The Silence of the Lambs is a 1991 American
horror-thriller film directed by Jonathan Demme and starring Jodie
Foster, Anthony Hopkins, and Scott Glenn. Adapted by Ted Tally from the
1988 novel of the same name by Thomas Harris, his second to feature the
character of Dr. Hannibal Lecter; a brilliant psychiatrist and
cannibalistic serial killer, the film was the second adaptation of a
Harris novel featuring Lecter, preceded by the Michael Mann-directed
Manhunter in 1986. In the film, Clarice Starling, a young U.S. FBI
trainee, seeks the advice of the imprisoned Dr. Lecter to apprehend
another serial killer, known only as "Buffalo Bill".
The Silence of the Lambs was released on February 14, 1991, and grossed
$272.7 million worldwide against its $19 million budget. It was only the
third film, the other two being It Happened One Night and One Flew Over
the Cuckoo's Nest, to win Academy Awards in all the top five
categories: Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, and
Adapted Screenplay. It is also the first (and so far only) Best Picture
winner widely considered to be a horror film, and only the third such
film to be nominated in the category, after The Exorcist in 1973 and
Jaws in 1975. The film is considered "culturally, historically or
aesthetically" significant by the U.S. Library of Congress and was
selected to be preserved in the National Film Registry in 2011. A sequel
titled Hannibal was released in 2001 with Hopkins reprising his role,
followed by two prequels: Red Dragon (2002) and Hannibal Rising (2007).
Plot
FBI trainee Clarice
Starling is pulled from her training at the FBI Academy at Quantico,
Virginia by Jack Crawford of the Bureau's Behavioral Science Unit. He
assigns her to interview Hannibal Lecter, a former psychiatrist and
incarcerated cannibalistic serial killer, whose insight might prove
useful in the pursuit of a serial killer nicknamed "Buffalo Bill", who
skins his female victims' corpses.
Starling travels to the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally
Insane, where she is led by Frederick Chilton to Lecter's solitary
quarters. Although initially pleasant and courteous, Lecter grows
impatient with Starling's attempts at "dissecting" him and rebuffs her.
As she is leaving, one of the prisoners flicks semen at her. Lecter, who
considers this act "unspeakably ugly", calls Starling back and tells
her to seek out an old patient of his. This leads her to a storage shed
where she discovers a man's severed head with a sphinx moth lodged in
its throat. She returns to Lecter, who tells her that the man is linked
to Buffalo Bill. He offers to profile Buffalo Bill on the condition that
he be transferred away from Chilton, whom he detests.
Buffalo Bill abducts a U.S. Senator's daughter, Catherine Martin.
Crawford authorizes Starling to offer Lecter a fake deal promising a
prison transfer if he provides information that helps them find Buffalo
Bill and rescue Catherine. Instead, Lecter demands a quid pro quo from
Starling, offering clues about Buffalo Bill in exchange for personal
information. Starling tells Lecter about the murder of her father when
she was ten years old. Chilton secretly records the conversation and
reveals Starling's deceit before offering Lecter a deal of Chilton's own
making. Lecter agrees and is flown to Memphis, Tennessee, where he
verbally torments Senator Ruth Martin and gives her misleading
information on Buffalo Bill, including the name "Louis Friend".
Starling notices that "Louis Friend" is an anagram of "iron sulfide" —
fool's gold. She visits Lecter, who is now being held in a cage-like
cell in a Tennessee courthouse, and asks for the truth. Lecter tells her
that all the information she needs is contained in the case file.
Rather than give her the real name, he insists that they continue their
quid pro quo and she recounts a traumatic childhood incident where she
was awakened by the sound of spring lambs being slaughtered on a
relative's farm in Montana. Starling admits that she still sometimes
wakes thinking she can hear lambs screaming, and Lecter speculates that
she is motivated to save Catherine in the hope that it will end the
nightmares. Lecter gives her back the case files on Buffalo Bill after
their conversation is interrupted by Chilton and the police, who escort
her from the building. Later that evening, Lecter kills his guards,
escapes from his cell and disappears.
Starling analyzes Lecter's annotations to the case files and realizes
that Buffalo Bill knew his first victim personally. Starling travels to
the victim's hometown and discovers that Buffalo Bill was a tailor, with
dresses and dress patterns identical to the patches of skin removed
from each of his victims. She telephones Crawford to inform him that
Buffalo Bill is trying to fashion a "woman suit" of real skin, but
Crawford is already en route to make an arrest, having cross-referenced
Lecter's notes with hospital archives and finding a man named Jame Gumb,
who once applied unsuccessfully for a sex-change operation. Starling
continues interviewing friends of Buffalo Bill's first victim in Ohio
while Crawford leads an F.B.I. tactical team to Gumb's address in
Illinois. The house in Illinois is empty, and Starling is led to the
house of "Jack Gordon", who she realizes is actually Jame Gumb, again by
finding a sphinx moth. She pursues him into his multi-room basement,
where she discovers that Catherine is still alive, but trapped in a dry
well. After turning off the basement lights, Gumb stalks Starling in the
dark with night-vision goggles, but gives his position away when he
cocks his revolver. Starling reacts just in time and fires all of her
rounds at Gumb, killing him.
Some time later, at her FBI Academy graduation party, Starling receives a
phone call from Lecter, who is at an airport in Bimini. He assures her
that he does not plan to pursue her and asks her to return the favor,
which she says she cannot do. Lecter then hangs up the phone, saying
that he is "having an old friend for dinner", and starts following a
newly arrived Chilton before disappearing into the crowd.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silence_of_the_Lambs_(film)