In the entire history of the Academy Awards, only three films have won the top five awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Screenplay.
"One Night's Affair", "Flying Over the Madhouse" and "The Silence of the Lambs".
Indeed, as soon as "The Silence of the Lambs" was released, it was regarded as a classic by the whole world.
It topped the North American box office charts for a full five weeks; as a film released in February, it won the Oscars in March of the following year, which is simply unimaginable today;
It became one of the few horror/thrillers to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, and the performances of the two lead actors, Judy Foster and Anthony Hopkins, remained in people's hearts forever.
However, as a horror classic, the success of "The Silence of the Lambs" lies in its breaking of the routine.
Its story is driven by characters rather than events; its visual style breaks the convention and makes people shudder; its perspective subverts the gender order that people take for granted; and its views on good and evil are very ambiguous.
These breakthroughs are both the reason why it became a masterpiece and the reason why it has no successor.
Today, let's talk about this horror classic -
The Silence of the Lambs
One
As a film that solves a serial murder, "The Silence of the Lambs" breaks a series of narrative rules.
It is full of slow-paced dialogue scenes, and it is more concerned with the inner psychology of the characters than with the external development of the case.
The murderer of the film's core murder, "Buffalo Bill", and his victims do not appear for the first time until the beginning of the film for nearly half an hour, and this unruly criminal is not even the biggest villain in the film, and the more frightening criminal Dr. Hannibal than him is imprisoned in a cage.
Such a narrative setting is actually very risky, requiring a solid script and wonderful performances to allow the audience to devote themselves to the story.
However, "The Silence of the Lambs" has a solid story, because it is adapted from Thomas Harris's best-selling novel of the same name, and Judy Foster and Anthony Hopkins, who play FBI intern agent Clarice and the perverted killer Dr. Hannibal, inject soul into the two protagonists.
Despite their strong appearance, Clarice and Hannibal are outsiders in vulnerable positions in their respective environments.
Clarisse's situation is caused by her gender and childhood experiences, as an orphan from a small city, she lacks self-confidence, and as an FBI intern agent in a male-dominated environment, her gender makes her look like a lamb trapped in a wolf pack.
Fortunately, Clarice had enough courage and wisdom, and with Hannibal's help, she solved the murder and proved herself. Judy Foster portrays the bravery and vulnerability of this character into three points.
As for Hannibal's predicament, he was the one who caused it.
He is an anti-human, anti-social serial killer and cannibal, but even such a demon can suffer from the loneliness of lack of confidants.
Clarice's beautiful appearance awakens his long-hidden enthusiasm for the opposite sex, but what really makes him fall in love with the former is that the two of them have somehow pity for each other.
Both have been unable to be accepted by their surroundings, and Clarice's respect for Hannibal on an intellectual level satisfies Hannibal's self-esteem and vanity.
After the two meet, Hannibal guards Clarice's case like a twisted and grotesque white horse knight, but Hannibal's successful escape from prison at the end of the film will eventually haunt Clarice's mind - when you are too close to the abyss, how to deal with the abyss looking back at you?
Anthony Hopkins' performance simultaneously expresses Dr. Hannibal's elegance and obscenity, charm and viciousness, horror and humor. He kills his inmates who are disrespectful to Clarice because it is "undignified", but he cannot restrain his dirty ridicule of Clarice and the female senator;
Like a Shakespeare protagonist, he speaks in a wild voice, but his playful voice is like a combination of actress Catherine Hepburn and gay writer Truman Capote.
It's Hopkins' layered but contradictory performance that creates an unforgettable classic villain who you don't know whether to despise him or fear him, only that you will never forget him for the rest of your life.
Two
The Silence of the Lambs is just as visually bold: it breaks the "fourth wall" principle that most films follow, which prevents the actors from looking directly into the camera.
In this film, everyone, including the FBI boss, the warden, Hannibal, and "Bison Bill", is constantly looking directly at the camera, and only one person has the immunity of not having to look directly at the camera, and that is our heroine, Clarice.
Why did director Jonathan Demy adopt such a radical visual strategy? Maybe he wanted us to experience Clarice's situation in the film more intuitively.
As one of the very few women in a male-dominated environment, Clarice needs to constantly face the eyes of the men around her. Although they have different feelings of covetousness, contempt, intimidation, or flattery, they all share one thing in common: they are extremely uncomfortable.
Through this unique lens language, Demi puts the audience in the shoes of a woman in a male-dominated work environment; if Demi is still alive, he may be the best director of an anti-sexual harassment propaganda film.
In addition to the critique of gender order, Demy's first-person visual strategy also raises the thrill of the entire film to a notch. In an era when role-playing games (RPGs) had a relatively limited degree of realism, Silence of the Lambs used subjective footage to create an immersive feeling for the audience.
Although we know that we are protected by the screen and cannot be harmed in any way, when we follow Clarice's perspective into the basement where "Buffalo Bill" is stacked with human skins, when we meet Hannibal's fierce gaze through the unobstructed transparent glass, we can't help but feel trembling and fear, thanks to Demi's anti-traditional but direct and effective visual language.
Three
"The Silence of the Lambs" has a precise and detailed depiction of serial murderers, because the original author of the 2017 hit American drama "Mind Hunter", FBI agent John Douglas, provided technical assistance to the film.
Highly intelligent serial murderers like Hannibal often have a strong desire to control, they will not follow the rules of others, but will establish a set of rules on their own, let others jump into the trap, and then like a beast that smells blood, detect the weakness of the opponent, formulate the corresponding strategy, and finally eat the other person alive.
We can't get recognition and relief from Hannibal, because he lacks empathy for the human species and is completely devoid of moral awareness, so even Clarice, who solved the case with his help, was eventually toyed with by him.
But can we get recognition from the "nice guys" in the movies? It seems that neither can it.
Clarice's superior, Crawford, in order to win fame, did not hesitate to make false conditions to Hannibal; Clarice herself was also involved in this lame lie planned by Crawford.
As for Hannibal's chief physician, Chelton, he was a well-known and greasy hypocrite. So when "Bison Bill" is captured, we will even feel deeply confused at the FBI's celebration banquet.
Neither in Clarice nor in Crawford can we find a reliable moral foothold, and this may make us wonder in secret—
Is Hannibal's anti-social and anti-human perversion really unjustified? When the inconspicuous hypocrisy and the delicate and fascinating evil are juxtaposed, who attracts us to it?
On a moral level, there is no doubt that the former is more acceptable, but from an aesthetic point of view, it is undoubtedly the latter more attractive.
Hannibal's charm lies in the bluntness and honesty implied in his evil, and compared with his use of superior intelligence to achieve extreme desires, the social man who bends the bend in various compromises is too boring and too uncool.
The danger of "The Silence of the Lambs" lies in its truthful representation of antisocial thinking, but it never forgets to remind it of the danger and viciousness of this thinking, which makes it a masterpiece with complex layers.