The Silence of the Lambs (film)
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| The Silence of the Lambs | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Jonathan Demme |
| Produced by | Kenneth Utt Edward Saxon Ron Bozman |
| Written by | Ted Tally |
| Starring | Jodie Foster Anthony Hopkins Scott Glenn Ted Levine Anthony Heald |
| Music by | Howard Shore |
| Cinematography | Tak Fujimoto |
| Editing by | Craig McKay |
| Distributed by | Orion Pictures |
| Release date(s) | United States: February 14, 1991 Australia: May 9, 1991 United Kingdom: May 31, 1991 |
| Running time | 118 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $19,000,000[1] |
| Preceded by | Manhunter (1986) |
| Followed by | Hannibal (2001) |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Silence of the Lambs is a 1991 Academy Award-winning psychological thriller/horror 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, brilliant psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer. In the film, Clarice Starling, a young FBI trainee, seeks the advice of the imprisoned Lecter on catching serial killer Buffalo Bill. The film won the top five Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor and Best Actress. [2][3][4]
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[edit] Plot
Promising FBI Academy student Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) is pulled from her training 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 VICAP questionnaire to the notorious Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), a brilliant forensic psychiatrist and incarcerated cannibalistic serial murderer. After learning the assignment relates to the pursuit of vicious serial killer Buffalo Bill, Starling travels to the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane and is led by Dr. Frederick Chilton to Hannibal Lecter, the sophisticated and cultured man restrained behind thick glass panels and windowless stone walls. Initially pleasant and courteous, Lecter grows impatient with Starling's attempts at "dissecting" him and viciously rebuffs her. As she departs, another patient flings fresh semen onto her face, enraging Lecter who calls Starling back and offers a riddle about a former patient. The solved riddle leads to a rent-a-storage lot where the severed head of Benjamin Raspail is found. Starling returns to Lecter, who links Raspail to Buffalo Bill and offers to profile Buffalo Bill if he is transferred to a facility away from the venomous, careerist Dr. Chilton.
Miles away, Buffalo Bill abducts Catherine Martin, daughter of United States Senator Ruth Martin. Starling accompanies Crawford to West Virginia and attends the autopsy being conducted on the body of Bill's recently-discovered victim. She observes something in the victim's throat, and a chrysalis of a Death's-head Hawkmoth is extracted. At Quantico, as news of Catherine Martin's abduction sweeps the country, Crawford authorizes Starling to offer Hannibal Lecter a fake deal promising a prison transfer if he provides information that helps profile Buffalo Bill and rescue Catherine Martin. Instead, Lecter begins a game of quid pro quo with Starling, offering comprehensive clues and insights about Buffalo Bill in exchange for events from Starling's traumatic childhood. Unbeknownst 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 and following a flight to Tennessee gives false information concerning Buffalo Bill's real name and personal information to Senator Martin and her entourage of FBI agents and Justice Department officials. He tells them that Buffalo Bill's real name is Louis Friend. As Starling later points out, this is an anagram for iron sulfide also known as fool's gold. The scene opens with Catherine Martin sitting in a dry well with Buffalo Bill and his dog "Precious" on the top saying "IT rubs the lotion on it's skin, it does this whenever it's told" and Catherine begging to go home and see her mother. She rubs the lotion on her skin whilst in tears begging to go home and explaining that her family will pay any ransom he offers. He then tells her to put the lotion in the basket and brings it up and walks away with Catherine in tears. As the manhunt begins, Starling travels to Lecter's special cell in a local Tennessee courthouse, where she confronts him about the false information he gave 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's farm, the horror of discovering their lamb slaughterhouse and her fruitless attempts at rescuing the lambs, Lecter rebuffs her, leaving her with her case file before she is escorted out of the building by security guards. Hours later, Lecter escapes from his cell, attacking his two guards. Police storm the building and discover one guard barely alive and the other disemboweled and strung up on the walls. Paramedics transport the survivor to an ambulance and speed off while a SWAT team searches the building for Lecter. As the team discover a body in the elevator shaft, the survivor in the ambulance peels off his own face, revealing Lecter in disguise, who kills the paramedics and escapes to the airport.
After being notified of Lecter's escape, Starling pores over her case file, analyzing Lecter's annotations before realizing that the first victim, Frederica Bimmel, knew Bill in real life before he killed her. Starling travels to Bimmel'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. Realizing that Buffalo Bill is a tailor fashioning a "woman suit" of real skin, she telephones Crawford, who is already on the way to make an arrest, having cross-referenced Lecter's notes with Johns Hopkins Hospital and finding a man named Jame Gumb. Crawford instructs Starling to continue interviewing Bimmel's friends while he leads a SWAT team to Gumb's business address in Calumet City, Illinois. Starling's interviews lead to the house of "Jack Gordon", who Starling soon realizes is actually Jame Gumb, and draws her weapon just as Gumb disappears into his basement. Starling pursues him, discovering a screaming Catherine Martin in the dry well just before the lights in the basement go out, leaving her in complete darkness. Gumb stalks Starling in the dark with night vision goggles and prepares to shoot her when Starling, hearing the mechanism of his revolver, swivels around and shoots Gumb, killing him.
Days later at the FBI Academy graduation party, Starling receives a phone call from Hannibal Lecter, now in the Bahamas. As Lecter assures Starling he has no plans to pursue her, he excuses himself from the phone call, remarking that he's "having an old friend for dinner", before hanging up and following Dr. Frederick Chilton through the streets of the village.
[edit] Cast
- Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling
- Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Hannibal Lecter
- Scott Glenn as Jack Crawford
- Anthony Heald as Frederick Chilton
- Ted Levine as Jame Gumb/Buffalo Bill
- Frankie Faison as Barney Matthews
- Brooke Smith as Catherine Martin
- Kasi Lemmons as Ardelia Mapp
- Charles Napier as Lt. Boyle
- Danny Darst as Sgt. Tate
- Alex Coleman as Sgt. Jim Pembry
- Dan Butler as Roden
- Diane Baker as Sen. Ruth Martin
- Roger Corman as FBI Director Hayden Burke
- Chris Isaak as SWAT Commander
- Masha Skorobogatov as Young Clarice Starling
[edit] Pre-production
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."[5] Kim Basinger, Emma Thompson, and Meg Ryan were also considered for the part before it went to Jodie Foster.
Sean Connery was initially offered the role of Hannibal Lecter, but turned it down.
Actor Gene Hackman was originally slated to direct the film, but changed his mind after reading the first screenplay draft done by Ted Tally, supposedly due to the level of violence the script contained.
[edit] 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 depict 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.
[edit] Response
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 won him an Academy Award in 1992, and as of 2008 remains the shortest lead role to ever win an Oscar.
The film received widespread critical acclaim; Rotten Tomatoes, a website that collects film reviews, records that Silence of the Lambs received a 96% 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. Both actors won Academy Awards for their performances.
[edit] Box office
Domestic summary:
- Opening Weekend: $13,766,814 (1,497 theaters)[6]
- % of total gross: 10.5%
- Close date: October 10, 1991
- Total U.S. gross: $130,742,922
Worldwide gross: $272,700,000
[edit] Awards
| 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 second in the department of most Oscar nominations for a horror film (7) tying the record previously set by Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte in 1964; The Exorcist is in first place with 10 nominations.
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 it was nominated for "best film" at the BAFTA Awards (British Academy of Film and Television Arts). In 1998, it was listed as one of the 100 greatest movies in the past 100 years by the American Film Institute.[7]
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".[8]
The Silence of the Lambs placed 7th on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments. The American Film Institute named Hannibal Lecter as portrayed by Hopkins the number one film villain of all time[9] and Clarice Starling as portrayed by Foster the seventh greatest film hero of all time.[10]
[edit] Homophobia allegations
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This article or section is missing citations or needs footnotes. Using inline citations helps guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (June 2007) |
Upon its release, The Silence of the Lambs was criticized by members of the gay 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 (similar criticisms were leveled at 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 media 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 an increased number of gay-themed films and gay characters were created by Hollywood. Indeed, Lambs director Jonathan Demme's next project was the AIDS-related drama Philadelphia.
[edit] Marketing
Marketing for the film included images of Hopkins and Foster with Death's-head Hawkmoths covering their mouths. This is an homage to Luis Buñuel's and Salvador Dalí's surrealist film Un Chien Andalou,[citation needed] which contains a Death's-head Hawkmoth, and also features a man whose mouth disappears and is replaced by armpit hair. The image 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."[citation needed]
In the images, the death's head on the moths' backs is not their natural pattern, but a superimposed miniature image of Salvador Dalí's In Voluptas Mors, which forms the image of a skull from naked bodies
[edit] Parodies
The Silence of the Lambs has been parodied multiple times in the media:
- In 2005, an award-winning off-off Broadway parody was produced called "Silence! The Musical".[11]
- 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.
- At the 1992 Academy Awards, Billy Crystal made his initial appearance on stage wearing the same straitjacket 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".
- 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. In yet another episode, Marge vs. the Monorail, Burns himself is put in the familiar retraints during a hearing on his illegal dumping of toxic waste drums in the Springfield park.
- In the film Clerks 2, the character of Jay (played by actor Jason Mewes) performs the entire Buffalo Bill dance sequence, from imitating Bill putting on make-up right up to standing naked with his genitals tucked back.
- In one scene of the film Joe Dirt, the main character, played by David Spade, is held captive by a killer named "Buffalo Bob" in a scenario very similar to the captivity of Catherine by Buffalo Bill. Bob even imitates the famous line "It rubs the lotion on its skin, or else it gets the hose again."
- In one scene of the film Austin Powers in Goldmember, Dr. Evil is imprisoned in an all glass cell resembling several of the scenes from Silence of the Lambs. Upon being asked about Goldmember Dr. Evil replies: "Quid pro quo, Mr. Powers" asking to be transferred to another facility.
- In "South Park" episode Bebe's Boobs Destroy Society, Eric Cartman is shown playing 'Lambs' in his basement. Cartman lowers a basket to a doll at the bottom of a hole in the floor, and quotes lines from the movie, including the "it rubs the lotion on its skin" line. He also refers to a toy dog next to him as 'Precious'.
- In another South Park episode, Toilet Paper, while investigating a toilet papering incident, Officer Barbrady visits Josh, an extremely prolific toilet paperer, in juvenile hall. Josh is a parody of Hannibal Lecter, right down to his distinctive hairstyle and voice (which Josh only speaks in when dealing with strangers and police), but most especially his psychological mind games and manipulation. Josh repeatedly makes outlandish claims about other's pasts, and gets Barbrady to open up extensively about his abusive childhood, with little to no provocation. When a policeman is referred to as "Policeman Brown," he instantly questions Brown why he never made "officer". Josh is last seen in a spoof of the end of the film, phoning Officer Barbrady to mock him and approaching the White House with a toilet paper roll over the credits.
- The film has been referenced a bit in the show Mystery Science Theater 3000. For example, in one episode the crew watches the film I Was a Teenage Werewolf. At one point when Michael Landon's character is being questioned by a psychologist/mad scientist, Mike riffs "The lambs, Clarice. Tell me about the lambs."
- Radio host Phil Hendrie often had his character Margaret Gray use Lecter's lines to Starling about being a rube from West Virginia to unsuspecting callers who thought they were speaking to a real person on his radio show.
- In the "Family Guy" episode Stuck Together, Torn Apart, Stewie and Brian are stuck together with industrial glue and Brian wants to save a little girl from inside a well because a man with incredibly long arms is tickling a midget up in a tree. Stewie pops his head over the well and the girl screams "Help me!" to which he responds, "It rubs the lotion on its skin, or else it gets the hose again."
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ IMDb Box office/ Business Information for The Silence of the Lambs Retrieved 14 March 2007.
- ^ The Silence of the Lambs Sweeps Top Awards at Oscars - The Tech
- ^ 'Silence of the Lambs' Sweeps 5 Major Oscars - The Envelope - LA Times
- ^ All about Oscar
- ^ The Barbara Walters Special, American Broadcast Company, 1992
- ^ IMDb Box office/ Business Information for The Silence of the Lambs Retrieved 14 March 2007.
- ^ AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies Accessed 14 March 2007.
- ^ 'Sin City' place to be at Ket Art Awards Hollywood Reporter, retrieved 2007-10-07
- ^ AFI 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains Accessed 14 March 2007.
- ^ AFI 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains Accessed 14 March 2007.
- ^ SILENCE! Silence of the Lambs: The Musical - by Jon & Al Kaplan
[edit] External links
- The Silence of the Lambs at Allmovie
- The Silence of the Lambs at the Internet Movie Database
- The Silence of the Lambs at Rotten Tomatoes
- The Hannibal Lecter Studiolo
- Criterion Collection essay by Amy Taubin
| Awards | ||
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| Preceded by Dances with Wolves |
Academy Award for Best Picture 1991 |
Succeeded by Unforgiven |
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| Novels Red Dragon • The Silence of the Lambs |
Main Characters |
Films Manhunter • The Silence of the Lambs • Hannibal |
| Secondary Characters List of minor characters in the Hannibal series |
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