THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
OUR FIRST SCHEDULED film of the year, scheduled for this Friday in the Libary Media Center at 12:30 p.m., is The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991). Attached are Study Pix for the film. In this case, the film is also available on youtube complete in several parts. For the first part, go here. Thereafter you can track the other parts, usually seriatim (in order).
Home viewing is not assigned in this case but, for motivated students, the more you view a film the more you learn. Moreover, for ESL students too, you will train your listening ability, since there are no subtitles on the youtube clips. But of course our focus in the Film Class is on film style, content, genre, technology, and history.
Silence of the Lambs was one of the biggest hits of the 1990s. It swept all the major Oscars, including Picture, Direction, and the two lead stars, Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins. Since our first chapter is introductory, this film is a good place to study many issues of cinema.
First we discuss genre. Genre means "kind" and Hollywood films are divided into different kinds/genres, such as Horror films, Sci-Fi (science fiction), biopics (fictional biographies of famous people), Thrillers, Westerns, Musicals, Romances, Romantic Comedies, Screwball Comedies, Disaster films, Epics, Religious Epics, Film Noir, Newspaper films, Detective films, Gangster films, and others.
Silence of the Lambs blends two genres (to this viewer, not successfully): horror and police film. The Horror genre is apparent in Hannibal Lecter, of course, and Buffalo Bill's tortures. Horror conventions are also shown in the many grotesque faces in the film, including the youthful bug experts, the landlord whom Clarice talks to in order to enter an abandoned building, etc. The other genre is reflected in Clarice Starling's police work and the police force surrounding her.
Although focus on acting will come later in the class, Silence of the Lambs is a good place to study acting, since both lead actors won Oscars. To this viewer at least, Jodie Foster as Clarice just doesn't look credible, either in the way she conceived her role (as an extremely nervous young agent) or in the way she executes the role, with too many facial tics, grimaces, etc. (Here's an example where reading the original novel on which the film was based can help to understand Foster's acting choices.)
Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter is superb, neither leaving too much to the imagination nor overacting his part. His conception of the character seems credible too: a highly intelligent person who has denied all feelings in order to survive in the only way he knows how.
But aesthetics (the science of appreciation/feeling) is always subject to differences of judgment. My own gripe against film reviewers who evaluate acting is they almost never back up their claims by pointing to a line delivery or gesture. At least in this class I will call your attention to scenes that I think reflect well or poorly on an actor's conception or execution of the part.
Frankly, I don't think Jonathan Demme is a good director of actors. Many performances in the film are just over-directed. For example, Diane Baker as Senator Martin, whose daugther has been kidnapped by Buffalo Bill, just doesn't sound credible. It comes across as too mannered for a realistic portrayal of a senator, even one whose child has been kidnapped.
Anthony Heald as Dr. Frederick Chilton is ridiculously concieved and executed. The performance is so bad one has to wonder if director Demme knows anything about acting. The character might fit better in a Jim Carrey film.
Jodie Foster, as Clarice, is just too busy, as if she knew no better way to perform the part except to keep showing tense reactions in her face and gulping everytime she speaks to Hannibal.
Surely in judging acting reference to the real world is required. Is this the way an FBI agent would behave--even a trainee? I doubt it. (Her heavy nervous breathing while pursuing Buffao Bill in the dark is more credible, however, since it's a special situation.)
That's why the blend of genres (Horror and police film) does not seem successful to me. The film needs Clarice to feel vulnerable (in order to dramatize the horror genre) but it also wants her to be an effective police officer (to dramatize the police film genre).
However, as students you should make up your own mind, provided to have reasons for your judgment. As it turns out, I'm in the minority. I have not read a single review that didn't praise Foster's performance! Differences of opinion don't matter in aesthetics, only reasons for those differences.
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