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Wednesday, January 19, 2011

The Silence of the Lambs (film)

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The Silence of the Lambs is a 1991 American film that blends elements of the crime andhorror genres.[2] It was directed by Jonathan Demme and stars Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins,Scott Glenn, and Ted Levine. It is based on the novel of the same name 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 played by Foster, seeks the advice of the imprisoned serial killer and cannibal Hannibal Lecter, played by Hopkins, to help apprehend another serial killer, known only as "Buffalo Bill".
When The Silence of the Lambs was released on February 14, 1991, it received much critical acclaim. The film won the top five Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Actor,Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Plot

Clarice Starling is pulled from her training at the FBI Academy at Quantico, Virginia, by Jack Crawford (Glenn) of the Bureau's Behavioral Science Unit. He tasks her with interviewingHannibal Lecter, a former psychiatrist and incarcerated cannibalistic serial killer, believing Lecter's insight might be useful in the pursuit of a serial killer nicknamed "Buffalo Bill" (Levine) who skins his female victims' corpses. Starling travels to the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, where she is led by Dr. Frederick Chilton to Lecter's solitary quarters. Although initially pleasant and courteous, Lecter grows impatient with Starling's attempts at "dissecting" him and rebuffs her. As she is leaving, one of the prisoners flicks semen at her. Lecter, who considers discourtesy "unspeakably ugly", calls Starling back and tells her to seek out an old patient of his. This leads her to a storage shed where she discovers a man's severed head. She returns to Lecter, who tells her that the man is linked to Buffalo Bill. Though Lecter denies killing this man, he offers to profile Buffalo Bill if he can be transferred away from Chilton, whom he dislikes.
In light of Buffalo Bill's recent abduction of a U.S. senator's daughter, Crawford authorizes Starling to offer Lecter a fake deal promising a prison transfer if he provides information that helps find Buffalo Bill and rescue the abductee. Instead, Lecter begins a game of quid pro quowith Starling, offering comprehensive clues and insights about Buffalo Bill in exchange for events from Starling's childhood, something she was advised not to do. Chilton secretly records the conversation and reveals Starling's deal as a sham before offering to transfer Lecter in exchange for a deal of Chilton's own making. Lecter agrees and is flown to Memphis where he reveals personal information on Buffalo Bill to federal agents. As the manhunt begins, Starling visits Lecter at his special cell in a Tennessee courthouse and confronts him with her decryption of the name he provided ("Louis Friend", an anagram of "iron sulfide", also known as fool's gold). Lecter refuses Starling's pleas for the truth, as she believes everything he stated was false, and forces her to recount her traumatic childhood. She tells him how she was orphaned, relocated to a relative's farm, where she discovered a lamb slaughterhouse and failed in an attempt to rescue one of the lambs. Lecter gives her the case files on Buffalo Bill, after their conversation is interrupted by Chilton and the police who escort her from the building. Later that evening, Lecter kills his two guards, escapes from his cell and disappears.
Starling analyzes Lecter's annotations to the case files and realizes that Buffalo Bill's first victim knew him personally before he killed her. Starling travels to the victim's hometown and discovers that Buffalo Bill was a tailor, with dresses and dress patterns identical to the patches of skin removed from each of his victims. She telephones Crawford to inform him that Buffalo Bill is trying to fashion a "woman suit" of real skin, but Crawford is already en route to make an arrest, having cross-referenced Lecter's notes with a hospital's archives and finding a man named Jame Gumb who once applied for a sex-change operation. Starling continues interviewing friends of Buffalo Bill's first victim while Crawford leads an FBI tactical team to Gumb's address in Illinois. Starling is led to the house of "Jack Gordon", who she realizes is actually Jame Gumb. She pursues him into his multi-room basement, where she discovers the senator's daughter alive, but traumatized and trapped in a dry well. After turning off the basement lights, Gumb stalks Starling in the dark with night-vision goggles but gives his position away when he cocks his revolver and is shot to death by Starling.
Some time later at Starling's FBI Academy graduation party, she receives a phone call from Lecter, who is at an airport in Bimini. He assures her that he does not plan to pursue her and asks her to show him the same courtesy, which she says she cannot do. Lecter then hangs up the phone, saying he's "having an old friend for dinner", and begins following a newly arrived Chilton, who is fleeing since Lecter is at large.

[edit]Cast

[edit]Pre-production

[edit]Casting

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The role of Dr Hannibal Lecter was originally to be played by Gene Hackman, who also wished to direct; he later changed his mind. Other actors offered or considered for the role: Sean Connery, Jack Nicholson, Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, and Robert Duvall. Michelle Pfeifferwas offered the role of Clarice Starling, but turned it down, later saying, "(It was) a difficult decision, but I got nervous about the subject matter".[3] According to Jonathan Demme, there were 300 applicants for the role of Clarice Starling, including Geena Davis, Melanie Griffith, and Meg Ryan.

[edit]Production

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

[edit]Response

[edit]Critical

Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster garnered much acclaim for their portrayals of Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling, even though Hopkins' screen time is only a little more than 16 minutes.[4]
The Silence of the Lambs was a sleeper hit that only gradually gained widespread success.[5] The film ultimately received widespread critical acclaim; Rotten Tomatoes records that The Silence of the Lambs received a 96 percent positive response from critics. Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster also received praise for their performances. Roger Ebert specifically mentioned the "terrifying qualities" of Hannibal Lecter,[6] and has since recognized the film as a "horror masterpiece", alongside such classics as Nosferatu, Psycho, and Halloween.[7] However, the film is also notable for being one of two multi-Oscar winners disapproved of by Ebert's colleague, Gene Siskel, the other being Unforgiven.[8]

[edit]Box office

This article is in a list format that may be better presented using prose. You can help by converting this article to prose, if appropriate. Editing help is available. (December 2009)
Domestic Box Office
Opening Weekend$13,766,814
 % of Total Gross10.5%
Close Date10 October 1991
Total U.S. Gross$130,742,922
Worldwide Box Office
Total Worldwide Gross$272,742,922

[edit]Awards and honors

Academy Awards record
1. Best Actress, Jodie Foster
2. Best Actor, Anthony Hopkins
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
The film won five major Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actress (Foster), Best Actor(Hopkins), Best Director (Demme) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Ted Tally).
Other awards include best picture from the National Board of Review, CHI Awards and PEO Awards. Demme was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for best director. The film was nominated as best film by the BAFTA Awards (British Academy of Film and Television Arts). Ted Tally received an Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay. The film was awarded Best Horror Film of the Year during the 2nd Horror Hall of Fame telecast, with Vincent Pricepresenting the award to the film's executive producer Gary Goetzman.[9]
In 1998, the film was listed as one of the 100 greatest movies in the past 100 years by theAmerican Film Institute.[10] In 2006 at the Key Art Awards, the original poster for The Silence of the Lambs was named best film poster "of the past 35 years".[11]
The Silence of the Lambs placed seventh on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments for Lecter's infamous escape scene. The American Film Institute named Hannibal Lecter (as portrayed by Hopkins) the number one film villain of all time[12] and Clarice Starling (as portrayed by Foster)the sixth greatest film hero of all time.[12]
American Film Institute recognition

[edit]Accusations of homophobia and sexism

Upon its release, The Silence of the Lambs was criticized by members of the gay community for what they perceived as another in a long line of negative on-screen portrayals of LGBT characters.[13][14] Director Demme's next project was the 1992 AIDS-related dramaPhiladelphia, which featured a homosexual as one of the main protagonists.[15]



In a 1992 interview with Playboy magazine, notable feminist and women's rights advocate Betty Friedan stated, "I thought it was absolutely outrageous that The Silence of the Lambs won four Oscars. [...] I'm not saying that the movie shouldn't have been shown. I'm not denying the movie was an artistic triumph, but it was about the evisceration, the skinning alive of women. That is what I find offensive. Not the Playboycenterfold

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