5.6 - The Silence Of The Lambs

If getting giddy over a movie about serial killers makes you crazy, then we don't want to be sane. This time on Speaking Cinema, Johnathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs. We dive head long into maybe the best film to win best picture and maybe one of the greatest films ever made. We gush over everything from the electric pacing, to Demme's masterful direction and Anthony Hopkins who literally holds us captive with his performance. Of course there's the usual reflection and discussion about media literacy...but it wouldn't be Speaking Cinema without it. Hope you all have as much fun listening as we did watch. This is The Silence of the Lambs. 

Like the episode? Leave us a comment, or send us an email at SpeakingCinemaPodcast@gmail.com and let us know what you would like to see with this new iteration of Speaking Cinema!

Thank you for listening! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

When FBI trainee Clarice Starling is selected by her mentor to assist with a serial homicide case, she is quickly thrust into a world where she must confront her past trauma, patriarchal systems of abuse, and serial killer psychology. This week on Speaking Cinema, we're talking about Jonathan Demi's 1991 landmark Oscar-winning thriller, The Silence of the Lambs. What's up, everybody? I'm John Buley. We are Charlie Kirk, and this is Speaking Cinema. Off to a red letter story.

SPEAKER_03 0:41

Yeah, yeah, just just unprecedented, John, to get us groaning that early in the recording. So Silence of the Lambs. So like like John said before the other thing, uh, welcome to Speaking Cinema. We're sitting here, Anthony Zaccone and Adam Saccofico with John Bewley. John, this was your pick this week. So why did you pick the silence of the lambs?

SPEAKER_02 1:12

So I picked the silence of the lambs because this is another, I guess you'd say, foundational film for me. You know, this was another film I saw early on in my, I guess you'd say my growth in film knowledge. I saw this film when I was in high school, and it was a film I had heard about. Um, my mom had brought it up a couple of times. And I just remember one day watching it in college, and this will segue into the first time I saw it, but I I used to throw on, you know, movies or TV in the background when I would be doing my homework at night. And normally it was more like law and order, you know, just stuff that was still like good, but um you could throw it on, it's just background noise, like you don't have to be super engaged in it. But we had recently gotten HBO and uh HBO had this new car kind of sheen to it because of all of the all of the movies and all of the things I hadn't seen before, and Silence of the Lambs was running, and it had pretty much just started. So I was going in and out, and then we get to the first scene with Hannibal Lecter, and I pretty much just stopped doing my homework and just fully watched this film, like front to back, and then went to school the next day just raving about it. And it was one of the first times that somebody else had also um taken me up on a suggestion because a few days later a a classmate of mine was like, dude, I watched Silence of the Lambs, and you're right, that's an incredible movie. Um and it subsequently just it always stuck with me, it always stayed with me. And it's a film that I knew when we started up the podcast that I inevitably wanted to talk about it. I mean, there was talk at times when Andrew was hosting it, uh, where Adam and I were talking about both of us doing it as a guest together with Andrew. And so I just felt that it it was time to do this film.

SPEAKER_03 3:33

Yeah, so this is like I mean, uh Andrew's not around. You um I'm in this position now, but this is fun that you guys had been like planning this one together. I I didn't know that about like the previous iteration. All right, yeah. So, Adam, what was your first time watching Silence of the Lambs? I think John pretty much covered his.

SPEAKER_04 3:52

Kind of like with uh Spinal Tap a couple weeks ago. This movie's always been kind of omnipresent in my life to the point where I can't track when I first watched it. I'm gonna assume high school, probably on AMC when they like did the world premiere of Silence of the Lambs, like they did with so many movies growing up. The first time, though, I remember hearing the name Hanble Lector. For whatever reason, I was, you know, I went to the movies with my family, and the trailer for the Ridley Scott Hannibal film played before the film. And my dad reacted like Captain America catching Thor's hammer. He's like, Oh my god, they're doing another one of these. I'm so yes, I love Silence of the Lambs. And my father is not a movie guy remotely, but he has, for a guy who's not a movie guy, the most exquisite taste, the most exquisite dad taste of anybody. His very films are Tombstone, Goodfellas, Apocalypse Now, The Godfather, Sounds of the Lambs. That is extremely dead selection. It is, but also cannot deny any of those movies, though. Cannot deny any of them. But it's also the first time I remember somebody ever not liking a film because he went to go see Hanble opening weekend, came back and was like, oh, that movie sucked. I hated it. But for years, the you know, Habel actor kind of lived in the back of my head till I was old enough, finally, on just a random weeknight, to sit down and watch the film. And it's funny because I don't think I again TV cuts are weird, you know, you they take a lot out, you know, you don't get the full thing, you have commercial breaks.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:30

I don't think I watched a film in full until college, and I remember being enraptured by it. Uh-huh. And it becoming very much a foundational text, you know, very early on. I don't know, again, I don't know if this was senior year high school or college. I can't quite tell, like I said. Yeah. But this film is very much like John, a foundational text for me. Like I love this film. Jonathan Demi is one of my favorite directors ever, to the point where I have a Philadelphia poster hanging up in my office.

SPEAKER_03 6:02

Yeah. I am curious what a TV edit of The Silence of the Lambs would be, because there isn't anything like really particularly too graphic. You know, maybe some like, you know, shots of corpses, but like it's not far off from what you might find on, you know, like a crime procedural on TV.

SPEAKER_04 6:22

It's true, but like this was also mid-2000s before like TV just became the Wild West, where they're like, oh, we'll just let anything on. Like they took they exercised, like, I remember specifically when they were doing the autopsy after they found the woman in the in the lake and they're all kind of you know taking pictures of the body, they cut around that a lot.

SPEAKER_02 6:41

Yeah, they probably did like pan and scan stuff.

SPEAKER_04 6:43

Yeah. Sure. And I remember not getting the full like horror of that scene until I saw it on home video or on HBO or wherever I'd seen it. And also just like the this movie is immaculately paced. Immaculately paced. Yeah. So whenever you every you know 15-20 minutes, when it's like, and now a word from our sponsors, it takes you out of it.

SPEAKER_03 7:05

Believe it or not, I think that this was my first time seeing this movie all the way through. Um because like this is definitely a film that I've seen picked apart in film school and like in high school, it's ingrained into the cultural consciousness.

SPEAKER_04 7:27

How much would you say you knew this film through cultural osmosis?

SPEAKER_03 7:30

Well, so I've seen the film picked apart in film school. Um, and I do think that it's like ingrained into the cultural consciousness. Um it's parodied repeatedly, it's quotable, like there's full lines from the movie that I knew 100%. Um, there's also like misremembered quotes that I that I noticed about it. It was parodied in Joe Dirt. It was parodied on the TV show I used to work for. Full Frontal with Samantha B did it for like um like an election cycle uh promo thing. But watching it now, oh, there's also like Halloween costumes. You know, it's like the Jason mask, like the Hannibal Lecter mask and um strait jacket is like an iconic like thing that you would find in any Halloween store. Um, but yeah, watching it through, I realized that I don't think I've ever actually watched it all the way. Um, what I knew about it was not accurate. So even though like I had this knowledge of scenes, including the very last image of the movie, like I was still just so engrossed in this 100% of the way through. Like, this movie is a masterclass. And I was saying this to Adam before we got on the recording. Typically, from the school of Andrew Schwartz, as to like how we sort of prepare for this show. We watch the movie once all the way through, meet it on its own terms as the filmmaker wants you to watch it. And then we'll go and watch it a second time and we'll do like a stop and go. You know, we'll watch a few minutes, we'll take a few notes, watch a few minutes, take a few notes, rewind things, watch scenes two or three times. I didn't do that. I'm gonna be honest, I'm a little underprepared for this episode because the second watch, I just was like glued to it again. Yeah. Um, so yeah, like I've got a couple questions and my scenes picked out, but like um this movie distracted me from my homework, John. And the movie wasn't homework.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 9:54

I think what I find as a brief aside so surprising is this film is so pitch perfect in terms of its pacing and just as a film itself, a friend of mine, Everett Wood, uh, somebody I went to college with, um, he and I have watched this movie together as well. And after watching it, we both had the same conclusion. We're like, this is one of the greatest American films of the last 40 years. And the fact that it was shocking to some people that this won best picture at the Oscars and was kind of looked at as like, oh, it was a quote unquote slow year. Because this film, much like something like Everything Everywhere All at Once, I believe this film came out in the springtime of 1991.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

February.

SPEAKER_02 10:49

It was an early film, February. So I think that also says something about just how flawless this film is. If if something comes out in February and it is the first film to win the big five since 1975, that's huge. This is a special film.

SPEAKER_03 11:11

And I'm looking at what the other movies are for 1992. It was JFK, Bugsy, The Prince of Tides, and Beauty and the Beast, as well as The Silence of the Lambs. Honestly, looking at that list, I'm like, it does make sense to me. It does make sense. The Beauty and the Beast, low-key, amazing film.

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:35

Oh, yeah. That's cool to see that one actually nominated for Best Picture, not just like best animated or whatever.

SPEAKER_04 11:41

It it didn't exist. And also, like you can argue it was, even though it was a slow burn, I think that's what kind of kicked off the idea of like maybe we should give animation its own kind of category. Yeah, exactly. It's weird because I don't look at 91 as a slow year for movies at all, but 1991 had a lot of great films. A lot of great films, but I'm also looking listening to that list, like, all right, if let's say transpose myself to like I'm gonna I'm a typical Academy voter in 1991, 1992. I'm fairly certain that Bugsy had a lot of clout going in, you know, Warren, Warren Beatty, you know, Barry Levinson directing, all-star casts. So, like, but that's one of those early precursors of it's not gonna hold up, do you would think? Like it's good, but it's not great. The only other film on that list, you know, besides Beer and the Beast, which I think in a you know would have been a fun win, but it was never going to, conceivably, the nomination was the win of itself. The only other film, maybe JFK, which is a film I enjoy, but that is a fucking wacky film.

SPEAKER_03 12:44

I I would say JFK for the craftsmanship of it. I mean, yeah, the more memorable movie here, hands down, would be a tie between Silence of the Lambs and Beauty and the Beast. Prince of Tides, I remember watching that one. That feels like Oscar Bait movie. Like that was probably like the maestro of its day, like Barbara trying so hard.

SPEAKER_04 13:06

It's funny because I that movie is so not what we think about Oscar Bait now. Like, if you watch it back, you go, again, I'm not gonna sit back and say it's the best in that lineup that we presented. I I wouldn't say it at all, but it's almost like to compare it to the other Jonathan Demi Oscar player, which is Philadelphia. Because for years people are like, oh, Philadelphia, that that wrote age drama starring Tom Hanks. Man, what like what you know, Oscar Bation. You watch that film today and you're like, oh, this is a fucking amazing film that's incredibly well directed and just loving, and and you go, how good we had it.

SPEAKER_03 13:41

All right, well, let's jump into this movie with the Silence of the Lambs. Uh, next segment that we are gonna get into is the title take, The Silence of the Lambs. John, what do you think that title means? What's it implying here?

SPEAKER_02 13:57

I think to an extent, Silence of the Lambs might be the most, maybe the most poetic title we've had on the podcast since we've started doing this run. Clarice Starling is somebody who is clearly haunted by a traumatic incident of her past, and it comes off of the death of her father, and which is an event that orphaned her. And she couldn't prevent the death of her father. And when she sees the rancher that she's staying with, slaughtering the lambs, and hearing the screams of these confused animals, she does everything that she can to try and save one of them, but she fails. And I think that the silence of the lambs becomes an allegory for all of Buffaloville's victims and Clarice Starling's attempt to save one of them, like she did try to save one on the ranch, but failed. And so this is her attempting to fix that.

SPEAKER_04 15:00

I'm slightly in lockstep with John. I'm gonna add the caveat of I feel like that speech, that scene, the you know, Clarice telling Lector about the lambs is the centerpiece of the film, hence why it's given the title comes from that scene. And a lot of it's gonna boil down to like my personal take of the film. I think the silence of the lambs is ultimately what Clarice is working towards and what her reward for saving Kathy at the end of the film would be, at least in her mind. Now, whether she achieves that or not, getting, you know, the screaming of the lambs out of her head, we don't know. We're not supposed to really know that. That's you know, between the character and herself in a lot of respects. But that's ultimately the Sans of Lambs is the goal in which Clarice is working towards. That one day she can save enough people, she can, you know, solve enough cases, she can stop enough serial killers or just regular killers at that, that the lambs will stop screaming in her head every night before she goes to bed.

SPEAKER_03 16:09

Yeah, I mean, I I think that is more what I was in in line with. Like, I think John, you know, what you're saying is like the first half of what I was thinking. Um, like the lambs clearly a metaphor to the victims of homicide, like the lambs to slaughter. Um for Clarice, the silence of the lambs is is the goal state. Like her interaction with Hannibal, where she's telling him that story, and he says, like, do tell me when the lambs stop screaming. Um, like the lambs stopping the screams is like closure for Clarice. Like, she wants to like have everything be saved and have uh, or at least not wake up to that image in her head anymore. You know, and the rest of the movie, like, she's constantly challenged with like various moral bargains, you know, that would be required of her to achieve that quiet. Um, like she has to dive into the psychology of a serial killer. She has to let a psychologist serial killer into her head. She has to endure humiliation, patriarchy, all of these things, and it's all done like in this quest for closure, like the thing, the screaming of the lambs being like something that is like an unshakable um thing. It's like her windmill that she has to fight.

SPEAKER_02 17:47

We're pretty lockstep, as Adam said, in our take on the title, and I think that this is something we could point to as what would be considered a at minimum a great title and going beyond a brilliant title. Because as I talked about, I think on the departed episode a brilliant title really should be summing up what the entire film is about, and this has a lot more metaphor to it than a film like The Departed or a V for Vendetta or a Swiss Army Man. But I think this really is exemplary of what makes a brilliant title for a for a film.

SPEAKER_03 18:35

Sure, yeah. I mean, I think the departed has a decent amount of metaphor to it compared to, you know, Swiss Army Man or V for Vendetta.

SPEAKER_02 18:44

In a Catholic sort of way, yes. But as we discussed in The Departed, you can take that on its face value because everybody dies.

SPEAKER_03 18:53

But I think the Silence of the Lambs, like, it's definitely got like multiple layers of subtext that you have to like comb through in order to get it. But then once you do get it, it does really sum up the movie as you're saying. And and you're right, I do think that this is a brilliant, brilliant title. But what about our overall takes here? Like, what do we think the movie as a whole is trying to tell us in the most simple way you can put it, John?

SPEAKER_02 19:18

Yeah, so my main take on this film is that this is a film about women living in a man's world. The film is just it's it's full of nothing but the male gaze and this almost omnipotent presence of the way that men leave influence on the lives of women and as well the the violence that men enact on women.

SPEAKER_04 19:51

I kind of, because I have a slightly different take, even though I absolutely see John's point, I kind of want to piggyback off of that, you know, especially with the male gaze part. Demi is very good about using close-ups, very good about using close-ups, but he's also in this film in particular, he's very good using POV shots. Specifically, Claire Clarice's point of view. You know, we kind of always shift around, like the scene in the funeral home where Crawford goes to talk to the sheriff and she's left alone and she just looks around the room, and all these deputies are essentially leering at her this entire time. Or this isn't a POV shot, but the shot early on during the opening credits when she gets into the elevator and she's surrounded by all those big kind of guys, and there's a little like five foot two Jody Foster, just surrounded by all of them. And they're not doing anything necessarily nefarious, it's not like they're, you know, but occasionally, like you'll get a shot where a guy kind of looks up and down her, or you know, it's very seldom, but it's always there and it's always present. Um, my take on the film itself is this is a film about trying to, for lack of a better phrase, make sense of an illogical world. It goes back to the the title take, you know, silence of the lambs. She's trying to silence these, you know, this traumatic event that happened to her that still haunts her to this day. She's trying to save this one victim of this horrific serial killer. And she's all doing it while swinging up against the current because again, this is very much she's working in a patriarchal system. But with that being said, not that there's a sense of hopelessness with the film. There there isn't. Obviously, it ends very, you know, tidally, for lack of a better term. She catches Buffalo Bill, you know, rescues Kathy, and all is made right with the world. Even Lecter gets a happy ending and of itself. Yeah. Yeah. But vacation. But yet, oh, he has a dinner with an old friend. Still one of the best closing lines in cinema history. But it's still at the end of the day, especially with Lecter so. Being out there, Clarice is never gonna have the lamb silenced. The world is always gonna be filled with people that she has to go and catch, you know. And there's something, and we'll get more of this with the final image, but I found this curious this time. When Clarice gets the phone call from Lecter, who's you know chasing after Chilton, Demi chooses to cut back to uh Jack Crawford, uh Clarice's mentor, leaving you know their graduation party. It's a very brief shot, and I'm like, how come you it's because in a weird way now it's alright, kid, you're on your own. I taught you what I could. Now you're you're an FBI agent in full. Have fun, essentially. And no matter what happens, you feel like Clarice is always gonna be fighting against, you know, the screaming of the lambs. She's always gonna have to go try to save one more person. And in a field like law enforcement, especially, you know, when you're profiling serial killers, that could be a very hopeless job. And yet, you know, you persist in it.

SPEAKER_03 23:08

Yeah, and that's why I compared it to like a Don Quixote windmill. Like it's the goal Clarice has. But by the end of the movie, like when we see Hannibal the cannibal walk into the sunset, um, like we know that that's an unobtainable goal. As long as there are people out there with ill intent that, you know, kill victims, like the lambs will always be screaming. Um the silence is uh is a completely unobtainable goal. Um, my my overall take was something similar to Adam again, where I think we're seeing this very much in the same light. Um, but yeah, The Silence of the Lambs, I think is a film about learning how to move through a system that was not built with you in mind. Um, Clarice is in this male-dominated system. Um she is surrounded by people who, you know, brute strength their way to their objectives and that doesn't work for her. She needs to rely on uh perception and restraint. Um she succeeds because she it's not because she outsmarts them, but she studies people and learns how to like weaponize her own vulnerability to her own gain. Um because people are gonna look at her how they're gonna look at her and expect, you know, certain things from her. Um, but she, you know, navigates through this world by knowing when to be silent or knowing when to like use somebody's uh you know, desire or preconceived bias of her to outmaneuver them.

SPEAKER_04 24:56

That's why, again, and that point's made when Crawford and Clarice are driving back from the the the autopsy, as mentioned before, and Crawford literally says, like, when I basically told the sheriff I didn't want to talk about the sex crime in front of a woman, that really burned you up, didn't it? And she's like, Yeah, because I'm trying to, you know, assert my own authority here, and if you doing that really undercuts me. He's like, All right, well, good to know, and then falls back asleep, basically.

SPEAKER_03 25:27

Yeah, it's no wonder why Jodie Foster was like a feminist icon of the 90s, you know, after this movie of like she just wants to wear sweaters and solve crimes, and all these men just keep eyeballing her. Um it's like also just crazy that the least toxic male character in the movie is Hannibal Lecter. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

A literal homicidal antisocial.

SPEAKER_03 25:58

I think he's very social. I don't think he's a social butterfly, so to speak. Um but like compared to everyone else, it's just like he's actually maybe the most polite and respectful male interaction she has in the entire film.

SPEAKER_02 26:15

Um I think and I think we'll we'll probably get into that uh a little later in like scenic view and a variation of it, but like it is it is really surprising how she has essentially two mentors in this film, and mentor one, you know, the guy with the FBI, like withholds information from her and plays these like little games because he's like, he knows that if he gave her all the cards, that she'd get read like a book, and it just kind of like under like you said, it undercuts her. Meanwhile, Hannibal Lecter's like, don't give me that questionnaire. You can do better than that. And like Hannibal Lecter is the one who's like genuinely pushing her to work harder and be better, and it's just like, oh, this is kind of endearing in a way. You still murdered a lot of people and ate them, but like this feels really genuine.

SPEAKER_04 27:15

And it's funny too, because like Crawford to John, to your point, you know, he withholds information from her. He's almost trying to use Clarice as a tool in his greater game. And yet, you know, Lecter treats her like an equal to a degree.

SPEAKER_02 27:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:30

And it it's but again, it's the curious thing of the fact that Crawford doesn't trust her enough to be like, well, if I if I told you this, Lecter would have fucked with your brain and you know, would have stonewalled you essentially. And it's like, you kind of don't give her enough credit that she could have probably known. I mean, later on when they make him the phony deal of like, hey, if you help us find this this woman, like part of that was Clarice's idea and her kind of input, you find out later.

SPEAKER_02 27:59

Yeah. And Crawford ends up having to take the fall for it because not to say Clarice jumped the gun, but the the irony is that when Cul Clarice takes initiative and says, Oh yeah, the senator made a deal, here's all the details, and comes up with that, Crawford is painted into a corner, and it's like, well, if Crawford had just been more forthcoming, maybe she wouldn't have needed to make this phony deal. But in a way, she plays Lecter herself.

SPEAKER_03 28:33

All right, let's talk about the opening images. So here in the show, we like to beat by beat go through the first couple minutes of the movie and then break it down for you. So, John, read us. How does the silence of the lambs open?

SPEAKER_02 28:46

We open on an ominous forest, fog filling the trees. As a young woman, Clarice Starling runs through the woods in a sweatsuit. She navigates an almost labyrinthian obstacle course as we learn that it is an FBI training facility. The young woman is stopped by a man who informs her that Crawford wants to see her. She leaves, but the camera lingers on his gaze as Starling returns to the FBI building and navigates another series of labyrinthian corridors, this time surrounded by men who tower over her. She high-fives Ardelia Mapp, her fellow trainee and friend, and the only other woman we see in this sequence. She enters an elevator, once again surrounded by men who tower over her. She exits on her floor and enters Crawford's office. She looks over the grisly photos of the women murdered by Buffalo Bill. Crawford enters, and the two discuss Starling's background before moving into why she was called in. Crawford wants Starling to interview Hannibal, the cannibal lector, to help with the case. Okay, so what do we think about the opening here?

SPEAKER_04 29:47

Somebody pointed this out a while ago, I forget who, but if you think about like how the film is kind of like this weird, muted aesthetic the film has, and what like kind of true crime TV has become up to today, like I feel like the X-Files took a lot of this movie's look. If you think about a lot of cop shows later in the 90s and even into the you know dawn of the 21st century. It's just that weird, like again, the long cultural footprint of this film. It's an effective opening. It's a great opening credit sequence because you learn pretty much everything you need to know about Clarice within the confines of this almost silent, you know, opening. It really kind of gets you into her headspace and what she's gonna have to go through for the rest of the film. And I I was debating this a little bit, but the question is why do you think Crawford taps Clarice to go and speak to Lecter?

SPEAKER_03 30:49

My guess is that she's a standout student. Like, you know, when she's running the course, she is, as far as we can see for the most part, the only person training on that course. You know, she woke up earlier than everyone else. She's working harder than everyone else. When she walks through that corridor, she is surrounded by men and very, you know, few women. Um, but like, you know, we can see through some other scenes, like it definitely seems like she really is an exemplary student. Um, so I think that while it might have been like partly impersonal, it seemed to me like once Crawford has this idea of what he should do of like, you know, send a younger, like, female operator into this scenario, like she was probably picked like resume first.

SPEAKER_02 31:53

When Crawford is giving us her backstory, he does mention that she wants to work for him. So I think he also taps her in a way because he had this feeling from her college days that she could be a potential protege for him.

SPEAKER_04 32:10

It's because again, I didn't want to get into this because of the whole like I look, obviously the Habble Lecter series has been around in book form and movie form and in television, uh pretty much every form of media you can imagine. And uh it's funny because like there was a previous Habble Lecter film before this, and that was you know Michael Mann's Manhunter, in which, you know, the the character at the center of that film, Will Graham is very much a profile at the end of his career. Whereas Clarice is somebody very much at the beginning of her career.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:43

And you feel like in a way, it's almost like Crawford's picking somebody to replace Will Graham, and he's very much grooming Clarice to be that person.

SPEAKER_03 32:53

Yeah, I see it that way too. Like, I don't feel like it was that he was legitimately inspired by her to be a protege. Um, but like looking for somebody who is competent fits the mental profile of like a fortitude element. Like you're gonna send a person into this psychologically compromising situation. You need to have someone who's mentally sound. And then like the thing about, you know, you want to come work for me, don't you? Is like you also need someone who wants it bad enough. Yeah. You know, and like those, those sort of qualifications in one person are like, I need this pawn, you know, in my plan here. And like I don't think that he intended anything more than that. I don't think that he ever anticipated, you know, that she would be the one to crack this case open after that because of what she was capable of doing.

SPEAKER_04 33:57

I think about this a lot in relevance to the other adaptations and how Scott Glenn plays Crawford specifically. Because in the other more famous adaptations, Crawford is played very much like a cop. You know, Dance Farina played him in Manhunter, Harvey Kaito played him in Red Dragon, uh, Lawrence Fishburn played him in the Hamble TV series, and he's very much like a very rugged cop. Glenn plays him very slick, like very much the prototypical thought of what you think of an FBI guy to be. But he's very well put together, he's very well dressed, his hair is very well groomed. He's the only one who wears like those kind of like big old glasses. And I thought about like it's a very weird characterization to what the character usually is, and he almost plays the character a bit too well put together to be in law enforcement.

SPEAKER_02 34:46

Yeah, there's almost more of like a G-man quality to him than a cop.

SPEAKER_04 34:50

Yeah, and but that's also like very off-putting compared to everything. Like, this is like a caricature of what a G-man would be.

SPEAKER_00 34:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:58

And again, smart but not as smart as he thinks he is, and he thinks they can manipulate this situation to a degree where it's like, let me send a trainee and kind of a newer crew, because and this is also the only film that's very much like it's Crawford versus Lecter to a degree. And it's the only film that I know that's like is very much played like that, where it's almost like this fight over Clarice's soul between the two of them, even though Crawford's trying to use Lecter through Clarice to get to Buffalo Bill. Like this is him trying to play the long game, not realizing that oh, wait a minute, my own protege is gonna kind of outsmart me to a degree by the end of this whole thing.

SPEAKER_03 35:39

Yeah, like I I don't think, you know, like the can like I said, I don't think the continued relationship with Hannibal was ever like part of his plan or expected. Um and you know, he definitely shows more like consideration and concern for Clarice as the movie goes on. Um, Crawford, I mean, you know, but that's like upon discovering that she was useful here. All right, so let's jump into some scenes. So here in the show, we do a segment called Scenic View. That's where we can jump around the movie, cover any scene we want, whether that is one of our favorites, something that just stands out, or something that backs up our original thesis from the overall takes. This is a bit unusual for us because usually we go in a circle and rattle off some scenes. All three of us have the same scene on our list today, so we might as well just start with that one. The scene we're gonna dig into first is Clarissa's first encounter with Hannibal, the cannibal lector.

SPEAKER_04 36:40

The movie already starts off strong, but this is like the scene where it's like, oh, this is like an all-time classic.

SPEAKER_03 36:47

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:48

Because every time, and I've seen this movie 30, 35, 40 times to the point where I joked with Anthony with seeing for you. I'm like, well, do you do we have five minutes or five hours? Because I think I literally talked about every scene of this movie in depth, like going forward. So let's figure we'll start with Hopkins. For a guy who and Anthony Hopkins, who is such a wonderful actor, who already had a wonderful performance as the outfit man before this, but he was always a guy that I feel like nobody knew quite what to do with him. Because, you know, usually in those days, what do you do with a stuffy British actor? Just put him in a costume, set him in a movie in the 19th to 20th century, and just have him be a stuffy British man. And that never quite worked for him. And then the second Clarice goes, you know, all the way up to him to that last cell, the build-up to him, just seeing him standing there just straight up at attention, like he was waiting for her, just a basic, you know, good morning, greeting. The fact that it's such a like again, Hopkins, famously British actor, I can't place his accent. Because it's that weird, like when a British person tries to do an accent and they're that got that little lilt to it.

SPEAKER_03 38:02

It's see, it's almost like transatlantic because I thought it's like this is an American accent where someone is like trying to come off as like very well educated. Yeah, I was getting a transatlantic vibe too. Yeah, where where does this come from? I'm gonna give that a quick Google. Hannibal Echter's accent is intended to be a cultivated international blend reflecting his Lithuanian birth, European upbringing in France, and long-term residence in the United States. So Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs used a precise mid-Atlantic draw with a raspy metallic quality, often described as part Catherine Hepburn, part Hell 9000.

SPEAKER_04 38:43

I love that.

SPEAKER_03 38:44

What do you think? Yeah, what do you think about that? Because like it sort of it reminds me of like someone told me one time that a good kick drum should sound like a raw steak hitting a pain glass window. And I'm like, Oh yeah, yeah, it does. Totally. And this is true. Like now that you say Catherine Hepper and Hell 9000, I'm like, huh. Weird.

SPEAKER_04 39:08

Accurate, weird. And it's also like the the buildup to Wector. You know, obviously, you know, again, Less Cell all the way down. We get a little bit more of those POV shots with Clarice looking past all the other inmates and just them getting just considerably you know crazier right up to Miggs, who's the you know, the the actual lunatic guy who you would think Lecter would be just based on the descriptions of him. And then you get to Lecter, and he's this very charming intellectual that you're still terrified of. At no point are you that sitting there going, man, I because that was always the the thing on the film where it's like, man, people just wanted to hang out with Lecter. I fucking wouldn't. I know for a fact, run from this guy, run immediately from this guy.

SPEAKER_03 39:57

Yeah, and that like that's a really great use of a horror trope, you know, where like you have that progression of like the crazier and crazier and crazier as you go down the hall and you can you feel like you know, the descent into hell, but then like you get to the end of it, and Lecter's room is the brightest room, it's the cleanest room, he's standing there, he's smiling, he says, Good morning, you know, like it it defies the expectation, but then like very quickly, you know, we see like the actual version of him, like what he really is. Like there's a part in this scene that stands out to me. Um, because like Migs says, you know, that he can smell Clarice, and uh Lecter says, I myself cannot. But then he like raises his nose to the glass, and the way that he smells is like nostrils wide open, but also his mouth a little open, which like if you have a dog, like that's how a dog smells the air when it's like about to chase after a squirrel or like you know, a a a shit in the park or whatever a dog wants to run after, you know. But like that's how like predatory animals smell the air. They do it with both their their uh nasal passages and their mouth to like taste the air. Yeah. Um and then it also you know responds with like what perfume she wears and what lotion, and like that's when you immediately see like, oh, you like this man is a predatory animal.

SPEAKER_02 41:32

Well, I think there's something also interesting too, as you had mentioned uh with the glass, there's a difference in the cells that they use too. All the other prisoners are behind regular iron bar prison cells and Hannibal Lecter is behind all glass. And you could infer that that glass is probably bulletproof as well, and everything in his cell is completely illuminated.

SPEAKER_01 42:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:06

Like they need to know where he is and they need to be able to see him at all times. And there's something that immediately paints a very different picture because you can see all of him when he's first introduced.

SPEAKER_04 42:20

Because also you you go to the preamble that Chilton gives uh Clarice with all the rules and whatnot, and you get the sense that for as long as he's been locked up, he's still there's been incidences like the time where he faked a heart attack and attacked the nurse, and that they're like, oh well, we saved, you know, they were able to reset her jaw and save one of her eyes, you know, but his heart rate didn't go, you know, above 85 when he's eating her tongue. So you get the sense of like it's been a slow progression of Lecter getting this kind of cell because there's been instances, I'm sure, where an iron bar cell can't hold him. He would find a way out of it.

SPEAKER_02 42:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:59

You know, he'd find ways to kind of manipulate things where now it's like, all right, we need to put this guy in the bowels of the hospital with all the other like psychopaths that we have that are completely untreatable. But he gets his own like setup because again, he's he's going to outwit us and he's going to get out. So we have to take every precaution to make sure he stays in here. And also, I want to jump ahead a little bit to the end of the scene and the aftermath of the scene when Miggs throws his, you know, ejaculant for lack of better term on Clarice, and you know, Lecter, even though he had a small falling out with Clarice at the end of the scene, comes back and is like, I that I would never have fucking done that shit. You know, because Lecter, above anything else, just hates impoliteness and rudeness and any sort of crassness. And the other thing, too, because then the next scene, after you know, all this has settled down, Clarice. Us a call from Crawford saying Miggs is dead. It's like, what do you mean he's dead? Well, Lecter pretty much just talked him into suicide, basically. The fact that this guy is such a nut that he could literally like so it's not just like we have to keep him contained, but it's also we have to keep everybody away from him because he can like talk you into doing shit.

SPEAKER_03 44:15

Yeah, and that's the thing with like the selection of Clarice. I mentioned um, like choosing someone with a mental fortitude. Um, I was actually connected with a documentary crew one time that was going out uh somewhere out west to shoot interviews with this woman who had a cult that what she would do was essentially therapy people into killing themselves. Right. So, like when they offered me that job, like they actually asked me very real questions about my, you know, mental health and and very, you know, very real things. And um, you know, they they hired a different crew out of LA. At least that's what I tell myself was that my mental health didn't get me disqualified from it. But the reason was because they needed people who were not going to be susceptible to her. Like you're gonna go in the room with this person who has done has talked people into killing themselves. Like you need to be resilient to that. Resilient or completely cynical. Yeah. And that's exactly, you know, part of like what Clarice is walking into. Like when they say you don't want a person like Hannibal Lecter inside your head, like it's not just that, you know, he can unlock handcuffs with like the clip from a ballpoint pen. You know, it's that he is also the smartest person in the room at any given point. And even after years of being held in this cage, like he's still got 110% of his wits about him. Like that is setting up like just how powerful of an adversary he is, not through just his strength, but through his intelligence.

SPEAKER_04 46:12

And not just the smartest guy in the room either, but the most perceptive. Because he can clock you as an individual, like it feels like just walking down a hallway. Like, while he won't know everything about you, he can deduce brilliantly, like way does with Clarice from you know that entire scene. You know, the you know, you know what I you know can tell from your good bag and your cheap shoes, you look like a rube. And he starts insulting her. You know, and just basically like you're only like a generation away from poor white trash. The accent you try to hide, you know, pure West Virginian was your father a cola. And he starts throwing the accent to her to almost like rub that salt in the window. Did he stink of the lamb?

SPEAKER_02 46:53

Which is a little fun fact about that scene, too. I saw an interview with Jody Foster talking about that. And apparently he did that to get under her skin in that scene, because Jody Foster spent um apparently a not insignificant amount of time working on that West Virginia accent that her character tries to like hide and cover up. So she's doing that scene, and apparently Anthony Hopkins just pulls that accent out with no preparation during a scene. And she was like, Yeah, it got under my skin.

SPEAKER_03 47:27

And that's why they won those shiny boys. I think I think that little tongue thing that he does too was like an improvised thing that, like, you know, the same thing. Like the reaction to it is genuine because it's just like so disgusting and unexpected.

SPEAKER_04 47:43

And he also orgasms a little bit at the end of it because it cuts away from him. But you hear the the the deep exhale after he does the tongue thing. And and it's again in a in a scene with so many great memorable lines of dialogue. Again, that's why people remember, you know, a census try to test me once. I ate his liver with some fob beans and a nice chianti. That's the one line that everybody goes back to.

SPEAKER_03 48:04

Yeah, I think because of um, yeah, I think like the sound design in this scene is pretty incredible as well. Like, just sort you mentioned like that little exhale at the end of his like tongue waggle. In this scene, and with any scene that he's in, like the sound of his breathing is used really well as like the it's literally the only emotion he shows is like a slight change in his breath. And it's so subtle, but I think it's just such a such a masterful way of like, you know, like in this one scene, we've seen his uh ability to control himself, and we've also seen a little bit of like the real animal sort of peek its head every once in a while.

SPEAKER_02 48:49

This is a brief aside. I try not to talk too much about like the actors themselves. I try to s as best I can to stick to like the character itself, but I I just don't think it can be stated enough just how brilliant Anthony Hopkins is as an actor. And how like not even once in a generation. This is like a once in an industry performance. This is like literally one of the one of, if not it's hard to say the greatest, but it really is truly one of the greatest performances in the history of the entire medium. Like when I think about these performances, like the three male performances I always seem to go back to are this, Jack Nicholson in Cuckoo's Nest, and Denzel Washington in Training Day. Like those are the three performances like I'm always thinking about because of just how pitch perfect they are. And I I really think it it yeah, stands a testimony it just in this one scene alone, just how brilliant Hawkins is.

SPEAKER_04 50:02

It's hard to push back on. I can I'm sure if I rack my brain for a minute, I've always said my favorite performance of all time was Val Kilmer and Tombstone playing Doc Holiday. That's always been my favorite performance, but that's a much more cartoon. I wouldn't say cartoonish, but that's a much more enjoyable performance because you're rooting for the guy actively. Yeah. With Lecter, you're trapped with Left Lecter. You don't necessarily want to be in the same room with Lecter, but you can't help but just be transfixed. And like I said, the the word to describe the scene and describe the performance is arresting. You feel uncomfortable, but you cannot look away. You are glued to your seat, literally. You cannot move whenever he's on screen in this film.

SPEAKER_02 50:45

The irony of his performance is that he's the one locked behind bars for the majority of the film, but you're the one that's the captive every time he's on screen.

SPEAKER_04 50:56

And to jump not to jump ahead, but it's terrifying when he gets out. You're in the same position as all the police chasing after him in that scene during the breakout where you're just like, oh fuck me, now you're telling me that guy's in the wild.

SPEAKER_03 51:08

Yeah, and that like that's sort of why I keep referring to him as like a predatory animal. Like, because the other thing about this is how much they keep him in the close-up, right? Like, there's so many shots. I I would say most of the shots of him in the movie, like with him and Clarice, it is just him looking straight into camera, like he's looking into your soul, right? And like it makes me think of like wildcats, right? Where like, you know, you stare into their eyes. The moment that you turn your head, they see the back of your head, they attack. Right. So you have like predator and prey in unbreaking eye contact with uh e with each other. And like Hopkins, you know, you say like an actor you don't know what to do with, like, his look is perfect. He's like got this ability to speak softly and politely, but then like have this look in his eyes that's completely cold and like laser focused on whatever he's studying.

SPEAKER_02 52:14

There's something else I found interesting too. This is a subtle detail. One of the really interesting small details I found about him is that he's got his hair slicked back, too. But he's very obviously covering a bald spot on the back of his head, and it shows that he's he is still in some capacity a human being. He's not this ethereal, eldritch terror in human form. And it's something that you don't see as often today in movies because everyone's on like or what feels like uh everyone's on like finastricide and Ozempic.

SPEAKER_04 52:48

I get that, because he looks like a person.

SPEAKER_02 52:50

And that's what's most horrifying of all.

SPEAKER_03 52:52

Yeah, I mean, like I'm, you know, really into true crime and serial killers and stuff. Like I listen to true crime podcasts all the time. Um, and you know, like that is in like an incredibly realistic take. Like the scariest serial killers are the people that's like it just looks like a regular dude, just like some dad from the suburbs. Um, and like you definitely do get that. Like he seems so mild-mannered and polite that like when you do make that mental connection between like the man in front of you and like what he is accused of doing um is stark. And like there, you know, there's a scene a little bit later, um, where Clarice is like studying his crimes and like she's looking at microfiche, and there's one thing about Anthony Zaccone, I love a microfiche. I I stopped on every frame of that and like read the articles, and like the um most of those newspaper articles are boilerplate, just copy-paste, completely nonsensical words. Um, but they each have like about one paragraph, and like one of the things that it's too fast to read is like Hannibal would would like cook his victims and serve them at parties, and like a local senator was in attendance at the party, and like all these, you know, famous people he was connected to or eating his victims with him. Um yeah, so like if you look into that like a little bit, or like you you see like Clarice being like uh shocked to connect like the crimes accused to the man that she just met.

SPEAKER_02 54:39

It's also on the subject of being a normal person as a real brief aside, um, there's an interesting parallel that I found with that, uh, with the Korean film Memories of Murder, Bong Jun-ho's second film, because there is a line, and spoilers for those who haven't seen Memories of Murder, when you get to the end of the film, um, they talk about who the serial killer is because they don't they don't catch him, but some kids see somebody who comes back to the scene of the crime and the main character is like, well, what did he look like? And the kids say, he looked very ordinary. He looked like anybody. And you realize just like how scary that is that this could just be anybody. And like Hannibal Lecter, under any other circumstances, is just another person you'd come across in life.

SPEAKER_03 55:30

Totally. I mean, there's a scene, the the Buffalo Bill scene where he's loading the couch into the back of the van and uh like captures Kathy, like that is literally pulled right from Ted Bundy. Like the way that he used to kidnap women was he would um put on a like an armcast or use a like a crutch or something and carry a big stack of books and ask a young woman, like, hey, can you help me put these books into my car? And then when they open the trunk for him, he pushes them in the trunk, he throws the crutch in after him, and he drives him off to wherever the hell he goes. But yeah, like that was something pulled right from the headlines. And like one of you know the things people say about Bundy was like he was such a charming and handsome guy.

SPEAKER_04 56:18

Which I never got. I never got every picture I see of of Bundy. I'm like, that fucking guy's handsome.

SPEAKER_03 56:23

Like, you know, 70s handsome, I guess, I guess.

SPEAKER_04 56:26

Yeah where it's like where everybody just like has something boiled for dinner every night and is like breathing as asbestos and yeah, they only they only just got pineapple imported and they don't know what to do with it yet.

SPEAKER_03 56:39

So they're putting it in jello and shit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 56:43

To jump now to to Buffalo Bill a little bit. Bill seems like an amalgamation of like a lot, not just like again, Bundy is a big one. Um maybe not Dahmer as much. Ed Gain is the the big one though. Yeah, Ed Geen is absolutely the big one, right down to you know, fashioning. I don't think I don't Gane fashioned like furniture and like lampshades and like curtains with human skin, but I'm not sure. Did he make a human suit?

SPEAKER_03 57:14

I mean, he was a tinker and a tailor, you know, like w why lock yourself into one discipline? Sewing is sewing, and sewing was his life.

SPEAKER_04 57:24

Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_03 57:25

Yeah, I think Ed Gean did uh you know occasionally like wear some faces. The the major difference between uh Buffalo Bill and Ed Gean was um Gean, as far as anyone knows, only killed one person. Um but the the woman in the bathtub, I think, is also sort of a tie-in to Ed Gean or um Psycho for for that matter, you know, like the the mom's course up corpse upstairs. Um although I don't think it's I don't think it's supposed to be Bill's mom.

SPEAKER_04 57:57

Obviously, I did Psycho with Andrew a while back. We're doing Silent Slams now. We need to still do the last film of the Ed Gean trilogy, which is Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which is the middle one of like great great American films that Ed Dean inspired.

SPEAKER_03 58:13

You know what? Maybe I think um maybe we got our next um Christmas special, Cannibal Christmas. John, why don't we go with you? Like, what's a scene that we didn't all pick?

SPEAKER_02 58:26

Yeah. Well, uh, I think it's probably hard considering how uh universal this film is. For me, the main scene that you know stood out to me. I mean, it I think there's two. One is kind of a sub it's like a sub-scene. Um, the first one that I want to dive into is the Silence of the Lambs scene.

SPEAKER_03 58:50

Okay. Actually, you know what? That was on my list too, for a very specific reason. But yeah, jump into it. We'll we'll get there.

SPEAKER_02 58:57

Yeah, so I mean, I think that this scene in particular, it's it's the scene where we start to learn what the title of the film is about, but I think it's also the scene too where we see just how desperate Starling is because at this point, she completely opens up to Lecter. And we see just how manipulative he is. Like the mask truly comes off here with the way that Demi directs it. But there's yeah, there's just something to me that's just so haunting about this scene and how in control Lector is. Like, time is ticking, and Clarice Starling isn't even technically on the case anymore. And he is still playing games, and she says, This is the only way that I can get what I need.

SPEAKER_04 59:50

Yeah. It's funny because that's the culmination of their relationship, Clarice and Lecter. And in the scene beforehand that they shared when with the fake FBI offer of like, well, we're gonna send you to like a store maximum security place, but like you'll get like basically leaves and you can be able to like kind of function, you'll get your review, you'll get to like birdwash, you'll get to throw them in the ocean. But there's something else that Lecter wants. And because you feel like Lecter was, you know, a psychiatrist. He was somebody that like, you know, was very good at reading people, and he hasn't gotten to do that that often. I feel like there's only so much you can evaluate Chilton. I'm sure there's other orderlies and other people in the hospital that he's evaluated, but now Clarice is some fresh meat for him. So what he looks forward to with her the most is I want to basically psychevaluate you, which is why it starts in that scene where he starts to prod and all that stuff, and it culminates here where it's like, no, you don't get it. I want to be inside your head. This is my reward, you know, for helping you guys out. So in this, that's the moment where, like, all right, Clarice is desperate enough to where she's like, I will subject myself fully to you if you give me Buffalo Bill's identification. But that's also the moment where everything kind of climaxes to the point where, you know, the the title is not dropped verbatim, but we understand the title in full and what that memory that drives Clarice is.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:27

I think that you're spot on there with like why it is that he's asking Clarice for this. Like, you know, he pitches it as a quid pro quo, like, I give you something you want, I get something I want. And what he wants is to know about her. But the more he learns, like we've talked, you know, throughout the movie, like the more he learns, the more it does seem like he actually does have some amount of respect for her. And like, yeah, like maybe the thing that he genuinely wants, maybe this is the human element of him showing through, is that he wants a human connection. And there's like a very small couple of frames moment that makes me think this, which is that when Clarice is getting dragged out and Lecter has her case files, he sticks his hand through the bars. And we know that if he tries to hand you anything, you're not supposed to take it. Because, like, we know that in a moment he could have pulled her arm through the bars and bit her, you know, straight into the, you know, the veins if he wanted to. But he doesn't. He she runs over, she breaks protocol, grabs the case file out of his hands, and we see just for a second his finger flick across her finger for just the littlest bit of human contact. And like, and everything up until this point has been saying that if you do this with him, you are putting yourself into danger. And I don't know, that little transaction really stuck with me. Like the second watch, it was one of the things that I went back and re-watched a couple times, partly because I was a little confused how he gets the piece of the pen that he uses to undo his handcuffs a few minutes later. I thought maybe he pulled, like he lifted something off of Clarice. But no, he just wanted to give her just a little swipe, just be like, there you are, you know, and send her on her way.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:27

And to go off of that as well, with how often the male gaze or the the view of Clarice and women in the film through the perspective of men and how predatory both like Buffalo Bill is and also how much of a predator Hannibal Lecter is. What's interesting to me in that scene in particular is that Hannibal Lecter is the only man in the film who doesn't look at her as a woman but as an equal. Like all the other times, even in Crawford's office, when we're first introduced to Crawford, there's something about the POV shots that we're not quite sure what's here. Like there's a power imbalance between Crawford and Starling. And you don't quite know, like, and eve and even Lecter deduces this in the first scene. It's like, you think he wants to fuck you? And he puts that into her head. But you never get that with Hannibal Lecter. You truly get just a like, he is psychoanalyzing her all the way, but he is the only one who's really looking at her like a person first and foremost.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:49

Yeah, and there's a similar moment with Crawford um towards the end of the film, like after uh Buffalo Bill is killed um and Starling graduates from the academy, she reaches out for a handshake to Crawford and he sort of looks at it like almost like he's disappointed. But then when he goes in for the handshake and you like you get a close-up of their hands coming together, and you can see that the way that he touches her hand is like a little, a little weird and like fondly, you know. And I feel like that is something that like when you cut to Clarice right after that, and you know, you see like the way that she's interpreting the situation, like to me it came off like her realizing, oh fuck, Hannibal was right. You know, like even this guy who has given me every opportunity up until this point had like some ulterior motive in mind. And like, you know, that might be why she doesn't end up going to work for him at the end. You know, like it it's become clear that, you know, even The people that she wanted to respect were disrespecting her. The only respect that she got was from the psycho cannibal.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:08

And that is why I really think that this scene is like the most pivotal scene in the film because it is bringing everything together.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:14

Yeah. And that does definitely fit your argument, Adam, of like trying to find logic in an illogical world. Like, what world is more illogical than like the only guy who gives you a break is locked into locked in a mental hospital for cannibalism. You just can't find a good man these days.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:44

But the only two male characters in the film that are in a weird way asexual are Lecter and Buffalo Bill. Like Bill, who's a again, a serial killer and specifically kills women, but has no interest in them sexually. Lector is the only character that sees Clarice as an equal, not as a conquest. Like it feels like every other male character in the film looks at Clarice.

unknown 1:07:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:10

It's funny to think about from that parallel perspective of the two guys are not leering creeps or the two guys are like mass murderers, essentially.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:19

And even then, I'd still argue that there is something about Buffalo Bill that is different than Hannibal Lecter because when we get that POV sequence in uh in the basement with the night vision, that's a very predatory sequence. And he like reaches out and tries to touch her, like he wants to touch her because he sees her as something that he wants. Like he might be able to, like, she's not the size 14 that he's usually looking for, but she's still a woman, and he can still use parts of her.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:01

Yeah, might be able to get some good socks at least. Yeah. Um, yeah, I mean, that scene was on my list if we want to like really jump into this one.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:09

Yeah, I mean, and that was kind of the sub the sub scene that I mentioned that I wanted to talk about too.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:13

Yeah, because you're right, like it's it's a predatory scene and a different kind of predator. Like he's uh using night vision goggles, which for him and his characterization as like the moth man, you know, is that is very fitting for uh for that character.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:32

Um and you know, floating towards the dark, and like right before that we see a a moth bonking into a light bulb, and then like the next thing is is this scene right after. And it's like a great juxtaposition of like, you know, the animal and the imitator.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:49

It's almost like it's a weird way, like he's in that moment, he's hesitating. Because but that's also the one key difference, I think, between Lector and Buffalo Bill is the self-loathing.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:00

To a degree, where you look at Lector is a very confident person, or arrogant, bordering on. Where there's still a intelligence to Bill, but there's a crippling self-loathing that is stopping him. So when he's reaching out for Clarice and he's hesitating, it's like, do am I worthy of this?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:20

If you're gonna make a comparison to like animals, for example, I would they're both calculated in their own ways, but Hannibal Lecter is very much like an apex predator. He's very much like the predator at the top of the food chain because he is meticulous, he's methodical. But Buffalo Bill, while meticulous in some of his own ways, he is far more feral. He lets animal impulses control him. Like I I really do think that if Clarice Starling wasn't a woman, he would have just shot her immediately if she was just if she was a man, you know, if she was Kyle McLaughlin in Twin Peaks showing up instead of her because he covets women, because he tries to touch her.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:09

Yeah, I mean, you were like we're talking about animal instinct here, like, you know, and again, like I said, right before this, we see the moth bonking into a light bulb, which is like the the thing is that like moths are attracted to light, they're attracted to the sun, but artificial light makes them uh show up just the same. Like they can't tell the difference. So, you know, like we see like we're we see him sort of like fluttering around Clarice and like playing with her, and you know, like maybe he thinks she's the light bulb and it turns out that she's the bug zapper.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:48

The obvious one is Lecter's Escape, which is obviously John that the scene the Amulus is the the ending of that, but the when all the cops come in and there's you know Charles Napier essentially crucified on top with his bells hanging out and this really like a shocking image. And it's still really the only time the film like goes there. The ones that I was thinking about, there's one scene that's a like not again, not really a scene, but it's a transitional bit. It's the first time we see Buffalo Bill's lair, and it's a very well-stooted waner where it goes from the moth's nest of all the moths he's been kind of growing and raising, goes over to Bill kind of sitting at his sewing kit naked, sewing his, you know, his woman's suit, and then we go to the room where there's the pit, and we hear Kathy down, you know, screaming for help. And that whole layout, I have a very big affinity for kind of these cheesy carnival dark house horror haunted house rides. And in a weird way, it felt like I was going through one of those. Obviously, a little bit more grotesque than they usually would be. Those risers are a little bit cheesier. But you get everything about the space, which is the what a a good wonder should do. It's a very again, spatial geography and laying out what this guy's layer is looking like. But it's unnerving because oh my god, like it's there's again, just all of that scene is unnerving from the the sound design of Kathy screaming from down the pit to just the the mundanity of Bill just sitting behind the sewing kit completely fucking naked as he's you know doing his thing. To even the presentation of the moths and like them feeling so out of place.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:38

Yeah, and then they're that like fish tank that's got just like human parts in it for some reason.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:43

The other part is the other memeified scene involving Bill, which is you know, it puts a lotion on his skin or else gets the hose again. And the one shot at the end of it that was kind of foreshadowed earlier when they're doing the autopsy of Miss West Virginia, and Clarice notices that there's fingernails missing because she's trying to climb up something. And after Kathy listens to Bill and you know moisturizes her skin, and you know, again, you get the the famous line, the other famous line from the film, and she's looking up and seeing all the blood, and then she notices the fingernail and you you punch and she just starts freaking the fuck out. And that probably being for me the scariest scene of the film is just it's again a little like punch into this fingernail again, not a finger, not any kind of like larger body part, just a fingernail stuck in a fucking like and her realization of oh, I'm not the only one that he's done this to.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:46

And it's that realization that she's gonna die.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:48

And that for me is that's the scene that kind of put it over the top of like, there is no debate, this is a horror film. Again, it's not a grotesque horror film. It definitely weighs more in the psychological than the grotesque, but it's still very much a horror film.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:01

That's definitely the point of no return for it being a horror film. I think for me, it always turns into a horror film uh when she finds the severed head in the storage locker. That that for me is always the turn where I'm like, okay, we're playing with horror convention here.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:19

Um speaking of artist's intention, that uh that scene where Hannibal um strings up the gutted detective and creates a little sculpture. What do you what do you guys think his uh intention was there?

SPEAKER_04 1:14:32

To freak the fuck out of people.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:35

What message like specifically, what message do you think he's trying to send? I want to know. Let's dig into some more uh some serial killer psychology.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:43

You know, it's in a weird sort of way. I mean, he the way he's strung up, he's strung up with his arms outstretched and the American, the red, white, and blue banners going out. They do almost they do look wing-like. Yeah. In a weird sort of way. It's like, okay, so we're playing with the moth thing here as well. But I think the flip side too is that Hannibal Lecter is he is very theatrical. Yeah. He he very much does get a rise, and I know this is not horror, but he clearly gets a rise out of being sassy. Yeah, he's a catty bitch. Like when he when he fucks with the senator and then gives them what they want to say, to still say, like, hey, I'm in control here. Make no mistake. But then as she's walking away and he just goes, Oh, and Senator, love the suit. Yeah. I laugh every time it's just so it's so out there, but you realize, like, oh, this guy's got a sassy side.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:57

The whole bit of that scene of like, you know, did you did you breastfree Catherine? And and her reaction in this really, because they all all the feds know like he's fucking with her. But the moment that she has that one genuine moment of like, yes, yes, I did. What does it mean?

SPEAKER_02 1:16:12

And I'm just Yeah, and then he just yeah, yeah, brings up phantom pain.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:17

Yeah, it's like, what what part of your body will tingle your baby girl's on the slab? It's like he can't help himself though. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:24

Where it's just like he just can't, it's like, I'm gonna f and then the second that she's like about to renege on the deal is when he's like, oh fuck. That's the moment where the one time where he kind of like spills everything out, it's just like, all right, now just let me give you what you're doing.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:37

He knows just how far to push it, but even then he's still fucking with her with the Lewis friend clue. Yeah. Um, the the sculpture though, like I think John, you're like you were getting to it, but then you strayed onto that moth. I think like when you first see it, it's through a frosted glass window, and it looks like the silhouette of a dove because it's backlit by like that smoky white light. Um, like there's haze in the air in that scene. And so, like you see like a bird flying out of a cage through that window, and then they open it up, and what is it? The failing of the American criminal justice system strung up for all to see. I'm telling you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:24

Artist. Hey, you know what? We should have we should have seen that coming. Because what does he have all over his cell when we first meet him? He's got drawings. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:36

Man's an artist.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:37

And one of which is a bit of foreshadowing. Because Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:40

I know we're not talking about the show, but like the show really gets into that for other reasons. Because, like, in terms of like films or shows about food, like there's like films that love food, and then there's films that hate food. Like, Chef is a film that loves food. It really revels in like the preparation of delicious food. The bear is like that. Um, on the other side is like the menu. Like, you never see good food being prepared except at the end, or that Bradley Cooper movie Burned or whatever the fuck it is. Oh, yeah. Like it's a movie about food, but like his it, of course, it's Bradley Cooper. It's all about, it's all about him. The Hannibal TV show is one of those shows that really revels in the preparation of the food. Um, the production designer has a whole blog about it that you can look up of like designing like Michelin quality. Like the character of Hannibal is portrayed as like a master chef. So you watch these things and it like in a way it makes you hungry, but then you remember like what it is that he's cooking. And it like it's one of the things that's just brilliant about that uh that show. And I know we're not talking about that, but I do want to. Every interpretation of mentioning he is an artist.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:05

Yeah, it's and again to go to backtrack to the first scene where he's you know literally smelling Clarice's, you know, skin cream and her perfume. It's not just like they does it like a dog, does it like a Somalier. Like almost like he's he's he's opening a bottle of wine and he's smelling it and just trying to, you know, take in the talons.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:27

Yeah, smelling the cork. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:30

But that's to your point, the the artistry of it all and trying to figure out what it means, and it's easy for you to kind of take that scene as a scene where it goes to full tilt horror, you know, because there's a chase and there's disfigured bodies, and there's one guy who's seemingly on the floor dying, that you know, that the head of the cops is like begging, like, just talk to him, god damn it, like keep him alive. And it's the one time though, that scene where it's things in movies that usually don't get portrayed. Where you see the cops being genuinely terrified, like to the point there's one cop that like looks up at you know Charles Napier who's strung out and he has to take literally take a seat and like oh my god, and you have the one cop who's like frantically like, where's my goddamn ambulance? And the the weight of everything in that scene, which you never get. Because usually in any procedural television or film, again, the keyword there is procedural. It's very much a here's what it is, we have to do X, Y, and Z to achieve the thing. There's no human moments of like sitting down and like all the people in that room are gonna be fucked up beyond belief for the rest of their lives, having witnessed this horrific thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:47

Well, and something else I found interesting too, like you said, going off of how human all of these characters feel, a little detail I clocked on my most recent viewing is when they are going up the stairs to lectors and they're all sweating. And you know they didn't make those actors run up six flights of stairs. Like, you know that a makeup stylist was like, okay, yeah, they're going up these stairs and also like the high stress of the situation. Like, these people would be sweating. And it's a detail that like I see modern movies do it, but I don't see it as much. But it's just like to take that time to be like, yeah, no, these characters would be sweating bullets right now in this situation.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:44

And then they come in, it's just like another way to put in a little human detail that otherwise like or the cop that has to the cop that has to sit down as soon as he sees the crime, you know. Like it's just full of the like very real, very real moments. Like the the film is beautifully textured in that way. There's not a there's not a frame in it that I don't buy.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:06

And that's again the the horror of it all. And I I listened to something on the Criterion Disc about like the transit our obsession with true crime and the this film kind of spawning that to a degree. Because a lot of the monsters that we have, and I'm talking as the biggest universal monsters guy there is Love Hammer, love all those cycles, but you know, nobody's saying like that they're afraid of vampires anymore. You know, ghosts are more of a whether or not you believe in the afterlife, but there's no like murder element to ghosts, at least that's sort of the spawn commentator said. But people are terrified of serial killers because serial killers exist. They walk among us, we don't know who they are. There is a mystery element of them and therefore an obsession element because hey, it's it's the old urban town legend of that happened three doors away from me that they found a bunch of kids in the crawl.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:59

Smell like a zombie or a vampire or a werewolf, like, oh no, they're out there.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:02

Well, it's also the idea, too, that we are still living in the animal kingdom. And you could walk out the door to your house tomorrow, today, and get kidnapped and put in this same exact situation by a predator. Because at the end of the day, we are still classified in some capacity as animals, as mammals, and we are at the top of the food chain. We have social order and social contracts that we've all agreed to, but nonetheless, there are animal predators out there. And that's the scary thing about serial killers and true crime. We all just walk outside and we don't think about it that much. But then when you walk outside somewhere and everything feels off.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:54

Yeah, and we are the most dangerous predators there are. I mean, this is, you know, the the man versus bear question, you know, ask women, would you rather be in the woods the man or a bear? They all answer the bear. You know, like the thing that makes us more dangerous is like the ability to plan and plot and like anticipate um, you know, different scenarios. So like to think that a person like Hannibal Lecter, who is like, you know, 20 chess moves ahead of anybody at any point and has this animalistic predate, you know, uh predation, like that is terrifying. Like the like the last frame of this movie, to me, it's scary. You know, it leaves on such a horrifying implication of that guy out in the world. And we know that Hannibal has like a code of ethics to some degree, you know. Like I don't think he's ever been, you know, like a a kill the innocent. The most innocent people that he kills are typically just people who were rude to him. Um, which, you know, that's not the most fair thing to, you know, be judge, jury, and executioner over a uh census taker. Yeah. Speaking of the last frame. Yeah, so why don't we get into the closing images? John, why don't you walk us through uh those closing beats of the film?

SPEAKER_02 1:25:20

Buffalo Bill is dead, and Catherine Martin is saved. Clarice Starling is inducted into the FBI as an official agent. She's congratulated by Crawford, and she celebrates with friends, but not for long, as she's notified that she has a phone call. She answers the phone away from the celebrations and is greeted by an all-too familiar voice. Well, Clarice, have the lambs stopped screaming? Clarice asks where Hannibal Lecter is. I have no plans to call on you, Clarice. The world is more interesting with you in it. So you take care now to extend me the same courtesy. They exchange a few more words before Lecter cuts the call short. I do wish we could chat longer. Dr. Chilton steps off a small plane in what appears to be Haiti. I'm having an old friend for dinner. Starling attempts to keep Lecter on the line. Bye. Lector hangs up the phone. Clarice repeatedly calls out to Lecter to no avail as people from the party walk past her, oblivious to what has just occurred in her world. Lector stalks Chilton as he disappears into the crowd. The credits roll.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:27

Dr. Lecter? Dr. Lecter, what did you mean by that? What do you mean by have a friend for dinner? You mean you're coming to visit, right? What do you mean? He's having a friend for dinner. Oh god. What do you mean, Dr. Lecter? The crazy thing about this too is that that scene of him in pursuit of Dr. Chilton lasts the whole credits. They just rolled, I don't know how much money in film on that bad boy to just like watch him, you know, like following and following and following the doctor until, you know, inevitably there's no other people around to see what he does.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:03

I mean, how many rolls of how many feet of film was in a mag for a 35 millimeter camera at the time? I don't know. I mean, probably a thousand feet.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:12

That's a lot of film, baby. But that's also like, you know, you used to have shots like that literally walking into the sunset as a criteria for all. In this case, it's not so much a sunset, it's a literally a lion stalking its dinner.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:26

Yeah. And again, like that implication of like, you know, the predators are still out there, you know, which is like why it's, you know, that question that he poses to Clarice, you know, the lamb stop screaming, is uh, I don't want to say sarcastic, but like he's asking her, and I think, you know, he knows the answer. Like by knowing that he's out there in the world, I don't think the lambs are gonna stop screaming yet.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:52

It's this rhetorical question. Because I not even just because of him, because now she's a full fledged agent. Now the training wheels are Off. And there are people like Lecter out there, but it's not just gonna be Lecter, because I think Lecter is true to his word, you know, at least until the sequel. Essentially, he's like, Yeah, I'm I like you, Clarice. I don't want to do anything to you. Like, just I'm gonna be in my own little corner of the world doing whatever I'm gonna be doing, just don't go after me. And of course, she's like, I'm a law enforcement official, I should be going after you.

unknown 1:28:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:24

He's like, and then, you know, the the day I'm obvious scene is, you know, I'm having an old friend for dinner. The guy was probably the rudest to him, like that anybody's ever been throughout his entire life. Now he's free, and it's clear that Chilton's running from Lecter. That's why he's in Haiti.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:39

You think that's it? I was wondering why Haiti. Like it seemed like maybe he was on some type of like humanitarian mission or some something like that. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:51

Yeah, some way to cheat on his taxes, probably.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:53

I took it as he's looking, because he if you look at him throughout that entire sequence, like he's clearly looking over his shoulder as he's getting off the plane. Because that was always my implication was if the if the the law of fuck around and find out applies to anyone, it's Chelton. He fucked around a whole lot, and now he's like, because I I again, and I'm part of the problem because you know this is how we you know process media now, as far as like wanting to see more of the story. I would love to see that cutscene where they tell Chelton, hey, so uh Lecter escaped and watching his pants fill with urine instantly upon that that news breaking. Again, I love this last sequence, but does the the shitty thing that we look at now as franchise building, even if that's not the intent of the filmmaker. Where and why my to bring this back to my first exposure to Hannibal Lecter, probably why my father got so psyched at the idea of a Sonic Land sequel. Because this ending very much sets up and the saga is going to continue. Lecter's out there, Clyris is now a full-fledged agent. This can go on and on forever and ever, even though the story that's not the intent. This is a closed-off story. This is a logical ending point.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:07

That is interesting that you bring that up because it for me it felt very definitive. And I wonder if we're looking at that through the lens of our contemporary experience, because we have seen that ending applied so many times now for world building and sequeling, because if you're not making a sequel, you're not getting money for your movie. Yeah. So I I I am curious how novel this ending was at the time. Because I do agree with you, it does it, it can be made to be a world building, like, oh, tune in for the next one. But yeah, this really felt like a pretty definitive ending to me. It's like Hannibal Lecter's out there, Clarice Starling is now a new FBI agent, and the game is gonna go on forever.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:59

So I am curious how much of this is an interpretation based on our contemporary experience.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:05

I'll second that and I'll say that I think it is on my end because I've seen way too many movies and know unfortunately how the sausage is made to some degree. But yeah, I'm I'm fairly certain because they literally, after this movie hit and won everything, there was no other novel. And somebody, maybe Dio de Laurentis, maybe some other executive, went to Thomas Harris and said, You're gonna write another book, right? And he's like, Uh, I don't plan to. It's like, here's a boatload of money, go write another book, and we're gonna turn that book into a movie. And it shows the same deal with Jurassic Park. Jurassic Park, massive hit. Hey Michael Crichton, can we write another book? I can. Everybody's dead. Unkill a character, write another book.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:54

Here's a fat bag of money, and I'm holding a gun. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:57

Well well do it. I'll tell you what, that stupid show you have about your medical diaries will green light that. And then that's how ER happened, I guess. But it but that's what happened.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:12

That's funny.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:12

You know, you you go like, hey, this was a massive hit, and there's obviously I think Hannibal came out in 01. And I remember hearing again another story of they sent Demi a copy of the book to be like, hey, you're in for the sequel, right? And Demi, who was again a very magnanimous director who knew, hey, this was my biggest success, I should come back. Allegedly, he read the book and was so disgusted by the ending, he threw his copy of the book against the wall after reading it and saying, No, I'm not doing this. And this was the book after Silence of the Lands. The book Hannibal. And Jodie Foster had a similar reaction because of what they did to Clarice in that film, which is why Julianne Moore plays Clarice and Hannibal. Right. Because Jodie Foster's like, I'm not doing this. And again, though, because this was meant to be a self-contained thing. While John, I think it was still a novel ending at the time, it was quickly duplicated because you get the sense that even with the definitive close-off story, it's like, yeah, but we can interpret a little bit of an open ending. What happened afterwards?

SPEAKER_03 1:33:16

Yeah, I'll tell you what I want to know. He's in Haiti. How'd he cook Chilton? Maybe some some grio, some tasso? Like a like a Chilton Buchanan. Well, I'd tell you one thing. He's gonna be cooked spicy. Put some stotch bonnet on that bad boy.

unknown 1:33:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:34

Are we ready to round this though?

SPEAKER_02 1:33:36

Let's let's wrap this up. Yeah, so let's um yeah, let's talk about the legacy a little bit before we go.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:41

There's something that I want to address with Bill. Um, and it's obviously the controversy surrounding the film.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:49

Yeah, I was gonna say, let's talk about that.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:51

Let's talk about that. All right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:53

This is first and foremost a media literacy podcast. And it's important for us to talk about beyond just what the scene means, but also talk about filmmaker intention and consequences, whether intended or not.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:09

Yes. Sure. And I wanted to use that through not a scene per se, but for lack of a better term, a meme, I guess is the best way of describing it. And that's the Goodbye Horses sequence. Which is not even again, like I said, it's not even really a scene because it's just it's you're cross-cutting between Bill putting on his his woman's suit for lack of a better term and kind of dancing around to a song Goodbye Horses, while Kathy is down the pit trying to lure Bill's dog Precious down so she can get some leverage against him to cut try to get out, otherwise she's gonna do something terrible to that dog. And yeah, Demi is always has always been credited as a very empathetic director, a very humanist director. And he's one of those few guys that like nobody ever said a bad word about him. So you can imagine a guy like that with that kind of deep well of feeling having a major controversy attached to a film he made where he was made out to have belittled an entire class of people. And it again it weighed on so much that his next film was actually a film about positive LGBTQ representation in Philadelphia. Now, the film goes out of its way to be like, listen, Bill is not trans. He thinks he might be trans. He just has this degree of self-loathing that he wants to transform into something else. That's a very big recurring theme of Thomas Harris's work. You know, Dollar Hyde and Red Dragon wants to transform into something else beside himself. Obviously, Buffalo Bill is somebody who wants to transform into something beyond himself. If that thing was he wanted to transform into a raging animal like the Red Dragon in the previous novel, maybe it wouldn't be as such. But the fact that he's so convinced that like what's up with me is clearly I was born in the wrong body and I want to ascend that body basically. Ascend out of that form and into something else, which is very much a part of you know trans being. Even if it's not directed to the point where again, there's state he's tried to get gender reassignment surgery and was deemed like you're not trans though. But you also have to remember this too. It's 1990, this film was shot in 1991 where it comes out. And again, you're reading a lot into the film where it's like, well, who made that determination and is he or isn't he? I don't think he is, question mark, because I think it could be he just wants to be somebody other than himself. If he could transform into a moth literally, I think that would be an easier answer for him. But the only answer that he has in his mind is, well, clearly if I become a literal other person, if I be transition from man to woman, I'll find a bit of solace.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:01

It is um I don't want to say it's it's tricky to talk about. I did more digging into because I know that if you know I'm picking this film as a film I want to watch and the thing I found interesting was that every time I watched Silence of the Lambs, it never crossed my mind that Buffalo Bill was trans.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:23

Like I always thought very much that I'm like, oh, nope, he's not. They said he's not. And there we go. And the the So I ended up actually watching um I ended up watching a documentary on trans representation in in media called Disclosure. And it was it was very enlightening because uh yeah, uh for a lot of trans people during that period, the mainstream recognition of trans people, Buffalo Bill was basically the only thing that they had. And you realize, like, oh shit, this is not good because like we said, this is a media literacy podcast. Apparently, a lot of people missed the mark here. But simultaneously, the things that they used to classify that Buffalo Bill is not trans, like you would have a lot of hospitals back then that would have rejected them for similar reasons, even though they would have been perfectly valid candidates for reassignment. And so there is a thing with like the medical community at the time being more oppressive. And, you know, you question like, okay, well, how many people were rightfully deserving of transition that were genuinely trans, and the medical community just said no for reasons XYZ? And even the way that law enforcement would classify like psychological evaluations, I think, including the FBI, I think it wasn't until 2013 that they changed a lot of their distinctions with this.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:06

When was this a scandal? Was it from the moment that it showed up, or is it something that we consider scandalous in hindsight?

SPEAKER_04 1:39:14

No, it was a scandal when it came out when the film came out. I think it was pretty apparent when it came out. And I think a lot of that stemmed from the novel as well. Yeah. But the reason I'll I'll I'll say why there was a scandal despite the filmmakers pushing back, and I'm I know some members of the trans community have defended this film going forward. I think it's look, you have to remember this too. It wasn't just like trans as serial killers, though there are two famous examples of misreadings as well, which was Psycho and Dress to Kill, Brian DePaul's Dress to Kill. The other representation that trans people usually had was the the cheeky comedy where, oh my god, I accidentally kissed a guy. Like that was the other. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:03

That was Ace Ventura.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:05

Yeah, Einhorn is a man. Anger management.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:08

We could we could dig through movies like that all day. Yeah. Or like I I would say one of the worst ones I've personally seen is Sleepaway Camp. Boys are problematic. It's a horrifying ending for so many reasons.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:23

There's other movies where like it's played for jokes that I almost feel like is more egregious. And like the reason I asked about when was it a scandal is like, you know, sort of touching a little on what John said, like back then, like this was 1991. Like the internet being in everybody's home wasn't a thing. Trans people were not visible in every community. I'm not going to say they weren't in every community because like the odds are there was somebody, you know, it's not like they weren't there. It's just we saw them a whole lot less because it was harder to see anyone who wasn't just like in your daily life that you interacted with. And once social media took off, like, you know, we have so many more conversations about trans rights and visibility since social media simply because there's more visibility. So some person in Bumblefuck Ohio is like, I don't want them to vote. That's I'm not an I Ohio accent, but um, you know, like what does it even mean to you? Like there's nobody in, you know, this town that like you even know that is trans, right? Yeah. So like now, modern view, like watching this, like, oh, you know, I like I have trans friends, I have a trans cousin. You know, like watching it, it like it never occurred to me that this person was like supposed to legitimately be a depiction of a trans person, but like for 1991 when Pickens were slim, like you can 100% pee see why people would be like, uh, this again, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:00

I'm hoping to God that a trans person comes out and pushes back on what I'm about to say because I don't know what I'm talking about. As far as the controversy itself, I think the controversy itself was less about the filmmakers' intention and more how illiterate they knew the American people to be when it pertained to film. Because as much as we say how much the internet changed things, the internet changed some things, but meme culture again replace the you know, the meme of Ted Levine doing the dance to goodbye horses and instead make an SNL sketch. This is one of the most parodied films of all time. And while, yeah, sure, most of those parodies are Hannibal Lector based, I would say this is the other part that's the most parodied. This is the other part that's the most kind of poked fun at. It's like, oh, the weird guy doing the the the dick tuck doing the dance to goodbye horses.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:00

Whereas I mean they do that in five-second films.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:02

They do that. Clerks too, they did a parody of that.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:06

We were joking off camera that I like right before this, I watched the Joe Dirt parody of this scene where he meets up with Buffalo Bob, and like that depiction was more offensive than I I think this one was intended to be. Especially with how much is rooted in like real serial killer psychology.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:28

Wait a minute. The film that has Kid Rock in it was more offensive to trans people than than Silence of the Lambs was? I know. Shocking. I I I I'm gonna fall over. But yeah, but the the point being is again, because Demi has always shown his true colors, and again, I don't think anybody in the community took offense to him portraying it or any of the other filmmakers portraying it. But see, look, it's not that we don't trust you. We know you guys have done your homework, but at the end of the day, this movie's not gonna be somebody walking out of the theater going, I digested that whole film, and I can tell you A, B, and C, it's gonna be I watched the SNL sketch where Chris Catan tucked his fucking dick in and did the dance. Ha ha, isn't that funny? Trans people are weird. Again, yeah, media literacy and why we're in the state we're in as a country is because our media literacy is so fucking pissed poor that you can cover every base you want on a socio-political level. Not everybody's gonna get it, even if you come out and literally look down the camera and say, he's not trans. And then the person you watch you go, trans, no, not trans. Trans, no, not trans.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:37

Media literacy in this country is pretty rough already. Like it wasn't particularly great back then either. Because again, it's like I'm not surprised that this happened given how many people signed up to join the military after Top Gun. Like, that was just one two-hour recruitment video, and nobody figured that out.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:00

Again, all films are kind of snapshots of the times in which they're made. Yeah. This was made during the first Bush won, George H.W. Bush. And it's this weird kind of transitional time in American popular culture. And I talked about this on the Heather's episode a little bit, where we didn't know who we were, what we were, yeah, culture of the 80s had kind of died a death. So all the vibrancy of the Reagan years had kind of become this weird, very drab, earthy colors. Again, very much the aesthetic of this film to a degree. Like this film is very much a 1990, 1991 film in terms of look. Like this was a very because again, it's the conservatism was still there from the Reagan years, but the fun of it had gone. So this was a very touchy time. The AIDS crisis was in full-blown, was full tilt at this point. So it wasn't easy being anybody in the LGBTQ community, uh, let alone being trans, who had been easily the most vilified of that subsection in media, especially. So you take into a fact that again, the AICE crisis full tilt, the trans community very much unseen. The drag community was very much unseen at this point, too. Like you had that's why a documentary is like Paris is burning at the time. So I fully understand why there was a controversy. And again, I think the guy who knew that there was gonna be controversy and accepted the controversy and learned from the controversy was this film's director. And that's all people ever want is you to learn from the controversy, not to be like, What? You're criticizing me. It's like, no, just listen. Nobody hates you. No, everybody knows that you didn't go in. I listened to a uh podcast recently that Cal Penn gave about him getting the role of Taj and Van Walder and competing against a white guy in brown face in order to get it. Jesus Christ because it never went away. But Cal Penn made the remark that you know, his mentor told him a while ago, like, look, people, it's not their intent to offend. You know, in fact, quite the contrary. But if you let them in and you know it and you teach them, like, hey, I know that this character is very much a caricature, but you cannot go down this path. And that's why he fought very hard for that role. Is because he's like, I know where this can go. And I'm not sitting here, I could get very mad at the casting director, and I can motherfuck that guy, and I'd be right to do so. But instead, no, I'm gonna push down harder, I'm gonna get this part, and I'm gonna actually be like, look, for the 30 things are wrong with this character, I'm gonna pick the 10 that are the worst, and I'm gonna like kind of soften the blow a little bit. And that way I'm having a conversation with somebody. And for all intents and purposes, it sounds like the director Van Wilder at least took those criticisms and went like, okay, I didn't mean to go that far. Thank you, Cal, for pointing that out, and we're gonna grow from this. That's what people want. Conversation. And that's what's something I think a lot of older people don't get because they're like, I don't want to be criticized. Well, then don't do stupid shit, and you won't be criticized.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:11

There's something that's sort of standing out for me here that like maybe we should have covered in Scenic View, but like this sort of brings it up. Like, there's some sketches of Buffalo Bill's suit. We never really do see this suit. Like when he is doing the goodbye horses dance, he's wearing somebody else's scalp, but everything else is himself, and he's got a like a sort of shawl that he like brings out like wings. And if you look at some of the sketches in the background of his like sewing scenes, there's like pictures of like humanoids with like moth wings, right? And like it's sort of showing up to me that like this seems like if there was a shortcoming of the movie, that might have been it. Like, dig into deeper on the the art direction there, right? Like you we only see him wearing the women's clothes and like tucking his crotch, and like we see, you know, the hangings of like the skin. Um, but like if the end result like we had talked about before was that he's trying not to become a woman, but to become a moth, like do you think that this same issue would have come up?

SPEAKER_02 1:49:28

I do agree with you as well that there is also a fair amount related to um the moth imagery, because at the very end of the of the dancing sequence, he does raise his arms up like wings.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:44

Yeah, and he uses the night vision goggles. Like he does a lot of things to embody a moth more than he does specifically a woman. Uh with the exception of like the lipstick and makeup scene. Like the transformation, there's a lot of hints that it's sort of Leading somewhere else, and we never really get the payoff of like seeing his design fulfilled, you know? Yeah. Um, and you know, I don't know, like I think about the Hannibal TV show, which is fantastic if you guys haven't ever checked it out. It's um it's incredible. Mads Mickelson is Hannibal in uh in that rendition, but like the sort of serial killer of the week uh format of that show, you know, like dives into those types of characterizations of like what is, you know, like these people aren't just killers, they're artists. What is the art that they make, you know? And that's something we don't get here. And you know, if like if maybe if that was a little bit more drawn out, like people wouldn't get it, but you know, you can't blame people for like we do every single time we watch a movie, you know, it's open to interpretation. And, you know, people like if that's the only thing that they have to see themselves in, you know, like you it's entirely like you never intended for that to be it, but you know, you held up a mirror, and unfortunately people saw like that's like the portrayal of my reality.

SPEAKER_04 1:51:20

To kind of lighten the mood, I guess, a after that that section, uh, there's a much more frivolous controversy around this film as to whether or not this is a horror film or not. And I want to get your guys weighing in. And I here's the thing. I think this film is a horror film traditionally, but what are your guys' thoughts? And I'll I'll get to the couple scenes that I think highlight that for me.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:43

100% it's a horror movie. Just because it doesn't do jump scares, like this might actually be one of the scarier movies that I've seen. Yeah. Because it's one of the handful of movies where you really do feel like Hannibal Lecter is completely inside your head. And also one of the few times it I would say it really delves into horror convention. It's like uh every time I got to this part, I had to pause the movie and just go like fuck. What part is it? The ambulance scene when they're transporting Lecter and the EMT is calling it into the hospital, and he just sits up, turns, pulls off the gauze, and then just pulls the mask off, and he's just already looking at the guy, like he's almost looking through him. It's like three shots.

SPEAKER_03 1:52:37

Yeah, very similar to Michael Myers in that regard, like the scene where he just sits up behind Jamie Lee Curtis. Um, yeah, although he, you know, puts his mask back on. Uh this guy takes it off. Um, but yeah, like there's so many classic horror movie tropes, and like it sort of blends horror tropes of like the like psychological horror. But then like you get a classic haunted house scene as she's poking around uh Buffalo Bill's house, and you get like almost like um animal monster horror scenes in like that Buffalo Bill night vision sequence, you know, like seeing from the animal's perspective.

SPEAKER_04 1:53:22

The legacy is yes, the the trans controversy does weigh heavily. So I think there's at least welcome debate there as opposed to bad faith debate. So I'll say that much. At least it's a good faith argument that's being made. And the fact that this film is one of the times that the Academy got it right, unequivocally. Nobody's gonna ever debate like Silence of the Lamb's overrated. I've never heard that argument from anybody, any film fan.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:48

I can't recall a single person I've spoken to who have said it's anything less than one of the American greats, if they don't think it's a perfect film. It really has two distinct legacies. The first legacy is that it's very much one of the greatest American movies of the last 40 years, but even with filmmaker intent, it was damaging to the transgender community at the time. And I think it's it's not considered more damaging now, mainly because the filmmakers did apparently try and they did make attempts to distance the character from being trans and it fell on the audience misinterpreting this character. Um, I really would encourage uh our listeners, if you like this episode and you want to learn more about this subject, I would really recommend the documentary Um Disclosure on Netflix. Uh, because it is a very enlightening documentary where it does go more in depth on this issue with Silence of the Lambs, um, as well as just trans representation in media in general. I think it would you would be doing yourself a lot of good to check this out.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:59

John, is this in your top ten like of films all time, your personal top 10?

SPEAKER_02 1:55:03

Yeah, 100%. Might even be top five. I mean, it's in my top four on letterboxed for sure.

SPEAKER_04 1:55:08

It's it's number eight, because I did like my top 20 dive on my letterbox, and I think it's like number eight, and even then I feel like that's low.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:16

I feel like until you get to like maybe your top three in that ten, the order kind of is almost i inconsequential because it's like like I know for me, uh John Waters female trouble is in my top 10. And it's like, how the hell do you rank female trouble, Mad Max Fury Road, and Silence of the Lands, along with God's favorite film, Burning. Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_03 1:55:42

I mean, yeah, like I don't I don't know if I like any top list of anything. Like, I don't think we should draw any hard lines on the podcast of like what is the best performance ever made, what or ever performed, what's the best movie ever made. You know, like making a a top 10 list is 100% subjective. But like what you and like I I would have to, I never really thought about mine. Like I'd have to noodle of like I love this movie. It was incredible, and I'm probably gonna watch it again. Um, but like the truth is you will find this movie on any given top 100, top 25 movies of all time list. Um something I wanted to touch upon in that like cultural osmosis thing, though, is that do you think that this is a movie that's remembered for what it was? You know, like my own experience here, like I'm 34 years old. I thought that I had seen this movie, and I totally hadn't. And there's a frequently misattributed quote to the movie, and that's Hello Clarice, which is actually the second movie. And then, like, people think, like I actually said last episode that famously this movie had like the least amount of screen time for an actor to win an Oscar. And now watching it, like, no, he's in a solid third of this movie. Buffalo Bill has less screen time. He's got the most screen time of any male actor in the movie, other than maybe Chilton. Um, but you know, like it's almost a movie that became so iconic that people miss out on it or misremember it because you just sort of assume you already know it.

SPEAKER_04 1:57:33

Cultural osmosis. Yeah. I'm never gonna argue that this isn't Jonathan Demi's masterpiece. It is, a thousand percent. This is a film that in a lot of ways he would even say that he was kind of born to make. Though, if you want my honest opinion, it's not the film that if I want to introduce somebody to Jonathan Demi, the director, not just the guy who made Silence of the Lambs, but Demi's body of work, I wouldn't start with Silence of the Lambs. And the film that I would start with, Stay Tuned. Hmm. I'll let you guys know off mic, but that's a setup for another episode. Oh, the movie's not called Stay Tuned. No.

SPEAKER_03 1:58:10

Until the Oise Stay Tuned. Oh. Okay. I was I was just about to Google like Jonathan Demi's Stay Tuned. Don't don't know what you're talking about. I was about to say, I'm like, I don't know that you're gonna Oh, I think I know which one you're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 1:58:27

You I unless De Palma did it. No, De Palma did Phantom of the Paradise.

SPEAKER_04 1:58:31

Yeah, you you it's it's not the other big demi film that everybody knows, which is a which is a concert film.

SPEAKER_02 1:58:39

Yeah. Well, I'm looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_04 1:58:41

Can't wait to share that. Rachel Getting Married. It's not Rachel Getting Married, though that is also an excellent film. That's a damn good movie, though.

SPEAKER_03 1:58:48

I just picked one off of the list.

SPEAKER_02 1:58:51

Can't wait for that title take, Rachel Getting Married. So that wraps it up for today. Thank you as always to my wonderful co-hosts, Anthony and Adam. And as always, thank you to Andrew Schwartz for creating the podcast and letting us use the music. And until next time, stay tuned. Anyone else hungry? I'm starving.