This article is about the film. For the novel, see The Silence of the Lambs (novel). The Silence of the Lambs original movie poster Directed by Jonathan Demme Produced by Kenneth Utt Edward Saxon Ron Bozman Written by Ted Tally (screen writer) Thomas Harris (novelist) Starring Jodie Foster Anthony Hopkins Scott Glenn Ted Levine Anthony Heald Music by Howard Shore Distributed by Orion Pictures Release date(s) February 14, 1991 Running time 118 min. Language English Budget $19,000,000 All Movie Guide profile IMDb profile The Silence of the Lambs is a 1991 film directed by Jonathan Demme and starring Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins. It is based on the novel by Thomas Harris, his second to feature sociopathic psychiatrist and cannibal Dr. Hannibal Lecter. In the film, Clarice Starling, a young FBI trainee, is sent to see the imprisoned Lecter in order to ask his expert advice on catching a serial killer given the name Buffalo Bill, who is abducting women and skinning them. The film adaptation was released in 1991. Jonathan Demme won an Academy Award for Best Director. Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins both won Oscars (for their roles as Clarice Starling and Dr. Hannibal Lecter, respectively); the film won additional Oscars for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture. Thus, it is the last of the only three films to win the five most prestigious Academy Awards (after It Happened One Night, 1934 and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, 1975). Also, Hopkins' performance as Lecter remains one of the shortest lead acting Oscar-winning performances ever, as Hopkins is only on screen for seventeen minutes in the entire film. Contents 1 Plot 2 Production 3 Response 3.1 Box office 3.2 Awards 3.3 Academy Awards 3.4 Academy Awards controversy 4 Cast 5 Differences from the book 6 Influences 7 Manhunter sequel controversy 8 Parodies 9 References 10 See also 11 External links Plot Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow. The movie opens with Clarice Starling, a young FBI trainee, being asked to carry out an errand by Jack Crawford, the head of the FBI division that draws up psychological profiles of serial killers. Starling is asked to present a questionnaire to a serial killer named Hannibal Lecter, a former psychiatrist and genuine sociopath, currently serving a life sentence in a Baltimore insane asylum. We also learn of the hunt for a serial killer dubbed Buffalo Bill, who has abducted five different women, keeping them for up to three days before killing them, taking parts of their skins and dumping them in rivers. The nickname was started by Kansas City Police Homicide Division, on the theory that "he likes to skin his humps." Starling asks if she should ask Lecter about Bill, but Crawford tells her not to, as such a direct request for help would lead to a refusal of co-operation from Lecter. At the asylum, Starling is clumsily chatted up by its warden, Dr. Frederick Chilton. Eventually, Starling gets to talk to Lecter, who is seemingly quite polite and civil, but after toying briefly with Starling, he refuses to take the questionnaire. As she leaves, Lecter gives Starling some cryptic information that leads her to a rent-a-storage lot where the possessions of Lecter's last victim, Benjamin Raspail, are contained. Hidden in Raspail's vintage car is a severed head in a jar. It is inferred that the head belongs to Raspail (this is a departure from the novel). Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling When Bill's sixth victim is found, Starling helps Crawford perform the autopsy. A moth chrysalis is found in the throat of the victim. Diamond-shaped patches of skin have been taken from her buttocks. Autopsy reports, furthermore, indicate that he killed her within three days of her capture. Starling takes the chrysalis to the Smithsonian where, (much later in the book than the film), it is eventually identified as the "Death's Head Moth," so named because of the signature skull design on its back. It lives only in Asia and in the United States must be hand-raised. In Memphis, Tennessee a young woman, Catherine Ruth Martin, is just getting home in her car and is just outside her home when she finds a man struggling to lift a couch into the back of his van as he has a cast on his arm. She assists him in moving the couch but is then trapped inside the van. He knocks her unconscious and drives off, having removed her shirt and left it at the roadside. However the woman's mother is Ruth Martin, a junior U.S. Senator from Tennessee. With the stakes heightened, Starling is sent back to Lecter to obtain more information from him. After his correct predictions and, most notably, the discovery of another Death's Head Moth cocoon in Raspail's throat, the inside word is that Lecter must know who Buffalo Bill is. Starling presents a deal: if he gives information which leads to Bill's arrest and saves Catherine Martin's life, Senator Martin will have Lecter transferred to a new institution where he will be given greater freedom. Unknown to Starling, the deal is phony, concocted by Crawford as a last-ditch effort to get Lecter to talk. Lecter, in turn, demands information from Starling: in exchange for details of her personal life, he will offer his views on who Buffalo Bill might be. Lecter starts by asking Starling about her worst childhood memory: the death of her father, a town marshal who was killed by two burglars on a night patrol. In exchange, Lecter explains that Bill is seeking to change himself, and that he is a transsexual, or rather, someone who thinks he is a transsexual. Bill's obsession with moths stems from the metamorphosis they go through, caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly. He has probably tried to apply for gender-reassignment surgery and been rejected. Starling doesn't pick up on how this will help her, so she asks for more information. Lecter probes further into her past: After her father's death, she was sent to her uncle's ranch in Montana. Two months later she ran away. Lecter, quid pro quo, explains that checking through the records of people turned down for gender-reassignment surgery because of convictions for violence would be a good place to start a search for Bill's true identity. He explains that "Buffalo Bill" was not born a criminal, but made one through years of systematic abuse. He hated his own identity, and now identifies himself as a transsexual, which he actually isn't. Meanwhile, it is revealed that Chilton has been secretly listening to Lecter and Starling's conversations, and he has found out that Crawford's deal is a lie. He offers one of his own: If Lecter reveals Buffalo Bill's identity, he will indeed get a transfer to another asylum, but only if Chilton gets credit for getting the information from him. Lecter insists that he'll only give the information to Senator Ruth Martin in person, in Tennessee. Chilton agrees. Unknown to Chilton, Lecter has managed to fashion and conceal a handcuff key. He knows that once he is outside the asylum, he will be in the custody of police officers who will use handcuffs on him, rather than strait-jackets. In Tennessee, Lecter toys with Senator Martin briefly, enjoying the woman's anguish, but eventually gives her some information about Buffalo Bill: his real name is Louis Friend, (William Rubin in the novel), and he was referred to him by Raspail; Raspail and Friend were lovers. This information in hand, the FBI races off to save Catherine. The next day, with Lecter held in a makeshift cell, Clarice Starling confronts him. She suspects that Lecter has misled everyone about Louis Friend, which is apparently an anagram of "iron sulfide" or "Fool's Gold". Their conversation continues from before, with Lecter giving clues as to Buffalo Bill's identity in exchange for stories about Starling's childhood. One night at the ranch, she awoke to hear lambs screaming, as they were being slaughtered, and tried to save one by carrying it away. She was soon caught and the lamb returned to slaughter. Hannibal asks if she can still hear the lambs crying and wonders if she imagines that saving Catherine will finally give her some peace. Lecter now understands Clarice Starling, but Chilton interrupts the conversation, preventing Lecter from transmitting to her a parallel understanding of Buffalo Bill. Starling is escorted from the building. Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter That evening, Lecter requests a second meal (lamb chops). Using his makeshift key, he picks the lock of his handcuffs while an officer puts the second meal in his cell. He beats both officers to death with a truncheon and then disembowels one of the officers and ties him to the cell bar with what seems to be an American flag. When the police and SWAT teams arrive, they suspect that a man in the elevator is an injured or dead Dr. Lecter. However, Lecter pretends to be one of the police officers by wearing his clothes and face (although severely mangled, the other officers believe that Lecter has bitten him) and escapes when he is taken to a hospital in an ambulance. Starling's shock at all these events is put on hold when she realizes that Lecter has left some further clues for her. With the help of her roommate, Starling realizes that there is something significant in the way Buffalo Bill's first victim, Frederica Bimmel, was killed. She was killed first but found third, suggesting that Bill wanted to hide her body. Starling surmises that she knew Bill in personal life, as Lecter had told her that the needs which Bill serves by killing those women is his eager desire; he had coveted those women and their identities. Crawford sends Starling to Bimmel's home town, Belvedere, Ohio to investigate. There, Starling discovers that Bimmel was a tailor. Dresses in her closet have diamond-shaped templates on them, identical to the patches of skin removed from Buffalo Bill's latest victim. Starling realizes that Buffalo Bill is a capable tailor who wants to make himself into a woman by fashioning himself a "woman suit" of real skin. She telephones Crawford, who is already on the way to make an arrest. Lecter's transsexual-surgery theory has yielded a positive ID from Johns Hopkins: a "Jame Gumb" just outside Chicago. Crawford is leading a strike on Gumb's business address in Calumet City, Illinois, while Chicago SWAT takes a home address. Starling is to continue interviewing Bimmel's friends. Starling learns (from Bimmel's friend "Stacy") that Bimmel once worked for a woman named Mrs. Lippman. At Lippman's house, however, the door is answered by Jame Gumb (Buffalo Bill). He gives her a fake name that she heard of before from Crawford (Jack Gordon). They talk and go inside. Starling has no idea who he really is, but when she spies a Death's Head Moth flapping around in the background, and a lot of yarn and thread, she knows with whom she is dealing. Starling asks the man if she could use the phone. He nervously says "Sure you can use my phone". When he looks the other way, Clarice draws her weapon and attempts to arrest Gumb, but he scrambles down into the basement. She follows him down. She manages to make contact with Catherine Martin, in a dried well, and is hunting Jame when the lights go out, leaving her in darkness. Gumb, wearing night vision goggles, creeps up behind Starling and cocks his gun. Starling hears the click and turns around, quickly firing back, killing him. Starling calls for back up, and Catherine Martin is finally rescued. During her graduation ceremony as Special Agent from the FBI Academy, Starling receives a call. It is Lecter. He asks her if the lambs have stopped screaming. He promises her that he will not come after her, "the world being more interesting with you in it", expecting the same courtesy from her. He also tells her that he is "having an old friend for dinner" and cuts the phone. We then see Lecter following Chilton, who has just stepped out of a plane, and slowly walking into a crowded, narrow street of a Caribbean village to finally disappear. Spoilers end here. Production An alternate poster with Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter. The Silence of the Lambs was distributed by Orion Pictures. The majority of the film was shot in southern Ohio because it has many different landscapes and architecture. This variety made it easier to display many different parts of the country. Both the scene of Lecter in his cage and the Baltimore jail scene were filmed in the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. None of the action of the film takes place in Pennsylvania; however, the registration stickers on the windshields of all of the vehicles indicate a Pennsylvania residency. Despite the acclaim garnered for the role, Anthony Hopkins is only in the film for a little over 16 minutes. Gene Hackman was originally slated to play Hannibal Lecter. John Lithgow was the producer's second choice to play Hannibal Lecter. Michelle Pfeiffer was initially offered the role of Clarice Starling, but turned it down. She has said about her rejection of the part, "that was a difficult decision, but I got nervous about the subject matter." [1] The character of Jack Crawford is based on the real-life former head of the FBI's Behavior Sciences Unit, John Douglas. Response Box office Domestic summary: Opening Weekend: $13,766,814 (1,497 theaters) % of total gross: 10.5% Close date: Oct. 10, 1991 Total U.S. gross: $130,726,716 Worldwide gross: $272,700,000 Awards In 1998, won the 100 Greatest American Movies award from the American Film Institute Awards. In 1991, won “best picture” from CHI Awards. In 1991, won “best film” from PEO Awards. In 1991, was nominated for “best film” from British Academy Awards. In 1991, won Best Film from National Board of Review. In 1991, Jonathan Demme was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for best director. Academy Awards Award Person Academy Award for Best Actor Anthony Hopkins Academy Award for Best Actress Jodie Foster Best Director Jonathan Demme Best Picture Edward Saxon Kenneth Utt Ronald M. Bozman Best Adapted Screenplay Ted Tally Nominated: Best Film Editing Craig McKay Best Sound Tom Fleischman Christopher Newman Academy Awards controversy Upon release, The Silence of the Lambs was criticised by members of the gay community for being what they perceived as another in a long line of negative on-screen portrayals of LGBT characters in the absence of any positive portrayals (see also Basic Instinct). Following the announcement of the film's many nominations, rumors began circulating almost immediately that gay rights groups like Queer Nation were planning to disrupt the live Oscar telecast should the film win any awards. While ultimately no such protests materialized, the rumors did lead to balanced coverage of the story, including discussion of Hollywood's attitudes toward sexual minorities and an overview linking the rumored protests to other Academy Awards controversies, in media outlets ranging from the CBS Evening News to The National Enquirer. In the years following The Silence of the Lambs there was an increase in the number of gay-themed films and gay characters, including in director Demme's next project, Philadelphia. Cast Clarice Starling - Jodie Foster Hannibal Lecter - Anthony Hopkins Jack Crawford - Scott Glenn Dr. Frederick Chilton - Anthony Heald Roden - Dan Butler FBI Agent in Memphis - George A. Romero FBI Agent in Memphis - Kasi Lemmons SWAT Commander - Chris Isaak Barney Matthews - Frankie Faison Buffalo Bill/Jame Gumb - Ted Levine Lieutenant Boyle - Charles Napier Sergeant Tate - Danny Darst Sergeant Jim Pembry - Alex Coleman Differences from the book Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow. Starling's struggles as an FBI trainee are downplayed, with only occasional hints at difficulties, often based on sexism. It is not directly suggested that she was in danger of flunking out. Crawford's subplot, regarding the death of his wife, is eliminated for simplicity (neither Crawford nor his wife were in Hannibal either, and no mention of Crawford's wife is made in Manhunter). Likewise, Klaus is removed, with Raspail's head in the jar instead. Lecter's relation to Gumb is as his former therapist. Lecter's red herrings are altered to include anagrams: Clarice is told to investigate "Miss Hester Mofet" (AKA "miss the rest of me") and his false Buffalo Bill name becomes "Louis Friend" (iron sulfide, i.e. fool's gold); however, the novel has the false name Billy Rubin, which is a play on bilirubin, the pigment found in feces. Bimmel's hometown is depicted as Belvedere, Ohio, the same as Gumb's. On Starling's first visit to Lecter, she comments on one of his sketches, which the doctor informs her is "The Duomo seen from the Belvedere." Some interpret this as Lecter having given Buffalo Bill's whereabouts to Starling from the very beginning. Lecter never tells Starling that Buffalo Bill wants "a vest with tits in it." Starling deduces this specific motive of Buffalo Bill on her own after seeing a dress in Bimmel's closet. After escaping from his cell in Memphis, Lecter is next shown at the end of the movie contacting Starling by telephone immediately following her graduation ceremony from the FBI Academy. Lecter, who informs Starling he is "having an old friend for dinner" is shown ostensibly on a Caribbean island while his nemesis Chilton nervously disembarks nearby. Spoilers end here. Influences Jame Gumb is evidently based on four real-life serial killers: Ed Gein, a Wisconsin man who robbed graves and murdered women in order to flay their bodies and make clothing out of them. Gein was also the inspiration for Norman Bates in the Alfred Hitchcock masterpiece Psycho as well as "Leatherface" in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Ted Bundy, who killed dozens of women in the 1970s, often luring victims by pretending he was injured with a cast on his arm, a technique Gumb used to lure Catherine Martin into his van. Similar to Lecter, Bundy also offered to help investigators find other serial murderers by "giving insights" into their psychology while he was in death row, specifically about the Green River Killer. Ed Kemper, who killed his grandparents when he was an adolescent, just like Gumb. Gary Heidnik, who held women captive in a deep hole in his basement. Hannibal Lecter bears some similarities with Andrei Chikatilo (a Russian serial killer), in that during their childhoods both experienced a sibling being cannibalised during a famine. (It is not known however how true the story of Chikatilo's experience is). He has also been compared to the infamous cannibal and child murderer Albert Fish, as well as Robert Mawdsley, who ate the brain of a fellow inmate while he was incarcerated.. The moth covering Jodie Foster's mouth in the advertising poster is not the natural pattern of the Death's-head Hawkmoth, but a miniature image of Salvador Dalí's In Voluptas Mors. This is in homage to Luis Buñuel's and Salvador Dalí's surrealist film Un Chien Andalou, which contains a Death's-head Hawkmoth. In Voluptas Mors, 1951, photo by Philippe Halsman. Used in miniature in the Silence of the Lambs advertising poster. Manhunter sequel controversy Three of the characters from this film (Hannibal Lecter, Jack Crawford, and Frederick Chilton) also appeared in an earlier film, Manhunter, though portrayed by different actors. Though there is no evidence to suggest that any of the three actors were asked to reprise their role in The Silence of the Lambs, some argue that The Silence of the Lambs is a sequel to Manhunter, but the fact that Orion was willing to produce the film without the rights to the three characters that previously appeared in Manhunter suggests that it was never intended to be a cinematic follow up to Manhunter. In Ted Tally's second-draft script, he notes: "For legal reasons, the names of three of Tom Harris's characters have had to be changed. It is my hope, and certainly Tom's, that the original names can be restored in time for the making of this movie. For the purposes of this draft, however, Jack Crawford has become 'Ray Campbell,' Frederick Chilton has become 'Herbert Prentiss,' and Dr. Hannibal Lecter is called 'Dr. Gideon Quinn.'" Manhunter producer Dino De Laurentiis saw little future potential for the characters and allowed Orion to use the characters of Lecter, Crawford and Chilton for free. Further distancing The Silence of the Lambs from Manhunter is the fact that Frankie Faison and Dan Butler appear in both films, but as completely different characters. This matter was settled in 2002 when Manhunter was remade as Red Dragon, in which Hopkins and Heald reprised their roles from The Silence of the Lambs, firmly establishing itself as the official adaptation of the book as it relates to the other two Hopkins films. It should also be noted that, in Manhunter, Lecter's last name is officially spelled "Lecktor", and no mention is ever made of cannibalism. He is stated to have killed young women, in effect condensing Lecter and another character mentioned in Red Dragon for time's sake. In addition, the events of Red Dragon are mentioned several times in the novel The Silence of the Lambs, but were all omitted in the screenplay. Parodies Like other popular, successful films, The Silence of the Lambs has been parodied: At the 1992 Academy Awards, Billy Crystal made his initial appearance on stage wearing the same restraints for dangerous prisoners that the Hannibal Lecter character wore while being transported. Austin Powers in Goldmember features Dr. Evil in a cell made of glass which is located in the center of a large room. This is reminiscent of both of Lecter's cells. The dialogue from that scene also borrows from Lecter and Starling's dialogue. Recurring Simpsons villain Sideshow Bob, in one of his appearances, is held by restraints similar to Lecters but including restraints on Bob's individual locks of hair. In one Family Guy episode, when a young girl is trapped in a well, Stewie makes the remark, "It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again... heh, I've always wanted to say that." In the American Dad episode "Tears of a Clooney", Francine Smith stalks Stan in the dark with a pair of infrared goggles, just as Jame Gumb stalks Clarice Staling at the end of the film. A similar parody was shown in an episode of South Park with Eric Cartman playing a game he called "Lambs," in which he was Buffalo Bill, and had a doll trapped in the hole. In Joe Dirt, its main character becomes temporarily trapped in Buffalo Bob's (rather than Bill's) dungeon hole. In Clerks II, Jay performs Buffalo Bill's nude dance number, Goodbye Horses, on several occasions, although actually nude only one of those times. A French parody of American thrillers, "Mais qui a tué Pamela Rose" ("But who killed Pamela Rose") had a plot similar to The Silence of the Lambs, with FBI special agents investigating a murder case. An overweight "Agent Starling" is seen from behind in one scene. An episode in the TV series The Fairly Oddparents has Timmy, Cosmo and Wanda visiting a jail where Anti-Cosmo, who, in a glass cell, appears from the darkness and says "Hello, Clarice," like Lecter. Wanda asks who Clarice is, and then Anti-Cosmo, surprised that she is not Clarice, places a monocle on his eye to see more clearly. Later in the episode, Anti-Cosmo says he sees no more reason for animosity between him and Timmy and his godparents, but warns them not to look for him, at which point they find him right there. In 1993 popular British comediennes French and Saunders parodied the prison/asylum scenes in their version of the Silence of the Lambs sketch with Dawn French as Lecter and Jennifer Saunders as Starling. A humourous sketch in Celebrity Deathmatch pitted Hannibal vs. Clarice (whom was angry with Lecter for "making a sequel without her"). It actually turned out that Julianne Moore was disguised as Lecter before the real Hannibal emerged and finished Clarice off. In the film The New Guy, the main character, who is trying to appear dangerous, is dropped of at his first day of school in a Lecter mask, with armoured guards releasing him, running back into the car, and speeding away. References ^ The Barbara Walters Special, American Broadcast Company, 1992 See also Goodbye Horses External links Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: The Silence of the Lambs The Hannibal Lecter Studiolo The Silence of the Lambs at the Internet Movie Database Criterion Collection essay by Amy Taubin Academy Award for Best Picture: Winners (1981–2000) 1981: Chariots of Fire | 1982: Gandhi | 1983: Terms of Endearment | 1984: Amadeus | 1985: Out of Africa | 1986: Platoon | 1987: The Last Emperor | 1988: Rain Man | 1989: Driving Miss Daisy | 1990: Dances with Wolves | 1991: The Silence of the Lambs | 1992: Unforgiven | 1993: Schindler's List | 1994: Forrest Gump | 1995: Braveheart | 1996: The English Patient | 1997: Titanic | 1998: Shakespeare in Love | 1999: American Beauty | 2000: Gladiator Complete List | Winners (1927–1940) | Winners (1941–1960) | Winners (1961–1980) | Winners (2001– ) The Hannibal Tetralogy Written by Thomas Harris The Books Red Dragon | The Silence of the Lambs | Hannibal | Hannibal Rising The Films Manhunter | The Silence of the Lambs | Hannibal | Red Dragon Young Hannibal Main Characters Hannibal Lecter | Clarice Starling | Will Graham Secondary Characters In Alphabetical Order Buffalo Bill | Frederick Chilton | Jack Crawford | Francis Dolarhyde | Paul Krendler Mischa Lecter | Freddy Lounds | Reba McClane | Margot Verger | Mason Verger Other Belvedere, Ohio Search Term: "The_Silence_of_the_Lambs" Categories: Hannibal | 1991 films | Best Horror Film Saturn | Best Picture Academy Award winners | Films directed by Jonathan Demme | Thriller films

Here's our top rated silence of the lambs links for the day:

'Norbit' laughing all the way to the bank 

Thank you for reading the silence of the lambs page - silence of the lambs. 

1. silence of the lamb