Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter faces Diane Baker the Senator and hisses from behind his grill, “Just… one more thing…” She comes closer. “LOVE your suit!” The Silence of the Lambs was the first and last horror movie to win the Best Picture Oscar, a remarkable accomplishment for a film released more than a year before the ceremony. But 1991 wasn’t a great year in American film: in between days, not quite New Wave, but the 1980s were definitely over; Steven Soderbergh and his sex, lies, & videotape drew significant attention in 1989, but for a film that supposedly “launched” the last New Wave of American filmmakers in the 20th century, you don’t hear about sex, lies, & videotape much anymore, anywhere. The film that’s endured from that 1989 is Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, an instant classic that was snubbed at Cannes and at the Oscars but allowed Lee carte blanche for the next 15+ years. He’s never topped Do the Right Thing, his third film; he’s made great films (Bamboozled, Crooklyn, 25th Hour, Inside Man, Get on the Bus), but nothing like Do the Right Thing, which feels as if it’s always existed: elemental, unbreakable.
The same goes for Pulp Fiction, Jaws, The Godfather, There Will Be Blood, and No Country for Old Men. Whether it’s your favorite by a given director is irrelevant—these are films that announce themselves and immediately take hold of you. The dream is deeper here, more and less real. On paper, the formula goes back to Howard Hawks: “Three good scenes, no bad ones.” In 1991, The Silence of the Lambs was so on target that half a dozen lines and images went straight into the permanent pop culture lexicon. “Hello, Clarice.” “It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again.” “I ate his liver with a side of fava beans… and a nice Chianti… SSSSSSS!” “Would you fuck me? I’d fuck me.” Lecter’s restraints, Buffalo Bill’s tuck… like The Usual Suspects, Psycho, or The Sixth Sense, this is a film you see through osmosis.
Even if Jonathan Rosenbaum was stretching it when he said that the movie’s success was sublimated admiration for a remorseless killer at the start of the First Gulf War, it’s less perfect than most remember. Shot by shot, it’s a well-composed film, but it’s not a world away from Roger Corman. The late New World Pictures icon is given a cameo by former acolyte Demme, but it’s a walk on (or a dolly in-on). Francis Ford Coppola put some thought into how to use Corman in The Godfather Part II: as one of a number of politicians grilling Al Pacino, all played by producers and studio executives. Not profound, but it’s something. The Silence of the Lambs feels as if it’s always existed because it’s made up entirely of clichés: the rookie’s assigned the big case, the killer is SUPER BRILLIANT until it’s time to end the movie, and the rookie gets the lead before her superiors, putting herself in danger and ultimately winning the respect and admiration of her colleagues.
Every line that isn’t already a bumper sticker is totally prefab, and you can see where screenwriters of the 1990s and 2000s took their cues, especially the ridiculous (and confusing) dream Clarice describes to Lecter; the only point of this scene, someone describing a dream they had to someone else, is to bring out the title of the movie—a little flourish so it can be called The Silence of the Lambs instead of Manhunter. I realize these are both novels, and while I haven’t read them, a better test for Lambs’ status is a look at Michael Mann’s 1986 Manhunter, a better movie in just about every way—except lines that beg for attention. It’s a more cohesive and aesthetically sophisticated film, with far better photography by Dante Spinotti; Lambs was shot by a good cinematographer, but Tak Fujimoto has had better days: his work with M. Night Shyamalan on 2008’s The Happening was much less wobbly and creaky than Lambs.
The Silence of the Lambs is a movie that wants to be all things to all people: a thriller with serial killers on both sides, one a real ass crazy dude, the other a cartoon, an erudite wit we can enjoy from the safety of our seats. Suppressed self-image? Maybe, but if so, that went way past the Gulf War, with dozens and dozens of FBI-hunting serial killer movies in the 1990s. Although it’s still a household title, The Silence of the Lambs is oddly underrated in its influence: like Pulp Fiction, it spawned a rash of copycats, but the difference was Demme’s film wasn’t that unique to begin with, it was easy to rip off and not necessarily notice. Demme may have worked for Roger Corman, but he wasn’t a maverick: two years after Lambs, he directed Philadelphia, proving he was eager and able to work within the system, totally anonymous, arguably not an artist anymore, presiding over the production of yet another piece of Oscar bait.
The Silence of the Lambs is three good scenes, no bad ones, and none of the ineffable that makes a movie perfect.
—Follow Nicky Otis Smith on Twitter: @NickyOtisSmith