The Silence of the Lambs
Cast
Jodie Foster .... Clarice Starling
Anthony Hopkins .... Dr. Hannibal Lecter
Scott Glenn .... Jack Crawford
Anthony Heald .... Dr. Frederick Chilton
Ted Levine .... Jame 'Buffalo Bill' Gumb
Rater #1
Has Not Seen Movie.
Rater #2
8/10. think it's gotten to the point where most people don't really care
about the Academy Awards anymore, because they're not for individual
achievements, but for appreciating an actor or a film because it
cost a lot of money. But back before those days, when the Oscars
meant something, it was a huge honor to win the five major Academy
Awards-picture, actor, actress, director, and screenplay. The
Silence of the Lambs is the third, and most recent, one to do that.
Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins won acting awards, Jonathan Demme
won the directing award, and Ted Tally won for best adapted
screenplay. Was it deserving for all of those awards? For the most
part, more or less.
Hannibal Lecter (Hopkins), a serial killer/cannibal who has the
identity and the whereabouts of notorious serial killer Buffalo Bill
(Ted Levine), is being interviewed by rookie FBI agent Clarice
Starling (Foster) for information on Bill. But Lecter's more cunning
and demented than first glance, and has fun playing with the mind of
Starling as she's interviewing him.
Since I don't really know what to say about this movie, I'll go my
fail-safe way and go over each award it won and why it should have
won for that reason. The screenplay, based off of the book by Thomas
Harris, has a slow build-up (one that originally turned me off), but
as soon as Lecter is introduced, it's paid off. The script takes us
inside of the head of Lecter, making him one of the most interesting
celluloid characters of the 1990s. The screenplay also doesn't
really waste that much time with unimportant characters, although a
little more on Jack Crawford would have been nice. But the
screenplay is tight and holds together well, throughout the hit-or-
miss directing career of Demme.
Demme won an Oscar for best directing. I have mixed feelings about
this one. On one hand, many scenes in Lambs aren't boring, but not
really that exciting or involving. He does have some good style (I
love that night-vision scene), and does build up some good suspense
as the movie comes to a close. The suspense is laid on thick at the
end, and I suppose it makes up for the still entertaining but not
thrilling rest of the movie. Demme does set up some mystery, too, as
we follow Clarice's adventures. There are also some very disturbing
scenes ("It rubs the lotion on the skin or else it gets the hose
again!"), which fit in with the tone of most of the movie.
Disturbing, yes, but actually impacting? Not really.
Both Foster and Hopkins won acting Oscars for leading roles.
Foster's character, as I said before, began as being annoying to me,
but soon became a person I could tolerate. But was she deserving of
an Oscar? A nomination is even a stretch, mainly because of that
awful accent of hers. Hopkins was great, but with total screentime
being around 16 minutes, he was more of a supporting actor
(although, I guess the awards were crooked then. They wanted to give
an award to both Jack Palance for City Slickers and Hopkins, but
they were both supporting roles). I think we got the gist of
Hannibal in those 16 minutes, and Hopkins put in a memorable
performance in that time.
Lastly, Lambs won best picture. Is it the best picture of 1991? I'm
not sure, I haven't seen every film from 1991. But it's a damn good
one.
Rated R for language, violence, and disturbing themes.
Running time: 118 minutes
Back Home