If you would like to share your story, send it to: [email protected]. Reprinted excerpts may be edited for spelling and. The Tomatometer rating – based on the published opinions of hundreds of film and television critics – is a trusted measurement of movie and TV programming quality. The Silence of the Lambs (1991) cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more. Silence Of The Lambs Script WOODS NEAR QUANTICO, VA Starling! Crawford wants to see you in his office. Foster said she knew she was second choice when she went to see Demme. He asked her why she wanted the part so much and she went into an "unnecessary diatribe" on. This classic won the five big Oscars for '91: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Screenplay. Silence of the Lambs script at the Internet Movie Script Database. FBI agents Scully, a skeptic, and Mulder, a believer, attempt to uncover a government conspiracy to hide evidence of extraterrestrial activity. Watch trailers & learn. The leading information resource for the entertainment industry. Find industry contacts & talent representation. Manage your photos, credits, & more. Watch Family Guy online. Stream episodes and clips of Family Guy instantly. I sat down again recently and watched the. Silence of the Lambs – an analysis by Hamish Spencer. The Silence of the Lambs (film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)One of the most successful horror films of all time, Silence of the Lambs has always been something of an enigma. I sat down again recently and watched the movie with some concerted effort. What I have learned, I think, transforms some of the unseen, psychological horror sensed by the viewer into something much more tangible but no less frightening. Themes of government sponsored brainwashing in the creation of serial killers are so expertly hidden in plain sight as to mimic the very processes they dare to expose. It is for this reason that Silence of the Lambs may be considered one of the most subversive, thrilling and thematically synergistic movies ever made. The idea of a hidden narrative contained in an artwork is not new. Michelangelo and Leonardo, for example, were the masters of their day at burying controversial social commentary within their paintings. When producing a large artwork like a painting (or a film) an artist often needs to satisfy the vanity of wealthy patrons, hence the need to hide subversive messages in symbols and allegory. Like the great artists of history, the great filmmakers of today are very skilled in this practice. Part 1 – Getting the butterflies. Perhaps the first image people came in contact with, when the movie premiered in 1. It shows Jodie Foster’s face with a moth covering her mouth. Her eyes, usually blue, are red. Close examination of the faux skull markings on the moth’s head, reveals the skull to be made up of 7 naked women in apparent homage to the master of illusion and the unconscious, Salvador Dali. The moth and its cousin the butterfly are probably the most important thematic symbols of Silence of the Lambs and visual prominence on the poster underscores this for the viewer before the picture even starts. The metamorphosis from grub into flying creature sees the moth or butterfly as a traditional symbol of transformation. Indeed, there are many references to butterflies and moths, death and transformation, especially when it comes to Buffalo Bill. Clarice discovers a chrysalis in the throat of Bill’s first victim Frederica Bimmel. In Bimmel’s mother’s bedroom, just before she learns the truth about Bill, Clarice is surrounded by butterfly wallpaper. Inside Bill’s house, we see where he’s been breeding the Death’s Head moth and other, prettier butterflies. Once he tucks his private parts away and spreads his colourful dressing- gown wings, Bill takes on the symbolic form of a butterfly. Moments after Clarice kills Bill, we see a wind chime with painted pictures of butterflies spinning slowly.(At this point, I’d like to say that this presentation will delve into areas that some people may find politically sensitive. If you are the kind of person who is easily upset by notions that challenge the dumbed- down left vs right, communism vs capitalism, good vs evil version of history, you may wish to stop reading/viewing now.)Beyond the well established and endlessly discussed ideas about transformation, there is another compelling interpretation of the moth/butterfly symbol and it has to do with mind control experiments. These mind control experiments are not science fiction. The US MK Ultra program really existed – here’s what Wikipedia has to say –In the summer of 1. Church Committee reports and the presidential Rockefeller Commission report revealed to the public for the first time that the CIA and the Department of Defense had conducted experiments on both unwitting and cognizant human subjects as part of an extensive program to influence and control human behavior through the use of psychoactive drugs such as LSD and mescaline and other chemical, biological, and psychological means. They also revealed that at least one subject had died after administration of LSD. Much of what the Church Committee and the Rockefeller Commission learned about Mk Ultra was contained in a report, prepared by the Inspector General’s office in 1. Sidney Gottlieb, who had retired from the CIA two years previously, was interviewed by the committee but claimed to have very little recollection of the activities of Mk Ultra. However, the techniques employed in the Monarch programming system extend back further under various names, such as the Nazi marionette programming. In fact, there are very few proven cases of MK Ultra mind control and the very existence of the Monarch program can be largely attributed to alleged survivor Cathy O’Brien. In her book Trance Formation of America (1. The idea that a totalitarian state could control people like Pavlov’s dogs had appeared in 1. Arthur Koestler’s . There are many others – The Manchurian Candidate (Jonathan Demme went on to direct the remake in 2. The Bourne franchise, The IPCRESS file, Iron Man 3 and Universal Soldier to name a few. Silence of the Lambs differs from these other films, only in that it presents this frightening scenario in a much more subtle and therefore unnerving manner. Much like brainwashing itself.“It is perfectly possible for a man to be out of prison, and yet not free – to be under no physical constraint and yet to be a psychological captive, compelled to think, feel and act as the representatives of the national state, or of some private interest within the nation, wants him to think, feel and act.“The nature of psychological compulsion is such that those who act under constraint remain under the impression that they are acting on their own initiative. The victim of mind- manipulation does not know that he is a victim. To him the walls of his prison are invisible, and he believes himself to be free. That he is not free is apparent only to other people. His servitude is strictly objective.”Brave New World Revisited, Aldous Huxley, 1. The notion of trauma- based mind control, as represented by the transformation from grub into chrysalis and butterfly, is central to the understanding of the deeper themes of the Silence of the Lambs. This uncomfortable yet strongly implied counter- narrative asserts that; rather than catching them, the FBI and CIA used trauma- based mind control programs to, in fact, create serial killers like Hannibal the Cannibal, Multiple (Personality Disorder) Miggs, Bufallo Bill and the others as cold, programmable assassins to use for their own unstated purposes. The notion of film itself is of course an abstraction of life – All the world’s a stage, said Shakespeare. Here we have many levels to the drama. We start with Clarice’s initial FBI training and the various drills and simulations she sees or takes part in, and progress through her . History tells us that staged events and agents provocateurs are often employed by intelligence services like the FBI. The FBIs COINTELPRO program saw agents pose as political radicals to disrupt the activities of political groups in the US, such as the Black Panthers, Ku Klux Klan, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Training is, of course, part of becoming an FBI agent and the . But this doesn’t feel like an action movie. The repeated references to training and staging (verging on over- use) appear to be pointing at something much deeper. It may be argued that they reflect the Director’s views on training the mind or brainwashing. There is a certain Kafkaesque horror in not knowing what is real and what is not. The shock for us, the savvy viewer, is that Clarice will be traumatised/trained, via an extremely elaborate series of horrific but staged events, to be the FBIs next programmable killer. Perhaps not surprisingly, almost everybody missed that bit. Frankly, part of us would probably rather not know. The subtle counter- narrative starts early – we see Clarice running through the forest on an obstacle course. You could call it a training run. Presently, she’s caught by an FBI agent who tells her that Crawford wants her in his office. She quits her training run, leaves the obstacle course and, on some level, leaves her regular FBI course behind altogether. As she nears FBI headquarters, she passes some signs nailed to a tree – HURT, AGONY, PAIN, LOVE- IT. These mottoes are presumably there to motivate the trainees on their way around the circuit. Below these, washed out and barely visible is another sign that says PRIDE, or does it say PR DIE? This could refer to the pride that the FBI once took in their work that is now just a faded memory. It may imply that Clarice will need to swallow her pride before Crawford if she wants to advance in the FBI. But it’s also possible that . For a second or two, you could be forgiven for thinking the building was under attack. Of course, it’s only a drill. Here are some interesting observances of staged events –* Despite his rhetoric about . We get the impression that he has the run of the place when she’s not around.* The burly guards view Lecter on B& W TVs in their grubby office. We later learn that Lecter watches a colour TV and his cell is spotless. So just who are the prisoners and who are the guards?* We cut from Clarice being yanked out of combat training to see cars screeching to a halt outside a building (presumably with Clarice inside one of them.) But we quickly realise it’s yet another training exercise and Clarice just happens to be walking past.*We’re given the exact same view of the Polaroid as Clarice and there’s absolutely nothing visible lodged deep in Frederica Bimmel’s throat. The photograph clearly shows that we can’t see anything past her tongue and teeth. How on earth does Clarice divine this information?* As evidenced by Lecter’s frankly impossible knowledge of the cut on Clarice’s leg – the tableau in the storage shed seems to have been set up exclusively for her benefit. We can only infer that the shifty shed’s owner got the bloody information back to Hannibal by some nefarious means.* The lab geeks play a game of live bug chess, a very suitable analogy for Clarice’s situation. One of them says . Catherine lures Precious to the well with produce.
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