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LAMBS’ FROM 1Hopkins), a deviously brilliant serial killer known for devouring his prey.The interview is to take place immediately and Starling is % whisked out the door. “You’re to • tell him nothing personal,” Crawford reminds Starling. “Believe me, you don’t want Hannibal Lecter inside your head.”Cut to a claustrophobic close-upof Dr. Frederick Chilton (Anthony Heald), the unctuous director of the maximum security asylum where Lecter is incarcerated. Star-. ling rebuffs an embarrassing sexual overture (which Chilton makes directly into the camera) and Chilton’s attitude instantly changes from smarmy to brusque, practically shouting out his patronizingly officious “briefing” of the institution’s rules as he ushers her out of his office and rushes her down, down into the bowels of the building, through labyrinthian corridors that change from sterile to almost medieval as they near The Dungeon.They pause for a moment outside a heavy-metal door in a passageway lit by a single red lightbulb. Starling, it appears, is about to enter the inferno. A chair awaits her at the end of a darkened corridor, outside a cell with no bars — just a thick pane of glass. And in the center of that compartment, standing with eerie serenity in anticipation of her arrival, is her Satan: Dr. Hannibal Lecter.That’s a condensed synopsis of the first few minutes of “The Silence of the Lambs,” and it’s worth recounting in some detail because it so swiftly and definitively plunges us (and our protagonist, Starling) into the hellish, predatory world of the film.This is a psychological thriller,/ not a slasher movie. Consequently, Lecter’s demeanor of quiet civility proves far more frightening and , threatening than the lunatic ravings of the madmen in the nearby cells.Crawford encapsulates much of the movie’s idea of terror in hiswarning to Starling: Whatever youdo, don’t let this monster get inside your head. He may be behind a 3-inch thick wall of glass in a solid-granite box, but even if he can’t eat you, he can still pick at your brain.Director Demme has shot “The Silence of the Lambs” with an emphasis on subjective close-ups and tracking shots that intensify our psychological identification with Starling. The guts (and the brains) of the movie are in the slippery, intense exchanges between Starling and Lecter, where each addresses the camera directly in close-up — alternating roles as interrogator and confessor.For Starling enters into a bargain with the devil: In exchange for Lecter’s insights into the methods and madness of “Buffalo Bill,” she must offer up personal details I about her own life, her innermostagonies, memories and fears. Lecter offers a riddle or a clue, then turns his X-ray gaze on Starling (and us), sucking more intimacies out of her.And yet, as we (and she) accustom ourselves to Dr. Lecter, we learn to have a little guarded sym-MOVIE REVIEWThe film: “The Silence of the Lambs.” Starring: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine, Anthony Heald, Diane Baker, Kasi Lemmons, Brooke Smith, Charles Napier, Roger Corman, Tracey Walter, Chris Isaak. Behind the scenes: Directed by Jonathan Demme. Screenplay by Ted Tally, based on the novel by Thomas Harris. Cinematography by Tak Fujimoto. Production design by Kristi Zea. Music by Howard Shore.Playing: Opens today in theaters throughout Orange County.Running time: 1 hour, 56 minutes. Rated: R, for violence, language.pathy for the devil as well. He might be the only person who is able to help the FBI catch Buffalo Bill before he murders his latest victim: Catherine Martin (Brooke Smith), the 25-year-old daughter of powerful senator Ruth Martin (Diane Baker).In fact, apart from our ambivalent admiration of Lecter’s undeniable genius and insight (he was an esteemed psychologist in private practice), his wicked cleverness and authentic affection for Starling also make him almost... likable.Hopkins plays Lecter (a role also played by Brian Cox in MichaelMann’s, taut 1986 “Manhunter”) with an awesome and terrifying restraint. This man seems all the more dangerous because we sense how much of his power (his rage and ravenous appetite for destruction — not to mention his vicious wit) is constantly held in check through an act of concentrated will.As Starling, Foster, also performing with maximum-effective understatedness, is Hopkins/ Lecter’s match. She’s every bit as strong and vital as she was in the flashier, Oscar-winning part as the rape victim in “The Accused.”The lean, lucid, chilly style of the movie is quite different from director Demme’s quirky comedies (“Melvin and Howard,” “Something Wild,” “Married to the Mob”), but it once again reflects his ardent empathy with his female characters. In Demme’s hands, “The Silence of the Lambs” avoids most of the usual stalker- r movie cliches, such as prowling camera work from the killer’s point of view. I“The Silence of the Lambs” is something exceedingly rare and I invaluable in movies these days: | an accomplished, intelligent — and genuinely scary — thriller.
Newspaper Details
Santa Ana Orange County Register
Santa Ana, California, US
Thu, Feb 14, 1991
Page 44
Full Page
Clipped by
Rotten T.
USA 22 Mar 2022
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