IT'S A QUARTER of a century since most of us discovered Hannibal Lecter, the iconic serial killer of The Silence of the Lambs—which has just been restored and rereleased for home viewing by Criterion. Lecter had already been played by Brian Cox in 1986’s Manhunter, but Anthony Hopkins made him a household name.
But as directed by the thoughtful Jonathan Demme, the movie’s primary purpose was to feature Jodie Foster as FBI agent Clarice Starling, who Foster described as one young woman trying to save the life of another. I remember being thrilled and terrified watching, but I was always uncomfortable with the fact that I ended up liking the bad guy.
Fictional anti-heroes are popular, I suppose, because they allow us to indulge our shadow sides and may even provide a bit of healthy catharsis. Well-made horror movies can be a bit of fun—and they can say something meaningful, too, especially when they invite us to look at the demons within ourselves, not just in the faces of people we don’t like. However, there’s a fine line between letting off psychological steam and reasserting the scapegoat mechanism that leaves the whole world blind.
The Silence of the Lambs is a complex film. At the time of its release, mainstream movies did not typically feature a woman claiming her power, doggedly pursuing the truth, not relying on a man to save her. In Foster’s beautifully nuanced portrayal of a person dealing with and trying to reduce trauma, the audience stepped into a rarely shown and important perspective: what women see.
On the other hand, the film has been rightly criticized for engaging in cruel anti-LGBTQ stereotypes, not to mention the fact that the characterization of Lecter as a psychopath who can show empathy when he feels like it can’t be taken seriously.
Beyond that is the notion that what draws us to such stories is the fear that it might happen to us—but as psychologist Steven Pinker says, “The cure for these biases is numeracy” (that is, a basic understanding of statistics). Nightmare scenarios like those in The Silence of the Lambs are extremely rare—but these days we’re seeing that the courage of women like Clarice Starling is everywhere.
Gareth Higgins is an Irish writer and storyteller based in North Carolina. He is the founder of www.moviesandmeaning.com, and you can also find him at www.garethhiggins.net.
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