A great film that still holds up, encapsulates the time period

Rating: 8/10 (2 January 2017)

I just watched this film an hour ago and I'm surprised that this film has not aged at all.
I watched a 1080p Bluray version of this film and although it was a little grainy (it is film stock, after all), everything looks sharp, clear, in focus and detailed, which is not something that could be said of many films of the era and even some films today.
The story is very interesting and even though I had seen the film before (and forgotten the plot) the unraveling of the mystery was quite intriguing.
One thing I found very interesting is how this film captures the time period on film, not just in clothing, language or technology, but in thinking. For example, when Starling and Lecter discuss a serial killer, Lecter says "What does he do, this man you seek?" Starling answers "He kills women" to which Lecter retorts "No! That is incidental."
It is incidental, but in this day and age, it wouldn't be. It would be seen as misogyny and that would be the profile they build on him. The fact or the conclusion that the killer is completely deranged and is sewing a vest out of the skin of his victims would never be reached. Hell, in this day and age this film wouldn't be made at all, since Lecter's glimpse-into-the-mind-of-a-psycho would be branded as "mansplaining."
This film, made in 1991, is the highest rated police/detective drama of all time, currently rated 23rd best film on IMDb's top 250. The fact that it hasn't been bested speaks a lot about how good it is (not just for its time) and how far we've fallen. Instead of getting more genre-defying films like this, we're getting more by- the-numbers police dramas and by-the-numbers slasher/cannibal films.
Before blaming Hollywood for the decline in the quality of its films, we gotta take a long, hard look in the mirror first and remember - we are what we eat.