Jonathan Demme's The Silence Of The Lambs

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The Silence of the Lambs by director Jonathan Demme is an outstanding crime thriller, with an excellent cast, but it is much more then that, it’s clever and terrifying with shades of real horror mixed in, making it far darker, and foreboding then your average suspenseful story. As mentioned in his book, The Great Movies, that list the greatest movies of all time, Roget Ebert says, “The Silence of the Lambs is the story of Clarice Starling, the FBI trainee played by Jodie Foster, and the story follows her without substantial interruption. Dr. Hannibal Lecter lurks at the heart of the story” (Ebert 415). As an FBI agent, Starling must catch a serial killer with the aid of another, notorious, killer already locked away in maximum security prison, Lecter. …show more content…

Lecter is himself a heartless killer, sly, and if let out, could easily kill her, but he takes a liken to her, and agrees to help her catch another serial killer. While she interviews him, he picks her brain to discover her most personal secrets, and thus gains Lecter’s confidence in the process. Lecter gives Clarice just enough clues to narrow the possible location of Buffalo Bill. Now it is a race against time to locate Bill’s hiding place and save the next victim. Meanwhile, Lecter goes on a bloody rampage during his escape, and now the most feared serial murder is lose again.

This is considered Jonathan Demme’s best film and with good reason, “Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins won Oscars for best actress and actor. The movie also won for best picture, for Demme’s direction and Ted Tally’s screenplay, and was nominated for editing and sound” (Ebert 418). Editing was done by Craig McKay; the film was produced by Kenneth Utt, Edward Saxon, and Ron Bozman. It was distributed by Orion Pictures with estimated budget of $20 million and was a mega hit grossing over $270 million at the box

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