Hi guys,
Here is just a small presentation about some actors playing the main characters in the movie The Silence of the Lambs.
These actors are:
Jodie Foster – plays the FBI trainee Clarice Starling
Anthony Hopkins – plays Hannibal Lecter
Ted Levine – plays Jame Gumb/Buffalo Bill
Scott Glenn – plays Jack Crawford
Enjoy and don’t forget to follow our blog and write comments!
Gabrielle
In today’s blog, I am going to present the multiple characters of the famous book of Thomas Harris, in a short and precise way, so that you can situate yourself while you read it.
Here you go:
Very important character of the book, he is at the same time a helper and a killer. He is an ex-psychiatrist, a cannibal and most importantly a serial killer with nothing to lose. He likes to play with people’s mind and he is a true gentleman. He possesses very important information concerning the Buffalo Bill case.
The main character of the book, she is a wonderful mix of strength and determination. She is an FBI trainee on the come up trying to solve a case about a weird killer (Buffalo Bill).
The main antagonist of the book, he is a weird and mad character who desperately wants to be a woman, to become a woman. Although, being unable to apply for a genital reconstruction surgery he decided to start killing women to skin them and to design his own women suit. Pretty deranged, although organized and structured.
A key character in the book, he is the FBI agent who is in charge of Clarice Starling and he leads the operations on the case of Buffalo Bill. He acts as a mentor for Clarice and he has a sick wife, which he takes care of, at home with the help of nurses.
He is a somewhat important character for the book as he is the administrator of the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane and he is the one who allows Clarice to meet and talk with Hannibal in order to get precious information which only Hannibal detain.
He is the Deputy Assistant Attorney General from the United States Justice Department. He is introduced to Clarice by the senator Ruth Martin at some point in the book.
He is the Head orderly or healthcare assistant of the maximum-security wing at the Hospital for the Criminally Insane held by Dr. Frederick Chilton.
She is a senator in Tennessee and the mother of the last victim of Buffalo Bill, meaning Catherine Martin. She does all that she can to find her girl.
Last victim of Jame Gump or Buffalo Bill and daugther of Senator Ruth Martin.
He is an inmate at the Hospital of the Criminally Insane, held by Dr. Chilton. He is the next neighbor to Hannibal’s cell. He is highly disturbing, and he doesn’t please Hannibal as he is no gentleman. He is nicknamed Multiple Miggs.
She is the best friend and at the same time, a partner of the FBI trainee Clarice Starling.
They are the insects experts which Clarice contact at some point to advance in the case.
Donovan
The silence of the Lambs is the second of four books which were all turned into movies and a TV series. This blog will focus on the similarities and the differences between the movie and the novel The Silence of the Lambs.
The movie of The Silence of the Lambs is very similar to the novel by Thomas Harris contrary to many other movies based on a book. While watching the Silence of the Lambs, I noticed that it shows on multiple occasions Clarice’s high sense of sight and observation. In fact, when she enters a new room, the camera turns on itself to shows everything that is in this room and everything that Clarice sees. This is what helped her solve the Buffalo Bill case and stay alive.
Even though the movie is a very good representation of the book, it still has some differences. For example, there is no mention of Jack Crawford’s wife in the movie. In the book, the reader sees the struggle of Jack Crawford with his sick wife and when she dies, a contrast can be noticed between the death of natural causes and death by the hand of a serial killer.
In addition, there is less focus in the movie about Clarice’s problem with the school’s exam. Since she is helping Jack Crawford with the Buffalo Bill case, she misses a lot of school time and in the book, she gets almost kicked out of school. This threat makes Clarice hesitate on whether she should continue helping with the case or go back to school. If she had decided to go back to school, Buffalo Bill might have killed Catherine Martin, which would have completely changed the end of the book and the movie.
Moreover, in the book, Clarice is a fearless FBI trainee, but in the movie, she shows feelings of stress and fear. We can even see her cry at the beginning, which I believe makes her a more believable and human character.
Overall, I believe that the movie is really representative of the book, and I enjoyed reading the book as well as watching the movie which lasts approximately two hours. I would recommend the book and the movie for anyone who likes thriller and police investigation.
Did you notice other similarities or differences between the movie and the book? Write down in the comments what you observed.
Catherine
On today’s blog post, I want to talk specifically about the insect found in The Silence of the Lambs, more precisely about some very special butterflies. Those butterflies are called the Death’s-Head Hawkmoth and are looking just like this:
They are called Death’s-Head Hawkmoth, mainly because of their appearance as they ornate a scary human skull shape on their thorax. There are three species of those butterfly’s type and they all can emit a loud chirp if they are annoyed or in danger. They simply produce this sound by expelling and inhaling air. The special ability of those butterflies could be linked to when Buffalo Bill is detaining his victims and they scream and beg for their lives as they are about to die. We could even relate the fact that he puts those insects in the throat of his victims to perpetuate the screams of his victims after their deaths.
Now comes the question that follows: What is the main symbolic of this butterfly? Well, in brief, this insect represents the life-cycle of the main characters illustrated in the book, meaning Clarice Starling, Hannibal Lecter, and Buffalo Bill. Indeed, the butterfly life can be illustrated with three simple phases. The first phase being the larva, the second being the chrysalis and the last being the moth’s final form. These phases are a representation of the development of Clarice as she started as a FBI trainee and she then developed into a complete FBI agent, after closing the case of Buffalo Bill. If we look at Hannibal we can see that he sorts of develops through the whole book as a man of respect and “principles”. In brief, because of his encounter with Clarice, he developed some principles and some respect, and he is not, at the end of the book, a mere murderer without any rules of act, he still acts out of pleasure, although he puts more thought into it. The phases could also apply to Buffalo Bill or Jame Gump who is consistently searching to become or to be known as a woman. All the way through the end of the book he is working on his transformation into a woman-like figure and he does so by adding pieces of skin to his suit. Victims after victims, he comes closer to his final form, like the moth at the last phase.
Here is a little video taken from YouTube, which shows many insect scenes from the movie The Silence of the Lambs, for those of you who are interested:
Donovan
Sources:
Now let us look at a real and freaky person which helped for the creation of the antagonist of The Silence of the Lambs. That person was Edward Theodore Gein, mostly known by the name of Ed Gein or The Butcher of Plainfield. This murderer clearly inspired the character of Buffalo Bill from the well-known book and movie of The Silence of the Lambs. Indeed, Ed Gein really existed in the 20th century in Wisconsin, United States. Developing slowly but surely into a weird serial killer who liked to keep body parts of his victims, more specifically the organs and skin of his victims. He also did some clothing and other accessories with those victims’ body parts.
Ed Gein had an oppressed personality, due to his mother’s intense and controlling preaches about religion. Also, he almost never had any contact with the exterior world, meaning outside of his house. His mother was a highly oppressive figure in his life, but she also represented a lot to him as she was almost the only woman he had in his life. As a result, when she died, he lost his mind. Afterward, he started to develop an interest in anatomy literature and he even did some babysitting at one point after the death of his mother. He started the killing a bit after.
We can clearly see the link with the special character of Jame Gump or Buffalo Bill, who took the skin from his victims and manufactured a “woman suit” for himself with it. Also, this character was inspired by Ed Gein in connection with their relationship with women. Clearly, in both cases, they weren’t having great relationships with women and we can see this at first when we look at their childhood with their mother. In the case of Ed Gein’s mom, she was very controlling and oppressive as mentioned above. In the case of Buffalo Bill’s mother, well, to the contrary she was mainly absent from his childhood as she abandoned him at a very young age. He even calls himself mom or mommy at some point when talking to his dog, Precious. He says: “Come here to Mommy. Mommy’s gonna be so beautiful.” (Book, p.283). This quotation is very interesting as it shows how he desperately wishes to be seen as a woman.
In brief, the killer Ed Gein was of a big use in building and crafting this very special and developed character that is Jame Gump or Buffalo Bill, in The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris.
In the comments below, tell me what you think about this man’s influence on the character of Buffalo Bill.
Donovan
Source:
https://www.biography.com/people/ed-gein-11291338
Cannibalism is the act of a human beingeating another human’s flesh. As well, it can be the act of an animal eating another animal of the same kind. In the case of The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal Lecter was captured and put in the Baltimore State Mental Hospital for the Criminally Insane, because he was caught killing humans and eating them afterward.
Cannibalism has existed for a long time and it still does in some countries. Most people think cannibalism is gross and they prefer to avoid this topic, but not anthropologists. They are fascinated by cannibalism and they are constantly trying to find the reason why humans decide to eat other human beings. They first thought that tribes during the Paleolithic period would eat human flesh as a survival method, for the calories the human body can provide. However, they discovered that the calories in a human body are not high enough to last a whole day for an entire tribe. In fact, no human body would be sufficient for three meals. This means that the reason for humans eating other humans is not to survive, but something else.
Another hypothesis is that after murdering someone, it takes less space if the killer eats the flesh than leaving it all there. Anthropologists and scientists have not expended on this theory yet, but they say that we will never know the real reason why cannibalism exists and what goes on in the heads of cannibals.
In The Silence of the Lambs, there are no reasons explaining why Hannibal Lecter is a cannibal. The only deduction we can make is from the fact that Dr. Lecter eats humans because he believes it tastes and smells good.
What do you think the reason for eating human flesh is? What about Hannibal Lecter’s reasons?
References:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cannibalism
http://time.com/4728703/cannibalism-calories/
Catherine
Clarice Starling a brilliant young FBI trainee is recruited by Jack Crawford head of the Behavioural Science Department to consult on a case. One of the main reasons she is recruited for the case is because she must interact with the brilliant, but twisted psychopath, Hannibal Lecter, guilty of many cannibalistic crimes. The consultation was part of an investigation on another serial killer named Buffalo Bill who is a copycat killer of Hannibal Lecter. At first, Crawford uses Clarice not only because is she a highly intelligent trainee, but also because she is good looking. This is a spark he was wishing to get when he had her go and analyze Hannibal. Then, the story goes on with Starling and Crawford who try to figure out who is Buffalo Bill through the investigation of the victims.
One of the main theme Thomas Harris is revealing in this book is that power is everything. Clarice Starling is stuck between the power of Jack Crawford, which disrupts her busy school schedule to the point where it could backlash on her in the future, and the power Hannibal holds over her and the entire FBI with only the knowledge of who Buffalo Bill is. SPOILER: The book finishes off in a gothic literature way in which we see the villain win. Indeed, Buffalo Bill is killed and Hannibal escapes. There, we can see the contrast between a copycat serial killer and a serial killer.
Tristan
Born in 1940, in Jackson, Tennessee, Thomas Harris was meant to be a writer. Even as a child, he loved writing and reading. He started his writing career as a crime reporter and editor in New York City, which helped him create realistic fictional criminals in his novels.
Thomas Harris became a bestselling author from the start when he published his first novel, The Black Sunday, in 1975. His second book, Red Dragon, published in 1981, had a big success as well. In that novel, Thomas Harris created Hannibal Lecter, a psychopathic serial killer, whose success created a sequel of four books. The second book of the sequel, The Silence of the Lambs, was published in 1988, resulting in a bestselling novel from Thomas Harris once again, which received instant success and many awards. That novel was followed by the book Hannibal, in 1999, and then by Hannibal Rising, in 2013.
Thomas Harris is a bestselling author with many successful books, but there is not a lot of publicity and information about him personally. He decided to keep his private life to himself and he does not give interviews anymore. The last one he had was in 1976, following the release of his first book.
In spite of the fact that he wrote many impressive novels, the world has forgotten Thomas Harris due to a lack of visibility of his works. Nonetheless, he is still considered a prominent author of contemporary fiction.
Catherine
References:
“Thomas Harris,” April 1, 2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Harris.
“Thomas Harris.” 2012. FamousAuthors.org 6 April, https://www.famousauthors.org/thomas-harris.
Fan View of The Silence of the Lambs 