"SILENCE" GOLDEN

          First of all, it's as least as much of a Jekyll and Hyde story as Beauty and the Beast. With the emphasis on a synthesis favoring Hyde, but showing important glimpses of Jekyll.
          Thomas Harris' incredible novel became the film that anchors Anthony Hopkins' titanic career. More than that, The Silence of the Lambs (1991) offers up a magnificent role for Jodie Foster to hit her great actor stride. And on top of that, we get Ted Levine in the immortal role of Jame "It Puts the Lotion in the Basket" Gumb.
          A film so very influential, its effect can be recognized in The X-Files--the autumnal hues, FBI agents as protagonists pitted against modern monsters, lower left-corner notations, and a general aesthetic clearly referring to director Jonathan Demme's Oscar-winning film.
          Upshot: FBI agent-in-training Clarice Starling (Foster) is called on in classic hero myth fashion to face a monster, in this case Dr. Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter (Hopkins) as a sort of (hopefully unwitting) perverted Sherlock Holmes-ish "consulting criminal" to help catch a naughty boy known in the press as Buffalo Bill because he "skins his humps."
          It's not the first Hannibal Lecter film. That distinction goes to Manhunter (1986), which was later re-made as Red Dragon (2002). But it's the best of the lot because it has an original vision excellently executed, a vision with something to say about gender and power.
          Haunted by the memory of her dead father, who was himself a law enforcement officer, Clarice is driven to succeed in becoming an FBI agent. And she is also keenly aware of her outsider status in a field dominated by white male privilege.
          Featuring inspired music from Howard Shore (originally associated with Saturday Night Live, he would eventually write the celebrated music for the Lord of the Rings trilogy), and a terrific screenplay adapted by Ted Tally, plus the fantastic photography of Tak Fujimoto, The Silence of the Lambs hits every cinematic note resoundingly.
          As the star of the show, Anthony Hopkins delivers a convincingly cold, reptilian performance, probing dull little minds with calm, precise speech and nostrils that delicately flare like a serpent's tongue tasting the air as Lecter feeds, not off of blood, but fear.
          When the slimy Dr. Chilton, who hits on Agent Starling, reveals his chilling character--"From a research point of view Dr. Lecter is our most prized asset," he gloats--we begin to have a weird empathy for the good doctor. Indeed, the worn stone steps near Lecter's cell call to mind those of Dr. Frankenstein's tower laboratory, casting a favorable classic monster shade on one of film's most memorable baddies.
          Meanwhile, off to the side, hearkening to Psycho, The Tenant, and Dressed to Kill, the true horror: a man who wants to become a woman by wearing a skin-tight suit comprised of various women's flesh stitched into the means of his transformation.
          Thrall your acumen with liver, fava beans, a nice chianti, and the timeless classic.


THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
Starring Jodie Foster,
Anthony Hopkins,
Ted Levine,
Scott Glenn
Directed by Jonathan Demme
Written by Ted Tally
Based on the novel by Thomas Harris
Runtime 118 minutes
Rated R


Stewart Kirby writes for
THE INDEPENDENT
and
TWO RIVERS TRIBUNE