Silence of Lambs at 30: Still Crazy After All These Years

By Steve Evans

Having seen more than 15,000 films in a lifelong love affair with the cinema, I can say to a certainty that only four have truly terrified me and one of those is The Silence of the Lambs, released 30 years ago today. Like Alien (1979), Jaws (1975) and Psycho (1960), it is difficult to convey the sensation of dread that Silence of the Lambs invokes in the first-time viewer. You have to experience it for yourself.

Most people know the picture. Fewer know that the film runs 2 hours and 18 minutes or that Anthony Hopkins is on-screen for a mere 16 of those minutes, yet his presence is felt constantly. B-movie producer Roger Corman, who gave director Jonathan Demme his start in the business, makes a cameo as the director of the FBI. A professor of mine in grad’ school went to college with Ted Levine, who plays serial killer Buffalo Bill. The professor told me it wasn’t a huge acting stretch. Michelle Pfeiffer turned down the role of Special Agent Clarice Starling, claiming the material was too violent. This, from the woman who co-starred in Scarface (1983). Gene Hackman was originally slated to direct and play a supporting role as Detective Crawford, the part that ultimately went to Scott Glenn. But Hackman pulled out and Demme took over in the director's chair.

Hindsight being 20/20, what makes Demme such an interesting choice to direct Silence of the Lambs is he got his start making sleazy, sexist women-in-prison flicks in the early 1970s, but in Silence he created one of the greatest feminist motion pictures of all time. As Clarice, Jodie Foster is ogled by men within the first 10 minutes of the movie and continuously thereafter until the end credits. She works for the FBI, one of the most patriarchal organizations in existence. She elegantly rebuffs the repugnant advances of a criminal psychologist in the insane asylum where she interviews Hannibal Lector and is met with further indignities by the inmate-patients in the dungeon-like hospital. And, of course, she is in pursuit of a monster who murders and skins women in order to become a woman himself within the twisted corridors of his pathology. Quite the ordeal. Yet Clarice prevails.

Let’s see…one other bit of trivia I can offer: in the climactic scene, when Buffalo Bill is stalking Clarice in a darkened room, he uses night vision goggles to observe her (the male gaze again) and you can see the shadow of his pistol on Clarice’s back – a revealing mistake that they were using green lighting effects and dialing down the aperture on the camera to make the room appear pitch-black (where there should be no shadows). A minor quibble from a film obsessive. C’est moi.

Certain crime stories and subsequent film adaptations like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo are the direct descendants of The Silence of the Lambs. So enduring is the character of Clarice that CBS recently launched a television show centered around her FBI career. I’ve read the reviews and do not plan to watch it.

Silence also holds the distinction of being the last film – and only the third in history – to sweep the Holy Quintet of Academy Awards – best picture, director, actor, actress, and screenplay. The best picture win alone makes it unique among horror films.

Rich, multilayered and scary as hell, The Silence of the Lambs became an instant classic. So pull the cork on a nice Chianti, serve up some spicy buffalo wings and watch the film tonight with someone you love. It is, after all, Valentine’s Day.

Cinema Uprising copyright © 2021 by Steve Evans. All rights reserved.

 

Seeing With Fresh Eyes

By Steve Evans
I recently encouraged a friend to see Truffaut’s Jules and Jim for the first time and she returned with a glowing, radiant smile, and offered a wildly enthusiastic response to this seminal film from the Nouvelle Vague.

While happy for her and pleased that she liked the recommendation, I felt a curious pang of jealousy that got me wondering: how many beloved films would I like to experience again, with fresh eyes, for the first time?

Surely, North by Northwest (still my favorite motion picture), Taxi Driver and O Lucky Man!




Also Chinatown, of course. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. M. City Lights. Steamboat Bill Jr. Psycho. The Wizard of Oz. The Quiet Man. It's a Wonderful Life. A Clockwork Orange and 2001 and Dr. Strangelove. Yes, and The Wild Bunch. Let's not forget The Godfather and its first sequel. Goodfellas.

King Kong (1933), although I would also wish to be eight years old again, as that is an optimal age for viewing this creaky old monster movie.

Most of the films noir from the classical period, especially Sunset Boulevard.

Jaws, though it frightened me senseless 34 years ago.

Even Die Hard – one of the few films I have seen that lived up to its tagline: “It will blow you through the back of the theater!”

Oh, this list could go on indefinitely.

Which films would you wish to experience again, unseen, with all their secrets and surprises waiting to unfold and make you smile or think or cry or enjoy wild, electrifying exhilaration?

Copyright © 2009 by Steve Evans // dba Cinema Uprising. All rights reserved.

Guilty Pleasures

“Learn to see the ‘worst’ films; they are sometimes sublime.”
— Ado Kyrou, Surrealisme au Cinema

By Steve Evans
What does bad cinema share in common with strawberries covered in Belgian chocolate? Beer-simmered bratwursts smoked over hickory and served with peppers and onions? Tortilla chips slathered with melted Monterey jack, jalapeño peppers and spoonfuls of extra-hot salsa?

Hell, I dunno. But I do enjoy a guilty pleasure now and again. Here's a short list of movies that probably aren’t good for you, but taste mighty fine:

The Horror of Party Beach (1964), directed by the incomparable Del Tenney, was billed as “the first horror monster musical.” I s’pose that counts as a recommendation, although it’s basically a retread of the Creature From the Black Lagoon on a wee budget. We do get good value for our entertainment dollars: Babes in bikinis go-go dancing. Bikers. Beaches. Beefcake brawling over Cheesecake. Radioactive sea monsters with their mouths stuffed full of bratwursts (see it for yourself, then believe). And the great surf-rock band The Del Aires (from Connecticut!) perform 6 rockin’ tunes, including the Zombie Stomp. A maid named Eullabelle saves the day. Verily, friends, this is one of the greatest movies ever made. Filmed entertainment just doesn’t come any better.

Point Break (1991) delivers terrific action set pieces and the greatest football game ever filmed at night on a beach, which almost compensates for the fact that this is one of the dumbest movies in cinema history. A pre-Matrix Keanu Reeves stars as the improbably named Johnny Utah, an FBI agent who gets so angry in the second act that he leaps from a plane -- without a parachute -- to pursue a bad guy getting away. Now that's square-jawed determination. Long before that ludicrous moment, we get some great surfing sequences, a bank robbery with crooks wearing rubber masks with the likenesses of ex-presidents, a rare opportunity to hear Arthur Lee's psychedelic band Love on a movie soundtrack, and a shoot-out involving drug dealers and a lawnmower. Patrick Swayze did his own skydiving stunts, but Gary Busey steals the film as a smart-ass Fed who likes Calvin & Hobbes and meatball sandwiches. Look fast for Anthony Keidis, lead singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, as a surfer dude. Whoa.

Jaws: The Revenge (1987) is a ridiculous-looking giant, rubber shark with frequently visible control cables dangling from its belly. Michael Caine appears in a supporting role, looking decidedly embarrassed to be in this one. He has this expression in several scenes as though he just farted loudly and is hoping no one will immediately blame him for the crime. While Caine was filming this flick in the Bahamas, he passed on an opportunity to attend the Academy Awards in 1987, when he would win a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Woody Allen’s Hannah and her Sisters. Later, a reporter asked Caine if he realized how awful Jaws: The Revenge would turn out to be. Caine admitted candidly: “I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.”

Mesa of Lost Women (1953). Jackie "Uncle Fester" Coogan plays a mad scientist (is there any other kind?) who wants to infuse beautiful women with the strength and agility of tarantulas. WTF?! Several ding-dongs land a plane on his mesa and start snooping around. Shot on a budget of about three dollars, the picture features the saddest-looking giant spider puppet yet committed to film. It was also the sad beginning of a long career descent for Coogan, a former child actor from the silent era whose mother and stepfather squandered his fortune. A millionaire at 7, Coogan was broke by the time he turned 18. That's more tragic than anything in this inept picture.

If you can endure the annoying-as-hell flamenco guitar and piano soundtrack that plays incessantly throughout this picture (and was also used by Ed Wood in his hypnotically awful Jail Bait), then the first round of beers is on me. Trivia note: the composer for this mind-numbing soundtrack was a young musician named Hoyt Curtin, who would go on to compose the familiar “Scooby Doo” jingle for the popular cartoon. Aren’t you glad you know that, now?

Invasion of the Bee Girls (1973) was a “blind-buy” I purchased for five dollars on the strength of the title alone. Seriously. Rare indeed is a film that lives up to its title: There are bee girls. They invade. Some of them prance around nekkid. Others hang out in a laboratory and say pseudo-scientific things while holding their instruments incorrectly and frequently upside-down. Bee girls will do that, don't you know? I got my money’s worth.

I also enjoy everything written or directed by Ed Wood, especially Bride of the Monster (1955) and The Violent Years (1956), which he wrote but did not direct. In the latter, a gang of delinquent girls runs amok. They break into their school and shove desks around, hold up gas stations and, in the scene that will have you staring in disbelief, they kidnap a guy in the park, drag him out of his car and into the woods, where they “have their way” with him, despite his strenuous objections. This sort of thing never happens to me.

I have no use for the jackals of bourgeois sensibility who would look upon these delightful movies with a disdainful eye. Those who criticize mindless fluff are mental lightweights themselves – too insecure to realize what they’re missing, much less to open their minds long enough such that they might experience some serious fun.

Pass the popcorn.

Copyright © 2009 by Steve Evans // dba Cinema Uprising. All rights reserved.