Silence of the Lambs Pt 5: The Nightmare Finale
Friday, February 12, 2016 at 12:30PM 
Team Experience tag-teams a revisit of 1991's Best Picture The Silence of the Lambs for its 25th anniversary. And now... the finale.
Part 1 The case. The players. An FBI "errand"
Part 2 Buffalo Bill's next "Special Lady"
Part 3 Clarice & Lecter's "Quid Pro Quo"
Part 4 Monstrous escape. Gruesome realizations.
pt. 5 by Timothy Brayton
Jose left us in the wake of a most repulsive discovery, and Agent Starling is beside herself with ragehorror.
01:31:55 "And he c- he can sew, this guy, he's very skilled-" Jodie Foster is so amazing in this brief little exchange. Pacing back and forth jabbing her hands in the air with anxious fury. It's such a perfect extension of the arc she's built all movie: she's horrified and disgusted, but funnels all of that into hyper-professionalism.
01:32:09 Starling's frenzy in the homey little suburban bedroom is sharply contrasted with the Tom Clancy-thriller interior of an FBI plane, a sleek masculine space that is one of the conspicuously "lit" spaces in the film. Here is where Jack Crawford informs her that all is well, and the boys are riding in to save the day. He is, of course, wrong.
01:33:11 Ah, the famed mountain valleys of Calumet City, just outside of Chicago.
01:33:26 In the pit of horrors, Catherine Martin has struck upon an idea: using food scraps to trap Buffalo Bill's – make that Jame Gumb's – precious pet dog. It's a great reminder that the film would rather give its primary victim strength to draw on than just make her a bundle of nerves. [More...]
01:33:56 Doggie reaction shots are just the best.
01:34:00 Close-ups of psychos with bloody human scalp-wigs are not the best.
Time for some absolutely top-notch cross-cutting. A sweaty, filthy Catherine whistles hoarse, calls for Precious, and moans curses, while Buffalo Bill makes himself up as a woman, as the Q Lazzarus song "Goodbye Horses" pounds away, connecting the two sequences (and a terrific song choice it is; but then, Demme films always have great music. Kudos to him and music supervisor Sharon Doyle).
The close-ups on Catherine's face and her feeble POV shots of the lip of the pit are harshly contrasted with striking, inhuman shots of pieces of Bill's body, divorced from context or meaning. It's as tense as hell, with the young woman in the bit cut against the monster, in a tremendously unpredictable moment.
Then, we get to the full-body shot of Bill gyrating to the music, and an image that I just do not know what to do with. We've already spent some time in this tag-team talking about the film's problems with transgender representations, but none of that prepares us for the prurient, creepy shot of Bill's ad hoc sex change.
What do we do with this one, readers? Vivid psychological horror in the flesh, or exploitative and off-putting in all the wrong ways? I am open to all arguments.
01:36:50 While the FBI boys rush off to save the day, Starling patiently interviews locals. A terrific shift in the film's energy when we least expect it, and good for keeping us on our toes in the endgame.
01:37:37 And now the film engages in the sneakiest lying-through-editing since I don't know when.
So much going on here the FBI sets up a sting outside Jame Gumb's house in Calumet City, Catherine threatens the dog, Gumb runs around sputtering, and some hideous doorbell rig starts ringing as the FBI stands pushing the button outside.
This is all scrupulously honest, and completely misleading. The scene is tense on its own, now that Catherine has gotten her captor real mad, and the cockeyed shot of the doorbell somehow is what always pushes it into the stratosphere for me. And everything gets wound tighter and tighter, until-
01:39:58 After being copied God knows how many times, this shocking twist has lost a lot of its edge, and can't help but feel dishonest. But oh, the audacity! When The Silence of the Lambs was new, this gesture of pure audience-manipulating cruelty was like a lightning bolt. Plus, it means that we get to see Our Jodie square off against the bad guy, and surely that's the right development?
01:40:29 Crawford realizes what's going on with a horrified "Clarice…" Nice to see Scott Glenn get a top-notch close-up of his very own.
01:40:50 Foster's stone-faced response to Ted Levine's slurry "was she a great big fat person?" is so great. The absolute banality of their interaction is another great interjection of momentum-shifting weirdness that heightens the tension – this is Hitchcock's "bomb under the table" approach to thriller-making done to perfection. Or "woman in the pit", same principles apply.
01:42:53 Starling messily fumbles for her gun, all without taking her eyes off Gumb. A great character beat, a great way to amp up the tension yet again.
01:44:28 After chasing Gumb into the basement, Starling stalks him all the way to the super-creepy basement.
01:45:08 Gotta love the precision with which Starling still remembers to secure the area.
Note how shots of the dog and Clarice at the lip of the pit do not include all the negative shadow space as when Bill leaned over it.
Catherine, the other officers will be here any minute now!"
01:46:10 Oh Clarice, you are a liar.
01:47:09 Dutch angles in a freaky wooden hallway with a bare bulb! Oscar or not, we are fully in horror movie territory.
01:47:37 For the climax, Starling fumbles in the dark, as Bill stares at her with night-vision goggles, letting her get freakishly close as he just watches and watches. Hey, so this is the first time that a night-vision scene was used in a horror/thriller movie, right?
01:48:47 SONOFABITCH THAT'S CREEPY AS HELL. It didn't occur to me until just now breaking it down for this article, but it's kind of amazing that The Silence of the Lambs has no fewer than three protracted thriller sequences in its last 25 minutes, all of them different, and all of them absolutely stomach-churning.
01:49:30 In comes the purifying daylight to make all the nightmares go away. The animalistic frenzy on Foster's face is so perfect and so earned.
01:50:15 Despite it being symbolic of the tormenting monster who kidnapped her, Catherine wants the dog.
01:50:43 And so Clarice M. Starling graduates from Quantico and can be a full FBI agent, so she can do fun stuff like this all the time!
01:51:04 As our reward for all the grueling terror of so much of the movie to this point, I'm really grateful to the production design team for the frivolous, playful gesture of the FBI Cake.
01:52:03 "Well, Clarice, have the lambs stopped screaming?"
The way Foster's expression simply goes blank when she hears Lecter's voice is the cherry on top of an amazing, amazing performance.
Dr. Lecter? Dr. Lecter? Dr. Lecter?"
01:52:45 As the strength creeps back into Foster's voice and the music starts to gradually shift louder, the film prepares to leave us with one last punch in the gut. Leavened with morbid humor, but still, this is pretty bleak stuff. Evil's out there, and if you knock down one bad guy, another bad guy just pops right up.
01:53:28 And with that, the shark swims away into the sea of humanity, looking to have an old friend for dinner.
The End. We hope you enjoyed our 25th anniversary revisit. Thanks again to Tim, Angelica, Jose, and Kieran for joining me in this illuminating descent into horror greatness. The film has aged well despite losing a bit of its sick punch due to pop culture saturation / influence. Please unleash all your leftover thoughts on Bill's dance, Clarice's bravery, its Oscar haul, and the future of Catherine and Precious in the comments. Thank you for reading. - Nathaniel
Tim Brayton Tim discovered he was a cinephile after accidentally watching all three and a half hours of Seven Samurai in one sitting a the delicate age of 14. Many years later, he spends all his time devouring everything from trashy horror to glossy Hollywood classics to, of course, animation past and present, which he writes about for the Film Experience. He also reviews films most days at his inexplicably-named blog, Antagony & Ecstasy. [All Tim TFE articles]
Reader Comments (21)
I've seen this film at least 10 maybe 12 times over the past 25 years and the climax never loses it's punch. The night vision goggles were new, and the manipulative editing was such a neat twist. In the theatre when the door opened and it was Clarice - (not the FBI team) there was such a reaction. Demme makes you pay attention.
From the moment Clarice steps inside that house I find I lean forward, fully alert, as the pressure towards the confrontation builds. I love that it is the moth that gives "Bill" away. How perfect.
As a viewer I get to that point where I want Catherine to shut up, (sorry) but I want Clarice to be able to concentrate and hear him. That's the mark of good direction, that you really feel like you're down there in that grotty basement too. And when she fires her gun and the lights go back on it's such a relief of tension. I watch the rest of the film in a giddy haze.
Too many horror films use too much gore, too much violence. This film works on your nerves and it does so with such confidence and restraint.
No wonder it's Jodie Fosters favourite performance.
Thanks for this "Relay Race Retrospective" - it's been a real treat.
LadyEdith -- i thought Nell was her favorite performance of her own?
Tim -- my favorite moment in this section... well, not a moment... but my favorite echo in this section is the way her phone call with Jack Crawford ends... Mr Crawford? when he's already gone and then the film ending with the same for Lecter. I'm sure numerous gender studies academics have had a field day with this movie.
I've always loved that Catherine is led out holding the little dog. A beautiful, humane moment.
It's such an interesting beat when Jame calls Precious "Poodle-y poo. Darling Heart." He is capable of loving without cruelty, but only when it's projected onto a creature who can't really express judgment, rejection or ridicule. Sadand horrifying glimpse into his psyche.
I stand corrected - According to IMDB: Foster considers her performance in Nell (1994) as her best one. (sorry I'm not sure what I was thinking of )
There is an argument to be made that it is her most influential role, much like Sigourney Weaver's Ripley, Clarice Starling stands out as a strong female icon.
Amazing work, guys. You make me want to see the movie again, although I think I would still be a little too freaked out to subject myself to it willingly.
I want to eat that entire FBI cake. I bet it's yummy.
Cool Oscar connection: Senator Catherine Martin in Silence of the Lambs has the same name as Baz Luhrmann's Oscar-winning wife.
I've avoid this subject, but now I must raise it. Why can't a trans person be a serial killer? Why can't social pressure on gender and sexual orientation lead to mental health issues? I don't think this movie is homophobic or transphobic.
On Foster's Oscars. I'd give her an Oscar for this and Nell. I do think she's better in The Accused than Glenn Close in Dangerous Liaisons (unpopular opinion), but the best was Streep in A Cry in The Dark.
Jessica Lange never deserved an Oscar, I am ok with her losing for Blue Sky.
On Foster's Oscars. I'd give her an Oscar for this and Nell. I do think she's better in The Accused than Glenn Close in Dangerous Liaisons (unpopular opinion), but the best was Streep in A Cry in The Dark.
Jessica Lange never deserved an Oscar, I am ok with her losing for Blue Sky.
You say these things to personally aggravate me. 1988 is all about Sarandon in Durham, Bujold in Ringers, and Close in Liaisons.
I know Smith, Foster, and Hopkins are great in this movie and all, but let's be real: The dog gives the best performance.
cal: I agree that the movie isn't clearly phobic. Stuff like this...happens. Jeffrey Dahmer, after all. Still, it can't be the only kind of portrayal of homosexuality, either from Hollywood or this director in specific.
cal roth: Re: Buffalo Bill's trans status, I think I've been feeling something similar to you. I think I've always taken his "pathology" (to quote Lecter) to be in considerable part a product of the transphobic environment in which he (and, indeed, we) were brought up. Jame Gumb feels like such a socially isolated person, it feels plausible to me that he may have been so isolated, and so confused as to his identity, that, rather than being able to express it and get help for his confusion, he has been driven to kill, to retain some desperate sense of control over his life.
I appreciate that that may not be the most prevalent reading, and I don't mean to gloss over the film's problematic relationship with the issues it's discussing, but I offer it as one reading that may make sense on some level.
Other issues in part 5 - and thanks, Tim, for a great final write-up - I just want to mention that this climactic sequence of events in the film is everything we want and need it to be. It puts Clarice to the test, allows her to confront her demons (the screaming of the lambs) and delivers genre pleasures galore. And it does it through exquisite control. I've never minded the manipulative editing of the cross-cutting between Crawford and Clarice entering the two houses - it felt to me in 1991, and feels to me now, like an enactment of the mixture of planning and serendipity with which crimes can be solved.
And when she sees the moth - oh boy, the terror of that moment just won't dim for me.
Thank you all for such a wonderful series - it's been a daily pleasure this week to check into the next installment. And such a fitting celebration in the month of the film's 25th anniversary. And it struck me that, with the film structured the way it is, you all got to write about a bit of Buffalo Bill, a bit of Clarice and Lecter, and a bit of Demme's ultra-electric casting and shot selection.
THANKS!
So fucking terrifying indeed!
No comment on that shot, but I personally think it's not transphobic. He's crazy, that's all.
I love love loved this write up as this is my favourite movie of all time. I remember in the book when Buffalo Bill sees Clarice he loves and wants her hair. So when he reaches out for it it was terrifying.
Thanks to these articles I watched the film again yesterday and my God, I'd forgotten how masterful it is.
The night vision scene with Clarice in the basement, fumbling around in the dark was still tense and creepy even though I knew she was going to be okay. The sequence towards the end is so well done: she stumbles and gets up shaking, Bill's hand reaches out to almost touch her face and hair, then she hears the gun cock loudly behind her, spins around in slow-mo (one of the few examples of this in the film), fires blindly towards the sound with flashes of light illuminating her face as she fires and Buffalo Bill as he's hit. Then they cut to a well-lit wide shot (nice touch of her bullet blowing out the window to let daylight in!) as she hits the floor, frantically trying to reload while he gurgles and dies in front of her. Two minutes of brilliance.
A thing I never noticed was that there appears to be a Nazi flag (?) in his basement. I guess that ties in with the idea that Bill has "tried a lot of things" as Lecter said. His belief in his own trans identity is just another thing to cling to because he hates his own identity rather than a genuine belief that he's a woman in a man's body.
Also, having rewatched it, one thing irritated me ...
I don't understand why she asks to use his telephone. This immediately makes him realise that she's onto him. For goodness sake Clarice, just get out of there and find a phone booth! It's also another example of a classic film that wouldn't work now because we all have mobile phones.
Clarice is such a fantastic character and Foster's signature role. I'm glad she didn't sully the memory by participating in the sequels.
Cal, Lange deserved to win for Blue Sky, no matter what the revisionists say.
The dog is the movie in a DVD jewel case. its what we do when we comfort ourselves with fear.