The Silence of the Lambs was easily one of the best films I have watched in this class to this point. The story line, cinematography, and acting was exceptional which made me eat up this movie. It all began with a murder named Buffalo Bill who was capturing innocent women and keeping them for a few days then proceed to kill them. But Buffalo Bills ways were soon becoming evident when one FBI agent in training was on the hunt for who this man was and why he was killing these women in such a gruesome way. Agent Clarice Starling was called the her superiors office one day while on a morning jog and her life changed tremendously. She had been assigned to go visit a very dangerous felon by the name of Hannibal Lecter who was locked up deep in the internals of a high security prison. Starlings goal was to ask Lecter a few questions and obtain any information about Buffalo Bill but that did not go as planned and Lecters sheer intimidating character saw right through Starlings aspirations. Soon the story begins to unfold with more and more details about who this mystery man is and Starling finds herself returning to Hannibal Lecter more frequently to try and get any information on how to find Buffalo Bill. Her chase to find the murderer soon leads her all over, and soon Starling finds that Lecter is being transferred to Tennessee and thats where things begin to go south. Lecter, being the lethal weapon that he is escapes his holding cage under the watch to two police officers and soon is nowhere to be found. But at the same time agent Starling unknowingly finds herself at Buffalo Bill's house. But she soon picks up on what is going on and who she has just looked eye to eye with. After some struggle she sinks a bullet in Buffalo Bill and the chase is over. Much of what made this movie the greatness that it is has to do with the small yet great detail put into it. The camera work, lighting, and setting all add to the big picture which you can tell is trying to get inside the minds of the dark twisted killers in question. During one of the early scenes in the movie where agent Starling is in the maximum security prison she has to travel through a maze of security points in order to even get to Hannibal Lecter. And once she does, Lecter is behind a glass wall which I assume is bulletproof. This to me represented the struggle that was to come with finding Buffalo Bill. Once Starling reached the chair in front of Lecters cell which was a chilling frame of the film in the first place, things start to become more interesting. The way Lecter was standing in the cell was almost something out of a horror film and sent chills down my spine. The two meet for the first time and this kind of sets the film up as to where the audience will stand throughout the film. Both Starling and Lecter stare directly into the camera which gives a strong sense of what we are dealing with. This was carried throughout the film and played a strong part in trying to get the seriousness of the character though the camera. "And he's very, very smart. You can't fake that smartness on a big screen" (Grow). Through amazing acting performance this did not go unnoticed, the viewer really gets a sense of just how dangerously brilliant Hannibal Lecter is. The way he talks, the way he walks, and his stern but chilling voice all just add to his dangerously cunning performance. Hannibal Lecter and agent Starling have a strange relationship. Dr. Lecter is a very dangerous criminal and Starling is a brand new agent for the FBI. Starling had been given a FBI badge for seven days, and Dr. Lecter picked up on that right away. He started picking at her brain and tried to get inside her head but it did not seem to work too well. In the movie clip above agent Starling is going to see Lecter once again, this happens many times throughout the film. And every time she comes to see him its almost as if Dr. Lecter knows she is coming. These two have a strange relationship because she is a FBI agent asking a criminal for advice. A criminal who has been locked in maximum security for many years knows how to find a criminal better then the FBI.
The Silence of the Lambs is literally a movie that pulls you in like a vacuum and keeps you there for the whole movie. It takes two very dangerous criminals and puts them on the same level, one knowing how to find the other. With its outstanding camera work, beautiful acting by Hannibal Lecter, and its ability to easily break the fourth wall it clearly deserved all the awards it won.
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I really enjoyed your comparison of how much work Clarice had to do to even get to Lecter and how it represents how much work she'll have to do to find Buffalo Bill, I have never thought about it that way. It could be contrasted to Will having to escape the labyrinth of Lecktor's grasp in "Manhunter"
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AuthorI normally only watch comedies and action movies so this should be an interesting change. Archives
May 2017
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