1991: "The Silence of the Lambs" dir. Jonathan Demme

A depraved look into the monstrosity of misogynist men.

Metacritic Score: 86/100

IMDB User Rating: 8.6/10

My Rating: 5/5 Stars

As my first five-star film of this project, I cannot help but insist that Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs deserves all the accolades that it gets. The first and only (thus far) horror film to ever win Best Picture, it also is one of three to ever win the “Big Five” Oscars: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

The Silence of the Lambs follows FBI Academy student Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) as she helps Behavioral Science Unit Agent Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn) unravel the mystery of serial murderer Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine). Thinking he may have insight on the twisted mind behind Buffalo Bill, Crawford entrusts Starling to interview Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), an intensely intelligent psychiatrist and monstrous cannibal killer that has been locked away in max security prison for eight years. She forms a careful camaraderie with Lecter and as such with herself, allowing her to flaunt her expertise in front of a world of men who are not ready for a woman of her ilk.

But this film is so much more than the hunt for a serial killer—it’s a feminist anthem purporting the truth that for a woman, men of all natures can be monsters, especially when we are trying to enter fields traditionally occupied by men. And God bless Jonathan Demme, because this notion is so painstakingly obvious in the film’s writing and editing, that as a woman it feels as though that is the real horror all along.

When we first see Clarice Starling, she is going for a run in an Academy sweater and sweatpants, hair messily pulled back, no makeup, bulky sneakers, and drenched in sweat. In other words: Clarice Starling is a regular woman. This visual of Clarice may in fact masculinize her, but it also normalizes her, and portrays the discipline with which she carries herself so admirably throughout the film. An agent comes and stops her, alerting her that Jack Crawford would like to see her immediately. As she is brought into the Behavioral Science wing, there is not another woman in sight; there are just men, all taller and broader than her, looking at her either like something to devour or something to dispose of. It is of note that Clarice is not sexualized, as near every popular attempt to hero-ify a woman in film prior to this film was only done so long as she was a sexual, attractive hero, because then it was acceptable. Clarice wears long skirts, and great coats, and her hair covering her face. She wears minimal makeup, and often sneakers, and flirts with no one. Clarice is not in any position because she is desired; Clarice persists because she proves that she is better at her job than a man.

Hannibal Lecter asks of Clarice, “Don’t you feel eyes moving over your body, Clarice?…And don’t your eyes move over the things you want?” In a very outdated view of transgenderism, Buffalo Bill is shown to have killed women and skinned them because they were trying to make a “woman suit” to live out their dream of presenting as female. In this world a woman is defined by having endured violence, physical or emotional. Catherine (Brooke Smith), Bill’s last victim, is kept in a hole where she can be ogled and made to act as Bill pleases, which this film paints as the fate of any woman who exists in a man’s world. Even women so strong and intelligent as Clarice Starling. Another scene depicts Bill doing their makeup in a mirror, saying aloud to themselves, “I’d fuck me”. Women in a man’s world may only be defined as pillars of sex, rather than of intelligence or strength. So when Lecter asks this question of Clarice, it then becomes clear to her that Bill’s first victim must have been a woman they knew, because she knows all too well the lust of a man who sees her as a prize.

The camerawork is nothing less than art—at first, this may be difficult to understand, as it is comprised of almost entirely close-up shots. If you disagree, pretend you as the viewer are Clarice Starling: now, every man in the film is staring straight down the barrel of the camera directly into your eyes, judging, unwavering, coveting. And when the camera runs close on Clarice, she often looks to the side, or away, until the end of the film where she learns to stare straight back. By this nature, we as the audience feel the eyes of men moving all over Clarice, which makes this an all-too-uncomfortable watch as a woman myself, as I can feel the eyes of every man in this film moving all over me, and I’m reminded of many men I’ve met that were in a position of power over me. No man, whether criminal or of the law, is any different from the other when Clarice Starling is around. Even if she’s modest. Even if she’s covered in semen that was thrown at her or blood she got her hands in.

As Lecter quotes Marcus Aurelius, I must ask, “what is it in itself?” And The Silence of the Lambs in itself is psychological torture in its feminism, as it presents a timelessly accurate account of life in a woman’s shoes. Buffalo Bill themselves was based on real-life serial killer Ed Gein, who horrifically murdered college-aged girls, his grandmother, and his mother and kept their heads as trophies because the women in his life caused him dismay. This movie will never cease to be relevant or moving given the climate of our world. It should be loved, studied, digested, and reflected upon. If you watch this movie and Buffalo Bill’s crimes alone are the only scary part for you, then I feel for your loss of humanity.

P.S.: if you’d like, I do short-form reviews on all films I watch on my Letterboxd profile. Sometimes they’re silly, but other times I am so captivated by films that are not on this list that I have to review them on the spot! Please feel free to message me with any films you’d like me to give my insight on.

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