Defining Favourites: The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Can you hear the lambs, Clarice?

image via Amazon MGM Studios

• Directed by Jonathan Demme

• Screenplay by Ted Tally, from the novel by Thomas Harris

• Produced by Kenneth Utt, Edward Saxon, Ron Bozman

• Starring Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine

• Running Time: 118 minutes

• Premiere Date: January 30, 1991

If one were to look at The Silence of the Lambs through a modern lens, it remains one of the most impressive pieces of filmmaking in the history of American cinema. But it also embodies problematic attitudes towards transgender people that leave a bitter aftertaste in turn. That’s not even close to the most troubling aspect about The Silence of the Lambs when approaching this film in that lens. Instead, it just happens to be the fact that this film may be a masterpiece at that, one of Jonathan Demme’s very best, and one of the best American films of its era. The fact that this film has remained a favourite of mine has only made my means of approaching it all the more difficult; because how exactly are you supposed to interrogate a movie you find to be absolute perfection otherwise?

This actually is not nearly as difficult as it seems. The Silence of the Lambs is one of the greatest horror films ever made, and one of the best films ever made about the anxieties of being a woman working within a male-dominated field. That Jonathan Demme approaches such a story with this anxiety in mind, only works in the film’s favour when considering how much it’s built around the way Clarice Starling sees herself fit within the current circumstances. It doesn’t take long to see everything that makes Clarice Starling one of cinema’s greatest heroines at that, for she’s also in a position that many viewers would also occupy: how exactly can one handle being around people who demand nothing but the best?