer dubbed Buffalo Bill, who is abducting young women and skinning them. In hopes of obtaining a lead by questioning currently incarcerated serial killers, Jack Crawford, head of the FBI's behavioral science unit, charges Clarice Starling, a promising FBI Academy student, with presenting a VICAP questionnaire to the notorious Hannibal Lecter, brilliant forensic psychiatrist turned cannibalistic serial murderer.
Upon visiting Lecter in his cell, the astonishingly urbane and eloquent Lecter viciously rebuffs her attempts to glean information from him. As Starling turns to leave, the maniacal patient in the adjacent cell flings fresh semen onto Starling's hair and face. Lecter becomes enraged seeing this "discourtesy", and calls Starling back to his cell, where he gives her information about one of his former patients in the form of a riddle. Solving the riddle, this information leads Starling to a rent-a-storage lot where the possessions of Benjamin Raspail (the deceased former patient of Lecter's), are contained. Hidden in Raspail's car is a severed head in a jar. It is implied that the head is that of Raspail.

Starling returns to Lecter, and confronts him about the severed head and Benjamin Raspail, whom Lecter denies involvement in murdering. Lecter then makes an offer to Starling: if she puts in a transfer for him to another facility, he will use the case file to profile Buffalo Bill. Starling agrees and the deal is made.
Buffalo Bill then abducts Catherine Martin, the daughter of United States Senator Ruth Martin (Tennessee). Bill's sixth victim is found, and her back has been skinned. After briefly flashing back to the day of her father's funeral, Starling helps Crawford perform the autopsy, and the chrysalis of a moth is found in the throat of the victim.
With the stakes heightened, and Crawford having had Clarice propose a faux transfer to a hospital in upstate New York where he will have a cell with a window and more freedom, Clarice must play her way through Lecter's mind-games and lies. Lecter, figuring that the deal is too good to be true, demands personal information from Starling in exchange for information on Buffalo Bill (quid pro quo). Crawford had told Clarice not to tell Lecter anything personal, but desperate for Lecter's help, she ignores Crawford's warning and tells him about her worst childhood memory.
Starling tells Lecter about the death of her father, a town marshal who was killed by two burglars while on night patrol. She was sent to live on a sheep and horse ranch in Montana with cousins. In exchange, Lecter tells her about the significance of the moth found in the sixth victim's throat: it symbolises change (from caterpillar to chrysalis and then into butterfly) and that Buffalo Bill wants to change too. He also tells her about Buffalo Bill's gender identity, and he tells how he believes that he is a transsexual. He then tells her to search the records at sex-reassignment hospitals for rejected patients based on failed psychological evaluations.
Meanwhile, it is revealed that Frederick Chilton, the asylum's chief of staff, has been secretly recording the consultations between Lecter and Starling in an attempt to finally profile the infamous Hannibal Lecter. Chilton also learns about Crawford's faux deal, and tells Lecter. In exchange, he proposes his own deal to Lecter: if Lecter reveals Buffalo Bill's identity, he will indeed get a transfer to another facility, but only if Chilton is credited for persuading Lecter to reveal what he knows. Lecter insists that he will only give the information to Senator Ruth Martin personally in Tennessee. Pleased that he has finally gotten through to Lecter after eight years of being his warden, Chilton agrees and hastily leaves Lecter's cell.
In Tennessee, Lecter toys with Senator Martin briefly, enjoying the woman's anguish (and perhaps to tarnish Chilton's new claim to glory), but eventually gives her some information about Buffalo Bill: his real name is Louis Friend, referred to him by Raspail, as Raspail and Friend were lovers. With this new information, the FBI races off to save Catherine.
Starling confronts Lecter in his makeshift cell, suspecting that Lecter had given the senator a false name. She suspects that the name is an anagram for "iron sulfide" (Fool's Gold), and requests that he tell her the real name. Lecter refuses and demands that Starling finish telling him about her worst childhood memory. Starling knows that it is the only way to get information from him, so she tells him about how she awoke early one morning to the sound of lambs screaming as they were being slaughtered. Witnessing the horror, she attempted to save one by carrying it away, but was soon caught and the lamb was returned to slaughter. Lecter asks Clarice if she is still haunted by the sound of screaming lambs, and he wonders whether she imagines that by saving Catherine, she will finally have peace. The anxious Starling demands that Lecter give her Buffalo Bill's true name, but before he is able to, Starling is escorted from the building by Chilton and Lecter's guards. She however slips out of the guards' grasps to retrieve the case file from Lecter, and he uses the opportunity to stroke her finger.

That evening, Lecter demands a second meal. During the time when Chilton was questioning Lecter at his cell in Baltimore, he had forgotten his pen in Lecter's cell. Lecter then swallowed the pen and, after regurgitating it, used a piece of it to pick the lock on his cuffs while the two police officers brought in his second meal. Now free, Lecter fatally beats and disembowels one officer, whom he then ties to the cell bars. He then kills the second officer by biting him and skinning his face. When the police and SWAT teams arrive, they believed they had found Lecter in the elevator shaft, severely wounded. Before their arrival, though, Lecter switched clothes with the second officer and used his skinned face as a mask. But, believing the second officer to be alive, they put Lecter in an ambulance and rush him to the hospital. Meanwhile, they discover that the man in the elevator shaft is actually the dead body of the second officer; during this time, Lecter kills the ambulance crew and escapes.
Starling's shock at all these events is put on hold when she realizes that Lecter has left more clues for her inside the case file of Buffalo Bill given to Lecter when he said he would do a psychological profile. With the help of her roommate, Starling realizes that there is something significant in the way Buffalo Bill's first victim was killed. ''Frederica Bimmel'' was killed first but found third, suggesting that Bill wanted to hide her body. Starling surmises that Frederica knew Bill in personal life. Lecter had told her that Bill covets these women and that people covet that which they see every day.
Crawford sends Starling to investigate the victim's hometown, Belvedere, Ohio, where she discovers that she was a tailor. Dresses in her closet have diamond-shaped templates on them, identical to the patches of skin removed from Buffalo Bill's latest victim. Starling realizes that Buffalo Bill is a capable tailor who wants to transform 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 Hospital: a Jame Gumb just outside Chicago. Crawford is leading a strike on Gumb's business address in Calumet City, Illinois, while Chicago SWAT takes a home address. Starling is to continue interviewing Bimmel's friends.
Starling learns that Bimmel once worked for a woman named Mrs. Lippman. When Starling goes to Lippman's house, however, the door is answered by a man claiming that his name is "Jack Gordon". Starling has an idea that Gordon is actually Buffalo Bill, and his real name is James Gumb. She then notices clues such as sewing thread and live moths fluttering around the house. Realizing she had found Gumb, Starling draws her weapon and attempts to arrest Gumb, but he abruptly grabs his magnum which he left in the kitchen previously, and scrambles into the basement. Starling gives chase, coming upon an alive Catherine Martin in the dry well, as well as a fetid, ancient rotting corpse in a bath tub, assumedly Mrs. Lippman. Suddenly, the lights go out, leaving her in complete darkness. Gumb, wearing night vision goggles, creeps up behind Starling and cocks his gun. Starling hears the click and turns around, quickly firing back, killing him. Starling calls for backup, and Catherine Martin is rescued.
During a party celebrating her graduation from the FBI Academy, Starling is startled when she receives a phone call from Lecter. He asks her if the lambs have stopped screaming, and promises her that he will not come after her, and that he expects the same courtesy. He also tells her that he is "having an old friend for dinner". Before the credits roll, Lecter is observed stalking Frederick Chilton, who has arrived at the same location (the Bahamas) to hide from Lecter, knowing he is likely to go after him for his cruelty as his warden.

Production

''The Silence of the Lambs'' was distributed by Orion Pictures; MGM (who bought Orion in 1997) currently holds the rights.

★ The majority of the film was shot in Pittsburgh because it has highly variable landscapes and architecture. This variety made it easier to display many different parts of the country.

★ Both the scene of Lecter in his cage at the "Memphis Court House" and the Baltimore jail scene were filmed at Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall in Pittsburgh.

★ None of the action of the film is set by the storyline as being in Pennsylvania, even though the registration stickers on the windshields of all of the vehicles indicate a Pennsylvania residency.

★ Anthony Hopkins' gained huge acclaim with his portrayal of Hannibal Lecter, even though his screen time in the entire film is just over 16 minutes. His portrayal of Hannibal Lecter won him an Academy Award in 1992, and to this day remains the shortest lead role to ever win an Oscar.

★ Gene Hackman and John Lithgow were both offered the role of Hannibal Lecter, but turned it down because of discomfort with it. Third-choice Anthony Hopkins was delighted to portray Lecter, though he has stated that he still, to this day, has no idea why Jonathan Demme thought of him for the role.

★ Michelle Pfeiffer was initially offered the role of Clarice Starling, but turned it down. She has said about her rejection of the part, "that was a difficult decision, but I got nervous about the subject matter."The Barbara Walters Special, American Broadcast Company, 1992 Kim Basinger, Emma Thompson, and Meg Ryan were also considered for the part before it went to Jodie Foster.

★ The character of Jack Crawford is based on the real-life former head of the FBI's Behavior Sciences Unit, John Douglas, who can be spotted in one of the deleted scenes as an instructor teaching a class at the FBI academy.

Response

The film received widespread critical acclaim. Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster also received praise for their performances. Roger Ebert specifically mentioned the "terrifying qualities" of Hannibal Lecter. Not surprisingly, both actors won Academy Awards for their performances.
Silence of the Lambs received a 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Box office

Domestic summary:

★ Opening Weekend: $13,766,814 (1,497 theaters)^[1]

★ % of total gross: 10.5%

★ Close date: October 10, 1991

★ Total U.S. gross: $130,742,922
Worldwide gross: $272,700,000

Awards and controversy

Academy Awards record
'1. Best Actor', Anthony Hopkins
'2. Best Actress', Jodie Foster
'3. Best Director', Jonathan Demme
'4. Best Picture', Edward Saxon, Kenneth Utt, Ronald M. Bozman
'5. Best Adapted Screenplay', Ted Tally
Golden Globe Awards record
'1. Best Actress', Jodie Foster
BAFTA Awards record
'1. Best Actor', Anthony Hopkins
'2. Best Actress', Jodie Foster

Jonathan Demme 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. Hopkins' performance as Lecter remains the shortest lead acting, Oscar-winning performance ever, as Hopkins is on screen for less than 17 minutes throughout the course of the film. The film won additional Oscars for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture. ''The Silence of the Lambs'' is only the third (and most recent) film to win the five most prestigious Academy Awards (after ''It Happened One Night'', 1934 and ''One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'', 1975).
The film is 2nd in the department of most Oscar nominations for a horror film (7), The Exorcist is in first place with 10 nominations.
Upon release, ''The Silence of the Lambs'' was criticised by members of the homosexual community for being what they perceived as another in a long line of negative on-screen portrayals of LGBT characters in the absence of any positive portrayals (see also ''Basic Instinct'' and ''JFK''). Following the announcement of the film's many nominations, rumors began circulating almost immediately that gay rights groups like Queer Nation were planning to disrupt the live Oscar telecast should the film win any awards. While ultimately no such protests materialized, the rumors did lead to balanced coverage of the story, including discussion of Hollywood's attitudes toward sexual minorities and an overview linking the rumored protests to other Academy Awards controversies, in media outlets ranging from the CBS Evening News to ''The National Enquirer''. In the years following ''The Silence of the Lambs'' there was an increase in the number of gay-themed films and gay characters. Significantly, director Jonathan Demme's next project was the AIDS-related drama ''Philadelphia''.
Other awards include "best picture" from CHI Awards, the "best film" from PEO Awards, and won Best Film from National Board of Review, all in 1991. In 1991, Jonathan Demme was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for best director. In 1992, Ted Tally received an Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay. In 1991, was nominated for "best film" from British Academy Awards. In 1998, it was listed as one of the 100 greatest movies in the past 100 years by the American Film Institute.^[3]

Cast

★ Clarice Starling — Jodie Foster

★
★ Young Clarice — Masha Skorobogatov

★ Hannibal Lecter — Anthony Hopkins

★ Jack Crawford — Scott Glenn

★ Dr. Frederick Chilton — Anthony Heald

★ Barney Matthews — Frankie Faison

★ Buffalo Bill/Jame Gumb — Ted Levine

★ Catherine Martin — Brooke Smith

★ Ardelia Mapp — Kasi Lemmons

★ Lieutenant Boyle — Charles Napier

★ Sergeant Tate — Danny Darst

★ Sergeant Jim Pembry — Alex Coleman

★ Roden — Dan Butler

★ Sen. Ruth Martin — Diane Baker

★ FBI Director Hayden Burke — Roger Corman

★ SWAT Commander — Chris Isaak

Differences from the book

★ All references of Will Graham (played by William Petersen in Manhunter, and Edward Norton in the ''Manhunter'' remake Red Dragon) were all eliminated in the film, because of Manhunter's failure at the box office (which, like Silence, had positive reviews)

★ 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 due to missing classes while conducting her work in the search for Buffalo Bill.

★ Crawford's subplot, regarding the death of his wife, is eliminated for simplicity (neither Crawford nor his wife were in ''Hannibal'' either, and no mention of Crawford's wife is made in ''Manhunter''). Likewise, Klaus is removed, with Raspail's head in the jar instead. Lecter's relation to Gumb is as his former therapist.

★ 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, i.e. fool's gold); however, the novel has the false name Billy Rubin, which is a play on bilirubin, the pigment found in feces. This turns out to be a multiple pun, as Lecter later leaves the formula for bilirubin in his cell, annotating it to spell CHILTON, and the FBI agents who discovered the anagram also compared the color of bilirubin to Dr. Chilton's hair.

★ Lecter never tells Starling that Buffalo Bill wants "a vest with tits on it." Starling deduces this specific motive of Buffalo Bill on her own after seeing a dress in Bimmel's closet. He also never says "He has a two-story house."

★ 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 disembarks nearby.

★ Lecter neither has maroon eyes nor six fingers on his left hand as described in the books, instead both hands are normal and his eyes are blue as portrayed by Hopkins. (However, in the film 'Hannibal', Lecter is asked about a scar on his hand and he replies that he had surgery to alleviate Repetitive Strain Injury. This ties in with the books, in which he had surgery to remove his sixth finger.)

★ In the film, Lecter states that he ate the census taker's liver and fava beans with a "nice Chianti", while in the novel he eats them with a "big Amarone".

Influences

Jame Gumb was based on three 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. Gein was also the inspiration for Norman Bates in the Alfred Hitchcock film ''Psycho'' as well as'' Leatherface'' in ''The Texas Chain Saw Massacre''.

★ 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.

★ Gary M. Heidnik, who held women captive in a deep hole in his basement.
Hannibal Lecter bears some similarities with Andrei Chikatilo (a Russian serial killer), in that during their childhoods both experienced a sibling being cannibalised during a famine. (It is not known however how true the story of Chikatilo's experience is). He has also been compared to the infamous cannibal and child murderer Albert Fish, as well as Robert Maudsley, who ate the brain of a fellow inmate while he was incarcerated. Some critics view Lecter from a more mythological origin: Dracula. The reason being that Lecter has physical and behavioral traits in the novel series that are strikingly similar to those of Dracula and traditional vampires. Lecter is also, like Dracula, an Eastern European Count.
The moth covering Jodie Foster's mouth in the advertising poster is not the natural pattern of the Death's-head Hawkmoth, but a miniature image of Salvador Dalí's ''In Voluptas Mors.'' This is in homage to Luis Buñuel's and Salvador Dalí's surrealist film ''Un Chien Andalou'', which contains a Death's-head Hawkmoth.

The image of the Death's-head Hawkmoth upon the lips may also be a reference to a line in Richard le Gallienne's The Worshipper of the Image: "The eyes of Silencieux were wide open, and from her lips hung a dark moth with the face of death between his wings."

''Manhunter'' sequel confusion

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. 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'' suggests that it was never intended to be a cinematic follow up 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 De Laurentiis 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, Faison and Heald reprised their roles from ''The Silence of the Lambs'', establishing itself as the official prequel 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 stated to have killed young women, in effect condensing Lecter and another character mentioned in ''Red Dragon'' for time's sake. In addition, the events of ''Red Dragon'' are mentioned several times in the novel ''The Silence of the Lambs'', but were all omitted in the screenplay.

Trivia

★ This film was #7 on Bravo's ''100 Scariest Movie Moments''.

★ Hannibal Lecter's line ''"A census taker once tried to test me, I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti"'' was voted number 21 on the top 100 movie quotes of all time.

★ The widely parodied hissing noise that Lecter does at the end of the line about him eating the census taker's liver was not in the original script. Hopkins did it at that moment as a joke, and he did not expect Demme to keep it in the final cut.

★ Hannibal Lecter as portrayed by Hopkins is said to be (By the American Film Institute) the #1 film villain of all time.^[4]

★ Clarice Starling as portrayed by Foster is said to be (By the American Film Institute) #6 on the list of greatest film heroes of all time.^[4]

★ FBI Agent Dana Scully from ''The X-Files'' television series was inspired by Clarice Starling in ''Silence of the Lambs''.

★ Demme had seen Hopkins portray the role of Dr. Treves in the 1981 film, ''The Elephant Man'' and said that the "intense humanity and intelligence" that Hopkins brought to Treves would be perfect for Lecter. Hopkins still to this day fails to see the relationship that Demme saw between the two characters.

★ In the scene when Clarice first meets Dr. Lecter in the movie, Foster's experience is one of a first time as she had never rehearsed with Hopkins, as he never rehearses in any of his films. Since it was never rehearsed, Hopkins did not know of Foster's accent until the scene. After discovering her accent he decided to mock her (which can be seen in the movie as part of the final cut). She took personal umbrage to this attack but later thanked Hopkins for such a great improv.

Parodies

Like other popular films, ''The Silence of the Lambs'' has been parodied:

★ The two musicians Jon and Al Kaplan made a Silence of the Lambs musical called "Silence! The Musical." [1]

★ Ezio Greggio created ''The Silence of the Hams'' where rookie FBI agent Jo Dee Foster (Billy Zane) goes to Dr. Animal Cannibal Pizza (Dom DeLuise) to track a serial killer.

★ The Chicago electronic musical group The Greenskeepers released a song, "Lotion", which specifically parodied "Buffalo Bill", the serial killer at large in Silence of the Lambs.

★ At the 1992 Academy Awards, Billy Crystal made his initial appearance on stage wearing the same straight jacket and mask that Hannibal Lecter wore in the movie, making the comment that he felt he looked like the "goalie for the SAG (Screen Actors Guild) hockey team".

★ The rap artist Eminem has made several references to Silence of the Lambs in his videos and his songs. His most direct parody is his music video for the song "You Don't Know", he personifies Lecter in a parody of the first meeting between Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling. In the same video, he is also wheeled off by guards while wearing a straight-jacket and the mask that Lecter wears in the movie.

★ In ''Clerks II'', Jay performs Buffalo Bill's nude dance number, ''Goodbye Horses'', on several occasions, although actually nude only one of those times.

★ In ''The Simpsons'' episode A Star Is Burns, the character of Hannibal Lecter auditions for the role of Mr. Burns for a movie that Mr. Burns is making about himself, in order to win at the town film festival. In his dangerous prisoner restraints & mask, Lecter recites Mr. Burns's famous quote "Excellent", followed by his infamous hiss (from his own famous quote, "I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti"). In another episode, recurring villain Sideshow Bob is held by restraints similar to Lecter's - but including restraints on Bob's individual locks of hair.

★ Another episode of ''The Simpsons'', Marge vs. the Monorail, has Mr. Burns being wheeled into a courtroom wearing the same straight-jacket and mask that Lecter wears.

★ In the final episode of ''The X-Files'', Agent Mulder, who is on trial for murder, repeats the line "I smelled you coming, Clarice" to Agent Scully when she first comes to see him in prison. (The character of Agent Scully is said to have been inspired by Clarice Starling.)

★ In the ''South Park'' episode Bebe's Boobs Destroy Society, Eric Cartman is seen playing a game called "lambs", which is an almost exact replica of the lotion sequence. The entire episode Toilet Paper is a parody of silence of the lambs and introduces a new character, Josh Myers, who is a parody of Lecter and uses many of the same quotes.

References

1. IMDb Box office/ Business Information for The Silence of the Lambs Retrieved 14 March 2007.
2. IMDb Box office/ Business Information for The Silence of the Lambs Retrieved 14 March 2007.
3. AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies Accessed 14 March 2007.
4. AFI 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villians Accessed 14 March 2007.
5. AFI 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villians Accessed 14 March 2007.

See also

★ ''Goodbye Horses''

External links

★

★

★ The Hannibal Lecter Studiolo

★ Criterion Collection essay by Amy Taubin