The Silence of the Lambs: U Mad?

Last year, I took a course in “Story Design and Script Writing”. All the students were required to read through the screenplay for “The Silence of the Lambs” and to watch the film (if we could). I read the screenplay and watched the film. Several times. Something felt off. Rewatching the film and rereading the screenplay did not reveal the secret I was looking for, so I ventured to its Wikipedia page, hoping to find information about the film’s development and reception to understand my feelings. It apparently won numerous Oscars, including the Oscars for Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, etc. Why?

I enjoyed the film. (I did!) But what made it so special? What wasn’t I getting? Watching the film one last time before bed, I decided that during this viewing, I would try something interesting: I would attempt to watch the film from Hannibal Lecter’s perspective. And it worked. My mind opened up. I finally understood the brilliance of the film. I accepted the gospel…through my own unique interpretation.

A witty, clever man, down on his luck, must escape to freedom by defeating numerous dimwitted opponents. How didn’t I see it before?

“The Silence of the Lambs” is a comedy, written by Hannibal Lecter himself.

“Believe me, you don't want Hannibal Lecter inside your head... just do your job, but never forget what he is,” says Crawford, the Agent-in-Charge of the Behavioral Science Unit, to Clarice, a strong, beautiful, independent woman who is still a student at the FBI academy.

“Dr. Lecter is our most prized asset,” boasts Dr. Chilton, caretaker (and enemy) of Hannibal. “He’s much too sophisticated for the standard tests.”

The way Hannibal Lecter is introduced is not the way one would introduce a person; it’s how someone would introduce a monster. We don’t see it first. We hear about it. We learn about the myth that Boogeymen tell their children to scare them. Hannibal is so much more than a man.

Walking through his facility, Dr. Chilton comments on Crawford’s “clever” strategy of sending a beautiful agent to “turn [Hannibal] on”. Why would the FBI go with a plan that stupid? If you’re trying to entice a sociopath, sex probably isn’t your best bait. (Besides, we don’t even know Hannibal’s sexual orientation.) So why do it? Because Hannibal is writing a story about himself, and if you were to write a story about yourself, wouldn’t you want the FBI agent interrogating you to look like a young Jodie Foster?

After walking past dozens of cells filled with savage men, Clarice finally arrives at the cell of the fabled Hannibal Lecter. And he’s just standing there. Hannibal may kill and eat people, but he’s not a savage. Heaven’s no! When talking to Clarice, he’s quiet and soft-spoken. He even says the word “please”. When Hannibal escapes at the end of the film, Clarice isn’t even worried about him attacking her, since she knows that Hannibal “would consider that rude.” Though you might not think it would work, we can put the adjective “classy” before the word “monster” in the English language. You could also use the adjective “omnipotent”

In the beginning of their first encounter, Hannibal not only points out that Clarice uses Evian skin cream, he also points out Clarice sometimes wears L’Air du Temps, though she was not wearing it today. He knew all of this just through one sniff of her air.

As the conversation continues, you can tell from Clarice’s body language that Hannibal has complete control over her. He can do whatever he wants to her. So what does he do? He calls her a rube. Seeing he’s destroyed her, Hannibal dismisses Clarice. While she's walking toward the exit, Miggs, one of the other patients, cums on her, nearly reducing her to tears. Feeling that Migg’s behavior was not very classy, Hannibal calls her back and gives Clarice some important information on the dangerous Buffalo Bill the FBI is looking for. We later discover that the following night, Miggs killed himself because Hannibal whispered something to him through a wall. How is Hannibal, or anyone else, capable of accomplishing something as ridiculous and unbelievable as that? Easy: it’s his screenplay. Of course he’s going to make himself God-like.

At their second meeting, tired of Clarice attempting to badger him for information, he shifts the balance of power instantaneously and tells her to give him personal information about herself in exchange for more information on Buffalo Bill. And she does. There’s no hesitation on her part, no resistance. He wants something from her, she gives it to him, no matter how painful it might be for her. Hannibal’s powers are not exclusive to Clarice. He’s unstoppable to everyone.

Dr. Chilton offers Hannibal a deal for a nicer cell in exchange for more information on Buffalo Bill. Hannibal is in a straight jacket, tied down to a handcart, and he has a muzzle on his face. Yet somehow, Hannibal is able to convince his doctor to fly him to tell the senator the information he knows in person, and he also steals a pen.

Hannibal's inevitable escape is another example of his absurd powers:

·      Hannibal defeats two armed police officers with the pen he stole.

·      He kills one of them

·      He removes the face of the officer that’s still alive and places it on his own face

·      He changes clothes with the officer and places the body on top of an elevator

·      The paramedics don’t notice and take the disguised Hannibal into an ambulance

·      Hannibal kills all of them and escapes

This just raises more questions! How’d he steal the pen that was feet away from him when he could not move anything besides his eyes? How did a 50-year-old man defeat two armed police officers? How did no one notice that the face of the body they were carrying was not attached, that was merely placed on another face and that it didn’t look anything like the police office they knew? Deus Ex Machina, I’m guessing.

The only way we can accept the idea that Hannibal Lecter is capable of doing anything and everything in the film without our suspension of disbelief being ruined is by understanding that it’s all a joke.

Hannibal’s character is self-aware that he’s the hero of a story he wrote himself and, as a result, he just has fun with everyone all the way through. Talking to a senator about getting a transfer, he asks her if she breastfed her daughter and if it toughened his nipples. He doesn’t care he’s ruined his only chance to have a nicer prison cell; he knows he’s going to escape during the third act, so he tells the senator as he’s being dragged away “love your suit!”

When he finally does tell the senator and the authorities that Buffalo Bill’s name is Louis Friend, Clarice notices that the name is an anagram of Iron sulfide, more commonly known as Fool’s Gold. Hannibal’s sending everyone on a wild goose chase because the troubles of mere mortals are of no concern of him.

Hannibal is especially funny during his private chats with Clarice, almost reducing her to tears with a sentence or two (which South Park takes note of in their parody episode of the film). And who could forget the infamous fava beans line? The noise he makes at the end should have made it clear to everyone that Hannibal Lecter and his film, “The Silence of the Lambs”, is not something once should take too seriously.

That’s not to say that it’s not an amazing film. It is. I can’t think of another film where I rooted for the cannibalistic serial killer to succeed. The film really earned its wall of Academy Awards. And I'd like to think that the Hannibal Lecter that wrote the screenplay is just as invincible and funny as he is in his screenplay, or that he at least doesn't live with his mother.