The Silence of the Lambs (1990)

"I have to go now, Clarice. I'm having an old friend for dinner."

Demme's glossy, pantomime FBI drama was a huge hit when first released, going so far as to win a clutch of Academy Awards, even picking up that year's best film Oscar. Quite why the film gripped the public's imagination so tightly when its vastly superior predecessor, the wonderful Manhunter (1986) disappeared into the twilight zone of cult semi-obscurity remains a mystery.

Lambs opened to a blaze of publicity and by the time it reached the UK, the publicity machine was close to meltdown. "The most frightening film ever made", the publicists suggested hopefully, a wild exaggeration for a film that boasts impressive technical credits but which is ruined by a) the hyperbole and, b) a couple of very poor (but inexplicably well liked) performances.

Foster gives an admittedly good showing as FBI trainee Clarice Starling, temporarily assigned to the Behavioural Science Unit under the guidance of Jack Crawford (Manhunter's Dennis Farilla being replaced here by Glenn). Starling is instructed to approach caged psycho-killer Dr Hannibal 'The Cannibal' Lector (Hopkins, way over the top) and get his help in catching serial killer Buffalo Bill, so named because he "skins his humps."

Accepting for the moment the sheer inanity of the FBI sending a trainee out into the field, interviewing one of the most dangerous and manipulative killers they have in their cells (and doing so alone), the film proceeds well enough until we, the audience, are made privvy to the identity of Buffalo Bill. Sadly, the mincing transexual Jaime Gumm is a laughable pantomime dame, not a patch on the awesome Francis Dollarhyde from Manhunter, an effeminate, screeching embarrassment that it's simply hard to take seriously.

The plot - which sticks very closely to Harris's original novel - is, like Manhunter, a simple police procedural, here fleshed out with some awkward gothic acoutrements by Demme who, to his credit, manages to give the film a menacing, brooding atmosphere that is totally destroyed in places by two of its lead performances, namely Levene as Gumm and Hopkins as Lector. Hopkins came in for much praise for his gibbering performance as the insane psychiatrist, but really it must be said that he's far from convincing and resembles more a villain from an old Hammer film than he does a modern-day serial killer. Indeed one wonders why it took so long for Will Grahame - the hero of Manhunter - to actually catch Lector when, judging from Hopkins' portrayal, he's so obviously not playing with a full deck. If he behaved this way in front of his patients, it's a wonder he didn't go out of business.

Much more effective is the performance of Jodie Foster, neatly reversing the trend of her career by playing a victim who fights back. Her final confrontation in a darkened house with the cackling Gumm is superb stuff, as is her emotional explanation for the film's title. We could, perhaps, have done with a lot more of her and a lot less of Hopkins who, incidentally, subsequently went on to denounce the contemporary trend in screen violence, a trend his award winning performance had very much been a part of - he didn't hand the Oscar back in protest, needless to say, nor did it stop him from playing Lector again a decade later in Hannibal (2001).

Robert K. Ressler, one of the leading lights in the field of forensic psychology and for many years a member of the elite FBI Behavioural Science team gives an interesting account of attitudes towards the film in pre-production in his book Whoever Fights Monsters. One of his last duties for the Bureau before retirement was to look over the script of Lambs and give his comments. This was seen as important as the Bureau was offering to let the film makers use the world renowned training academy at Quantico, Virginia as a real-life set. Ressler expressed many reservations about the script as it stood, but suggested that a few very minor adjustments could turn it into a film that would accurately reflect both FBI procedure and the behaviour of serial killers without detracting from the film's value as entertainment. Instead the producers ignored his advice (he was the one who pointed out that under no circumstances would a rookie like Starling be allowed out into the field on such a hazardous operation without first qualifying) and the FBI, eager for the publicity the film would bring them, turned a blind eye to the film's many stupidities. Since the release of the film, the Bureau has gone to great lengths to distance themselves from it, as their publicity 'stunt' has backfired, the film giving the public the wrong impression of both the Bureau and offender profiling; indeed, the term 'offender profiling' or 'investigative psychology' was introduced to replace the term used in the film, 'psychological profiling', a term the Bureau was subsequently keen to avoid.

Still, despite all these reservations (and as yet nothing has been said about the ludicrous decision to cast Dr Chilton, the head of the psychiatric hospital containing Lector, as the comic relief), the film was a major success, touching a public nerve with its portrayal of violent criminals on the loose. Drawing imagery and techniques from real life multiple murderers like Ed Gein and Ted Bundy, the film arrived at a time when hysteria over the rising tide of 'stranger murder' was at a fever pitch and the film cannily plugged into this mass public concern, feeding from it and, in some ways, encouraging it. Certainly, it had the desired effect in the States, where many a peculiar - and probably apocryphal - story emerged from the movie's first few days of release; one couple, it is said, refused to leave the cinema unless they were escorted to their car by armed security guards; psychiatrists reported that one in three of their clients reported being 'deeply affected' by Lector and his on-screen antics (though given that Lector was a disgraced psychiatrist bringing the profession into disrepute, one wonders how accurate this report is and whether or not there's a hint of desperation about it!); and a group of East Coast medical students even started a Hannibal the Cannibal fan club, an extension of the rather dubious American taste for glamourising its serial killers, fictional or otherwise. Probably all total nonsense, of course, or at the very least, wild exaggeration, but still very effective publicity.

The success of Silence of the Lambs unfortunately meant a return of that most reviled of late 70s / early 80s cinema fashions, the stalk and slash film. Where once they were referred to by this rather patronising and misleading epithet, now such films were being hailed as 'serial killer' movies, seeking to cash in on some of Lambs' reflected glory and Oscar winning respectability. It also sparked off a distasteful series of mostly made-for-television dramas supposedly based on the real life doings of serial killers, most of which were sanitised to the point where the very real pain and torment that these people have caused was all but forgotten. A sad and regrettable trend, prompted by a technically well done but much over-rated film.
KEVIN LYONS