great film.

Rating: 9/10 (31 October 2009)

Braden Williamson Assignment 5-5 HUMN 246
The Silence of the Lambs has gradually become one the highest acclaimed thriller/horror films ever made. The film goes beyond the typical blood and gore of most horror movies, using dialogue and subjective camera angles to draw the viewer closer to the suspense. When Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) is interviewing Hannibal Lector (Anthony Hopkins), the subjective camera angle makes the viewer feel as if they are in Starling's place and staring into the face of a psychopath. This cinematography makes the film feel like it has a first person perspective. The angles and subjective viewpoints also illustrate what it is like for Starling in a male-dominated profession.
The theme of The Silence of the Lambs is facing your fear. It faces the fear that Clarice has of the lambs that she hears in her head, the fear she has that she won't be able to save Buffalo Bill's captive, Catherine. There is also the fear that is felt when Lector or Buffalo Bill merely appears on the screen. The theme ultimately climaxes when everything is seen through Bill's night vision lenses and the audience is on the edge of their seats as Clarice may or may not meet her demise.
Although Hopkins and Foster are both A-list Hollywood actors, they both have an organic, real world demeanor about them which make the story much more believable because it feels like a real FBI agent is talking to an actual criminal instead of a starlet talking with a playboy. The on location scenes that were used for a majority of the film, according to the documentary that accompanied the film, made the FBI headquarters, the psychiatric facility and even Bill's home feel like actual landmarks in a serial killer's rampage. Nothing makes a movie feel more authentic and real than rough-grain film stock. The color of the film was not too bright, and with the shadows and lighting to keep the mood drab, dull, and depressing the film was able to really develop effectively.
The subjective camera angles, dark mood, and lighting set a tone that has made The Silence of the Lambs the great film that it is. Before this film was released horror films used physical suspense to scare the audience but Lambs takes the physical suspense and raises it to new heights by reinforcing it with suspense built simply through the dialogue between Lector and Starling. Many films since this one have tried to add multiple layers of depth in order to make the movie better but more times than not, it just isn't applicable to the film. Fear is something that is always around us but we try our best to avoid it, The Silence of the Lambs takes fear and forces us to examine the worst types of people through an empathetic view. This is what makes it such a great fil