Despite the adoration of Michael Mann’s mood bath masculinity crisis in “Manhunter” and the admiration of Ridley Scott’s histrionic, go-for-broke high-camp in “ Hannibal,” “The Silence of the Lambs” still remains the quintessential Thomas Harris adaptation, simply because every note is played in the right key, and no member of the band tries to outshine the other. It’s psychologically draining but also functions as a tick-of-the-clock thriller, as Demme effortlessly shifts gears from psychological mind-games to crime thriller, sometimes in the same scene. That core struggle at the center of ‘Lambs’ separates it from a typical police procedural. Unlike Will Graham before her, Starling does not have the immediate empathy of a killer, so Lecter’s tests are not just for her to figure out how to capture Bill, but to confront her own mortality as well. Not so much to Hannibal Lecter ( Anthony Hopkins), who appears throughout like a psychopathic Greek chorus, providing advice on the mind of a killer to FBI trainee Clarice Starling ( Jodie Foster) to help capture Bill. That procedural method applies to “Buffalo Bill” ( Ted Levine), a murderer killing plus-size women to wear their skin. In Jonathan Demme’s “ The Silence of the Lambs,” there’s two killers for the price of one. Procedurals involving a serial killer traditionally keep the killer in the shadows, sporadically showing them until a full-on reveal in the third act.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |