|
Dramatica
Storytelling Output
for
"The
Silence of the Lambs"
Comments:
As a story, "The
Silence of the Lambs" is a good example of a female gendered Main
Character (Clarice Starling) using Male Mental Sex problem solving techniques.
This is juxtaposed against a male gendered Obstacle Character (Hannibal
Lecter) that uses Female Mental Sex problem solving techniques. What
this provides is a dynamic Subjective Story throughline where the Main
and Obstacle Characters form an "unholy alliance" based on
manipulation.
- INFORMATION ABOUT
THIS ANALYSIS:
- -- General Storytelling:
Complete
- -- Act Order Storytelling:
Complete
- -- Character List:
Complete
- -- Build Characters:
Partial
- Author:
Ted Tally
- Analysis
by: Kevin Hindley
- Genre: Psychological
Thriller
- Period:
1991
- Setting:
Eastern United States
- Source Material:
Based upon the best-selling novel by Thomas Harris.
- Analysis sources:
- Film, Orion Pictures,
1991;
- First draft screenplay,
Ted Tally, 6/6/89.
- Brief Synopsis:
A serial killer
called "Buffalo Bill" has abducted another female victim.
Trainee FBI agent Clarice Starling is sent to get clues from an imprisoned
killer, Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist
who may hold the key to finding Bill.
Objective Character
Mini-Synopsis:
LECTER, a genius
doctor of psychiatry and an imprisoned serial killer, has the vital
information needed to reach the Objective Story goal, and delights in
witholding it. He feeds off other people's minds and bodies, except
for--
CLARICE, for whom he develops the beginnings of human love. She is isolated
from men, bonding only with father figures and mentors such as Lecter
and--
CRAWFORD, the pragmatic head of the FBI's Behavioral Science dept.,
who's not above using Clarice as a pawn in his efforts to reach the
OS goal. Lecter seems jealous of their relationship, but reserves his
venom for--
DR. CHILTON, his jailer and nemesis, also a psychiatrist. He also lusts
after Clarice, but when she errs, he takes away her access to Lecter
and gives it to--
SENATOR MARTIN, the release of whose kidnapped daughter CATHERINE will
solve the story goal. She too will make any promise to Lecter in order
to find--
BUFFALO BILL, aka MR. GUMB, and we're not talking Forrest Gumb! A confused
felon who thinks he's transexual, he's starving Catherine in order to
loosen her skin for his 'girlsuit.'
ARDELIA MAPP, another trainee at FBI Academy, is Clarice's roommate
and helper.
THE
OBJECTIVE CHARACTERS:
Name: Clarice
Starling
Gender: Female
Description:
"This is CLARICE STARLING - mid-20's, trim, very pretty." (Ted
Tally, unpublished first draft screenplay, 6/6/89, p.1) "Clarice's
voice has just a trace of southern accent." (p. 2)
LECTER: You're soooo ambitious, aren't you...? You know what you look
like to me, with your good bag and your cheap shoes? You look like a rube.
A well-scrubbed, hustling rube with a little taste... Good nutrition has
given you some length of bone, but you're not more than one generation
from poor white trash, are you - Agent Starling...? And oh, how quickly
the boys found you! All those tedious, sticky fumblings, in the back seats
of cars, while you could only dream of getting out. Getting anywhere...
Getting all the way - to the F...B...I.
Role: Trainee FBI Agent
Characteristics:
Motivation: Consider; Pursuit; Control;
Methodology: Proaction;
Evaluation: Proven; Trust;
Purpose: Knowledge; Ability;
Name: Hannibal Lecter
Gender: Male
Description:
"A face so long out of the sun, it seems almost leached -- except
for the glittering eyes, and the wet red mouth. He rises smoothly, crossing
to stand before her: the gracious host. His voice is cultured, soft."
(Tally, p.10.)
CHILTON: Oh, he's a monster. Pure psychopath. So rare to capture one alive.
From a research point of view, Lecter is our most prized asset.
Role: Expert on serial killing
Characteristics:
Motivation: Reconsider; Logic; Help;
Methodology: Reaction;
Evaluation: Test;
Purpose: Desire;
Name: Ardelia Mapp
Gender: Female
Description:
"Her broad, clever face breaks into a big smile..." A fellow
trainee agent and Clarice's vivacious buddy.
Role: Roommate
Characteristics:
Methodology: Evaluation;
Evaluation: Hunch;
Name: Buffalo Bill
Gender: Male
Description:
aka Jame Gumb. With his "bland, pale-eyed moon of a face", Bill
thinks he's a transexual but has been rejected for sex reassignment surgery
due to his felonious past -- so he's making a suit of his female victims'
skins.
Role: Serial killer
Characteristics:
Motivation: Avoidance; Temptation;
Methodology: Protection;
Purpose: Change;
Name: Catherine Martin
Gender: Female
Description:
"She is 21, a tall, big-boned, rather fleshy girl with long brown
hair." And ignorant of Ted Bundy, she's foolish enough to help a
man with his arm in a cast load furniture into his van.
Role: Victim
Characteristics:
Motivation: Feeling; Uncontrolled;
Name: Dr. Chilton
Gender: Male
Description:
"A smarmy little peacock, behind a vast desk; he's conceived an instant,
hopeless letch for Clarice. He smiles, stroking her card with his beloved
gold pen."
Role: Asylum Superintendent
Characteristics:
Motivation: Oppose; Hinder;
Evaluation: Unending;
Purpose: Inertia; Inequity;
Name: Ray Crawford
Gender: Male
Description:
"He is 53, thickly built. He rises impassively..." and "He
looks tired, haunted. Between master and student [Clarice], we sense a
subtle, muted tug of sexuality."
Role: FBI Special Agent
Characteristics:
Motivation: Faith; Support;
Evaluation: Result;
Purpose: Order; Equity;
Name: Senator Ruth Martin
Gender: Female
Description:
"A tall woman, late 40's, with a strong, taut face," she's "tense,
almost haggard." Her daughter Catherine has been kidnapped by Buffalo
Bill.
Role: Mother
Characteristics:
Methodology: Nonacceptance;
Evaluation: Ending;
AUDIENCE
AND STORY DYNAMICS APPRECIATIONS:
-
- Nature as it
relates to Actual Work:
Clarice believes that
her FBI training, applied to Lecter's clues, will enable her to track
down and overcome Buffalo Bill.
- Essence as it
relates to Positive Feel:
With each clue that
Lecter gives her, Clarice and the FBI get closer to finding the true identity
of Buffalo Bill and the whereabouts of the Senator's daughter.
- Tendency as
it relates to Willing:
Clarice wants to live
up to her father's reputation as a peace officer, and prove herself worthy
enough to be an FBI agent. Her personal demons drive her to prevent the
slaughter of more helpless innocents.
- Reach as it
relates to Both:
Women empathize with
Clarice's lone struggle in the man's world of the FBI, and her refusal
to be treated as a sexual object. In killing Buffalo Bill, she stops his
victimization of women. Men can empathize with her methodical approach
to finding Buffalo Bill and confronting him one-on-one.
- Resolve as it
relates to Steadfast:
Even after Lecter
has killed more people in his escape from custody, Clarice still believes
she was on the right track in getting his help. She heeds his advice and
finds a vital clue in the case file, as Lecter suggested.
- Approach as
it relates to Do-er:
As a child, Clarice
took action by kidnapping the lamb to save it from being slaughtered;
she actively joined the FBI to go after killers, like the ones who killed
her father; encountering Buffalo Bill, she tries to apprehend him herself.
- Direction as
it relates to Stop:
Steadfast in her resolve,
Clarice must hold out until the process that is threatening the "lambs"
(specifically the serial killer, generally all killers) comes to an end.
- Mental Sex as
it relates to Male:
Clarice methodically
follows up each clue provided by Hannibal Lecter and others to gather
evidence that eventually leads her to Buffalo Bill.
- Outcome as it
relates to Success:
Buffalo Bill is found
and killed, the Senator's daughter is rescued, and Clarice graduates to
FBI agent status.
- Judgment as
it relates to Bad:
At the story's end,
Clarice has not put her personal demons to rest. She has no answer to
Lecter's final phone call:
LECTER (V.O.): Well, Clarice, have the lambs stopped screaming... ?
- Work as it relates
to Action:
"BILL SKINS FIFTH"
reads the newspaper headline on Crawford's corkboard, and on Bill's wall.
This action leads the FBI to seek Lecter's help; Miggs' attack on Clarice
evokes sympathy in Lecter and his decision to help her; Lecter's clue
about covetousness and his writing on the map leads Clarice to reinvestigate
the Ohio murder; the moth landing on spools of thread in Gumb's house
leads Clarice to try to arrest him; Gumb's cocking of his revolver warns
Clarice and forces her to shoot him.
- Limit as it
relates to Optionlock:
Although time is running
out for the Senator's daughter, no set time limit is indicated. There
cannot be many places where a murder victim worked as a seamstress and
rare death's head moths (which were found inside her corpse) are bred.
THE
OBJECTIVE STORY THROUGHLINE:
-
Clarice, an inexperienced
though capable female FBI cadet, is used to get information from an imprisoned
serial killer, Lecter. Her boss hopes he can lead them to another serial
killer, Buffalo Bill, who is killing women and making suits out of their
skin. Finding she can only progress through trust, she allows Lecter to
get inside her head and expose her fears. When another victim is kidnapped,
the race is on to find Buffalo Bill before he kills again.
A male criminal with
a confused sexual identity, refused for sex reassignment surgery, has
wreaked vengeance on five women. Buffalo Bill has murdered and partially
skinned them. The FBI is unable to find any useful clues. Brilliant psychiatrist
Hannibal Lecter is in prison for murdering and eating nine people. Clarice,
whose town marshal father was killed in the line of duty, is determined
to become an FBI agent.
- Domain as it
relates to Universe:
Faced with the predicament
of a serial killer on the loose and no clues to his identity, the FBI
enlists the advice of another serial killer in an effort to put an end
to the situation.
- Concern as it
relates to Progress:
The FBI is concerned
with its discovery of an increasing number of victims and the progress
it is making toward locating Buffalo Bill; Clarice Starling is concerned
with her progress as an FBI trainee; Buffalo Bill is concerned with the
progress of his "suit of skin;" Hannibal Lecter is concerned
with the progress being made toward better accommodations (and escape);
etc.
- Range as it
relates to Security :
Members of society
cannot feel secure with serial killers on the loose, and expect the FBI
to remove that threat. No amount of security, even steel bars and plexiglass
walls, seems to protect society, and especially Dr. Chilton, from Hannibal
Lecter. Clarice's sense of security as a child was destroyed by her father's
death and seeing and hearing lambs slaughtered.
- Counterpoint
as it relates to Threat :
Men act threateningly
towards women: Miggs makes threating gestures towards Clarice, which she
ignores and he fulfills by attacking her. Buffalo Bill threatens the Senator's
daughter with the hose if she doesn't use the skin cream. He threatens
Clarice by cocking his gun, and she responds by shooting him.
- Thematic Conflict
as it relates to Security vs. Threat:
The organized forces
of security -- the largely male FBI and police -- battle wits with the
individual threats to society -- the male serial killers Buffalo Bill
and Lecter.
- Problem as it
relates to Cause:
Searching for what
causes serial killers' behavior stirs up more trouble for the FBI and
doesn't get them any closer to catching "Buffalo Bill." Dr.
Chilton and the Senator's interaction with Lecter as to Buffalo Bill's
identity (cause) creates more trouble -- outdated information that almost
costs the senator's daughter her life -- because they were not looking
at the effects of their deception on Lecter (he is motivated to escape).
- Solution as
it relates to Effect:
Clarice solves the
problem of Buffalo Bill's identity by looking to the results of his actions
-- the victims -- and deducing why he takes their skin.
- Focus as it
relates to Process:
The FBI's Behavioral
Science department follows established procedures in trying to track down
serial killers. Clarice's mental process involves using her experience
as a female when searching the victims' rooms.
- Direction as
it relates to Result:
Everyone's efforts
are directed towards the final result of finding Buffalo Bill and saving
the Senator's daughter.
- Stipulation
as it relates to The Present:
Jack Crawford assesses
Clarice's current progress in the FBI Academy:
CRAWFORD: Your instructors tell me you're doing well. Top quarter of your
class.
CLARICE: I hope so. They haven't posted any grades yet.
In the final confrontation, Gumb (Buffalo Bill) asks Clarice:
MR. GUMB: Are they close to catching somebody, do you think?
CLARICE: I think we may be, yes.
--and:
MR. GUMB: [...] Has the FBI learned something? Because the police here
don't seem to have the first clue... [...] Do you have his description
yet, or some fingerprints...? [...]
CLARICE: No... no, we don't.
- Catalyst as
it relates to Threat:
The continuing threat
to women from Buffalo Bill -- especially towards the Senator's daughter
-- forces the FBI to seek new leads to his identity and follow them up
with all resources.
- Inhibitor as
it relates to Enlightenment:
Lecter has an uncanny
ability, almost a sixth sense, to discern things about Clarice that he
cannot possibly know:
LECTER: You use Evyan [sic] skin cream, and sometimes you wear L'Air du
Temps, but not today.
--and later:
LECTER: Your bleeding has stopped.
CLARICE: How did-- (she stops herself) It's nothing. It's just a scratch.
This insight is so accurate that it leads everyone to accept and investigate
the leads he gives them without question, which wastes valuable time when
he misleads them.
- Goal as it relates
to Progress:
Everyone is concerned
with what progress is being made to discover Buffalo Bill's identity,
especially before he can kill his sixth victim.
- Consequence
as it relates to The Preconscious:
If Buffalo Bill is
not stopped, he will be free to act on his impulses and kill the Senator's
daughter. Society may become conditioned to the existence of serial killers.
News of their activities may then move from front page headlines to a
column at the foot of page nine.
- Cost as it relates
to Being:
Clarice must endure
being used as a pawn by Ray Crawford, mainly to get under Lecter's skin
as sexual and psychological bait. She's also treated as a sex object by
Dr. Chilton, and the cross-eyed entomologist. Lecter assumes the identity
of the guard he murdered in order to escape. On her televised plea to
the kidnapper, the tough Senator Martin plays the role of the loving concerned
mother to the hilt.
- Dividend as
it relates to Doing:
Clarice benefits from
her role as a female, getting the Lecter assignment from Crawford and
allowing Lecter to psychologically seduce her. She uses her gender to
her advantage at the autopsy, clearing the room of male cops by acting
as mother hen.
- Requirements
as it relates to The Present:
Maintaining her current
access to Lecter is essential if Clarice is to learn Buffalo Bill's identity
from him, which is why she tells Lecter's guards she's part of Chilton's
team.
- Prerequisites
as it relates to The Conscious:
Though Clarice has
all the facts (in Buffalo Bill's case file), she must reconsider her evaluation
of them (with Lecter's prompting) to learn Bill's identity.
- Preconditions
as it relates to Conceiving:
Crawford and Clarice
conceive of a jail transfer as reward for Lecter's cooperation, engendered
by Lecter's desire for a way out of his cell.
- Forewarnings
as it relates to Learning:
As Clarice gathers
more information about Buffalo Bill's victims, she learns that he keeps
them alive only long enough to starve them and loosen their skins.
-
THE
SUBJECTIVE STORY THROUGHLINE:
-
While Clarice hopes
to join the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, it is the brilliant Lecter
who is the expert on serial killers, being one himself. In an effort to
learn what he knows, she must let him inside her head and engage him in
an uneven battle of intellects. He gives her cryptic clues to solve, while
she deceives him with promises of a room with a view.
Clarice double-majored
in Psych and Criminology at UVA, and interned at a psychiatric clinic,
but has no direct experience with serial killers. She did save that lamb
from slaughter, but it was brought back and killed anyway. Crawford selected
her as:
CHILTON: A pretty young woman, to turn him on? I don't believe Lecter's
even seen a woman in eight years. And oh, are you ever his "taste"
-- so to speak.
Lecter has carved nine people, eaten the liver of one and the tongue of
a female prison nurse. As Clarice learns:
CHILTON: [...] We've tried to study him, of course -- but he's much too
sophisticated for the standard tests. And my, does he hate us! Thinks
I'm his nemesis...
[Note: In the first draft screenplay, Crawford tells Clarice:
CRAWFORD: He once pretended to go along with some tests given to him by
Dr. Chilton, the asylum's chief administrator, and then published his
own findings first. What he'd learned about Prentiss. Made a total fool
of the man.]
- Domain as it
relates to Mind:
Clarice's position
on people is that they should be saved from harm, rescued from would-be
slaughterers. Lecter believes people are better cooked, and eaten with
fava beans and a good Chianti.
- Concern as it
relates to The Preconscious:
Lecter's impulses
as a psychiatrist drive him to learn Clarice's deepest secrets. Her training
as an FBI agent makes her instinctively hide her fears:
CAMPBELL: You tell him nothing personal, Starling. Believe me, you don't
want Hannibal Lecter inside your head...
But only by exposing herself to him can she learn the information she
needs to rescue the Senator's daughter and silence her screaming lambs.
- Range as it
relates to Confidence :
Lecter is confident
that Clarice -- "a rube" -- is guileless:
LECTER: You're very frank, Clarice. I think -- it would be quite something
to know you in private life.
She is honest, but when she unwittingly deceives him, he reverts to the
confidence he has in his manipulation skills to get him out of his cell
and to Tennessee.
- Counterpoint
as it relates to Worry :
Clarice worries about
getting too close to criminals like Lecter and Buffalo Bill, perhaps deterred
by her father's fate. She jumps each time Lecter slams his sliding food
tray, hesitates to take what he puts in it, even when it's only a towel.
But when he does make contact, it's only to gently stroke her finger --
her worries were unfounded.
- Thematic Conflict
as it relates to Confidence vs. Worry:
Clarice's confidence
in her abilities as an FBI agent butts up against Lecter's record of outwitting
all in his path and killing many. Confidence eventually wins out, as Clarice
gets her information and Lecter confesses he is not after her, negating
her personal worries about him.
- Problem as it
relates to Non-Accurate:
Clarice's selling
of the island vacation scenario (innacurate) to Lecter gives him false
hope. Betrayed, he retaliates by giving Buffalo Bill's identity to the
Senator -- but the name he gives, Louis Friend, is an invention (an anagram
of iron sulfide -- fool's gold), and leads the FBI on a false trail.
- Solution as
it relates to Accurate:
Clarice convinces
Lecter to return to their old, truthful relationship, before she misled
him about "Anthrax Island." He gives her a lecture about simplicity
and coveting what you see every day, which later leads her back to the
first victim and to Buffalo Bill.
- Focus as it
relates to Process:
Clarice, through Crawford,
focuses on the bargaining process to get information out of Lecter, offering
him what he says he wants, a better view. This backfires when the deception
is revealed, and Lecter sticks with his process of manipulation, playing
Dr. Chilton and the Senator against Clarice and Crawford.
- Direction as
it relates to Result:
Clarice keeps asking
Lecter for one thing -- Buffalo Bill's identity. Dismayed by Clarice's
deception, Lecter directs his efforts toward the result he really desires
-- escape from custody and revenge on Dr. Chilton -- and ends his meetings
with Clarice.
- Stipulation
as it relates to The Conscious:
Lecter's parting lesson
to Clarice -- on covetousness -- shows that he now considers her capable
of finding Buffalo Bill's identity from the case file without further
help from him:
LECTER: First principles, Clarice. Simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius. Of
each particular thing, ask: What is it, in itself, what is its nature...?
What does he do, this man you seek?
- Catalyst as
it relates to Worry:
After Lecter has been
scammed by the Anthrax Island offer and threatened by Dr. Chilton, his
concern about ever escaping drives him to cut short his relationship with
Clarice and deal with the Senator directly.
- Inhibitor as
it relates to Thought:
Lecter refuses to
give out the real clue to Buffalo Bill's identity until he can get deeper
inside Clarice's mind, forcing her to reflect on her lamb trauma.
-
Clarice
Starling's THROUGHLINE:
-
- Trainee FBI Agent
"This is CLARICE
STARLING - mid-20's, trim, very pretty." (Ted Tally, unpublished
first draft screenplay, 6/6/89, p.1) "Clarice's voice has just a
trace of southern accent." (p. 2)
LECTER: You're soooo ambitious, aren't you...? You know what you look
like to me, with your good bag and your cheap shoes? You look like a rube.
A well-scrubbed, hustling rube with a little taste... Good nutrition has
given you some length of bone, but you're not more than one generation
from poor white trash, are you - Agent Starling...? And oh, how quickly
the boys found you! All those tedious, sticky fumblings, in the back seats
of cars, while you could only dream of getting out. Getting anywhere...
Getting all the way - to the F...B...I.
By working intimately
with the serial killer Hannibal Lecter, Clarice Starling uncovers the
identity of another serial killer, Buffalo Bill. She succeeds in rescuing
the Senator's daughter he's kidnapped and in killing him, and becomes
an FBI agent her father would have been proud of. However, she's still
haunted by the sight and sounds of lambs being slaughtered that she experienced
as a child, a metaphor for the innocent people who will continue to be
slaughtered despite her efforts.
In addition to her
experience in saving lambs, Clarice's drive to apprehend killers comes
largely from the loss of her father:
LECTER: What is your worst memory of childhood?
CLARICE: The death of my father. [...] He was a town marshal... one night
he surprised two burglars, coming out the back of a drugstore... They
shot him.
LECTER: Was he killed outright?
CLARICE: No. He was very strong... he lasted almost a month. My mother
died when I was very young, so my father had become - the whole world
to me... When he left me, I had nothing. I was ten years old.
- Domain as it
relates to Physics:
Clarice's every waking
hour (and some of her dream time) is dedicated to the activity of detecting
and fighting criminals, particularly serial killers, for the FBI. Silence
of the Lambs opens with a defining image of Clarice Starling as a woman
of action: she's running an obstacle course, alone, through the foggy
woods. Throughout the story, she's always doing something, forever moving,
on her feet, hardly ever even sitting down.
- Concern as it
relates to Doing:
Clarice wants to do
her job the best she can (and even outdo her father), and will do whatever
it takes, even if it means retrieving preserved heads from storage lockers
and attending gruesome autopsies.
- Range as it
relates to Enlightenment :
Clarice believes she
possesses an advantage over male FBI agents: she knows how the female
victims act and think. She can intuit that Buffalo Bill's first victim
would hide secrets in her music box; from checking her wardrobe, she figures
out why diamond-shaped swatches of skin were taken from the body.
- Counterpoint
as it relates to Wisdom :
Through the anagrams
and cryptic clues offered by Lecter, Clarice must explore the greater
meaning of all the information the FBI has gathered on Buffalo Bill's
victims. As the wise Lecter tells her:
LECTER: I've studied the case file, have you...? Everything you need to
find him is right in these pages.
- Thematic Conflict
as it relates to Enlightenment vs. Wisdom:
It is only by combining
her female intuitive qualities with the expanded comprehension imparted
to her by Lecter that Clarice succeeds in finding the killer. As Tootsie
might say, "By being a woman, I became a better FBI agent."
- Problem as it
relates to Unending:
The lambs are forever
screaming. Innocents are forever being victimized, and Clarice will never
run out of people to save from criminals.
- Solution as
it relates to Ending:
If serial killers
would stop victimizing innocents, and lambs were safe from men with knives,
Clarice (and society) could sleep easy at night.
- Focus as it
relates to Process:
Clarice's attention
is so focused on the process of getting Lecter to reveal Buffalo Bill's
identity to her directly that she's unable to discern it from the evidence
that she already has.
- Direction as
it relates to Result:
Clarice is headed
in the right direction by realizing that Lecter holds the key to Buffalo
Bill's identity, dogging him until he obliquely reveals it to her.
- Stipulation
as it relates to Learning:
The more information
she gathers, the closer Clarice feels towards ending Buffalo Bill's reign
of terror and proving herself as a worthy FBI agent.
- Unique Ability
as it relates to Experience:
Clarice's unique ability
to find Buffalo Bill's identity and defeat him comes out of her FBI training,
her UVA schooling in Psych. and Criminology, and the experience of saving
the innocent lambs when she was a child.
- Critical Flaw
as it relates to Fantasy:
While Clarice succeeds
in saving the Senator's daughter from becoming part of Buffalo Bill's
wardrobe, her fantasy that this will liberate her from the screaming of
the lambs remains unfulfilled:
LECTER: You still wake up sometimes, don't you? Wake up in the dark, and
hear the screaming of the lambs?
CLARICE: Yes...
LECTER: Do you think if you saved poor Catherine, you could make them
stop, don't you? You think if Catherine lives... you won't wake up in
the dark ever again... to that awful screaming of the lambs...
CLARICE: I don't know... I don't know...
-
Hannibal
Lecter's THROUGHLINE:
-
- Expert on serial
killing
"A face so long
out of the sun, it seems almost leached -- except for the glittering eyes,
and the wet red mouth. He rises smoothly, crossing to stand before her:
the gracious host. His voice is cultured, soft." (Tally, p.10.)
CHILTON: Oh, he's a monster. Pure psychopath. So rare to capture one alive.
From a research point of view, Lecter is our most prized asset.
Imprisoned for his
serial killings, Hannibal Lecter will grasp any opportunity to get out:
LECTER: I've been in this room for eight years now, Clarice. I know they
will never, ever let me out while I'm alive. What I want is a view. I
want a window where I can see a tree, or even water. I want to be in a
federal institution, far away from Dr. Chilton. [...] I'm offering you
a psychological profile of Buffalo Bill, based on the case evidence. I'll
help you catch him, Clarice.
He trades information with Clarice, switching allegiance to Chilton and
the Senator when betrayed, and finally escaping.
As a brilliant former
psychiatrist, Lecter delights in getting Clarice to reveal her personal
problems. As a serial killer himself, Lecter is reluctant to reveal what
he knows about serial killers' behavioral patterns. Clarice is dedicated
to tracking and stopping killers, and she may use his own information
to come after him.
- Domain as it
relates to Psychology:
Using his almost mind-reading
ability to assess people's personalities, Lecter manipulates them to his
own ends.
- Concern as it
relates to Being:
To get out of his
cell and to Tennessee, Lecter pretends to cooperate with Dr. Chilton and
the Senator. To escape the SWAT team guarding his cage, he temporarily
acts like Buffalo Bill by cutting off his guard's face and wearing it
as a disguise.
- Range as it
relates to Thought :
Though Lecter knows
his captors will never let him out of his cell alive, his thoughts still
allow him to dream of a room with a view. While he considers others inferior
to him, he's constantly fascinated with their thoughts:
LECTER: Jack Crawford is helping your career, isn't he? Apparently he
likes you. And you like him, too.
CLARICE: I never thought about it.
LECTER: Do you think Crawford wants you, sexually? True, he's much older,
but - do you think he visualizes... scenarios, exchanges...? Fucking you?
- Counterpoint
as it relates to Knowledge :
Lecter's unique knowledge
is what Clarice seeks from him, but he refuses to give it to her directly,
preferring to give her half-truths and anagrams to decipher.
- Thematic Conflict
as it relates to Thought vs. Knowledge:
Clarice seeks Lecter's
knowledge of Buffalo Bill's identity, but has to endure Lecter's thoughts
on her personal problems, his reflections on eating people, and his musings
about his "love" relationship with her on the way.
- Problem as it
relates to Cause:
Hannibal Lecter is
driven to cause pain to people, pain both physical and psychological in
nature. In this, he resembles Buffalo Bill (Gumb), who taunts the Senator's
daughter:
MR. GUMB: You think she's in pain? You don't know what pain is. But you're
going to find out...
In addition to suffering the mental torture of reliving the slaughter
of the lambs at Lecter's request, Clarice must endure the physical pain
of the FBI's obstacle course to acquire the strength to deal with his
ilk. As a sign on a tree reads: "HURT. AGONY. PAIN. -- LOVE IT."
- Solution as
it relates to Effect:
The effect of love
for another human being on Lecter begins to show itself in his final phone
call to her:
LECTER: I have no plans to call on you, Clarice, the world being more
interesting with you in it.
- Focus as it
relates to Non-Accurate:
When Dr. Chilton taunts
Lecter with the fact that Clarice lied about Anthrax Island, Lecter deals
with Chilton and the Senator instead, feeding them inaccurate information.
- Direction as
it relates to Accurate:
When Clarice lies
to Lecter about transferring out, he responds by lying back, giving a
false lead to the Senator and jeopardizing her daughter's life:
LECTER: Pity you tried to fool me, isn't it? Pity for poor Catherine.
Tick-tock...
- Stipulation
as it relates to Conceiving:
When Lecter's plan
of cutting a deal with Clarice as a way out of his cell leads nowhere,
he spies Chilton's gold pen and conceives of its use in a better escape
plan.
- Unique Ability
as it relates to Desire:
Once stimulated by
false hope from Clarice, Lecter's 8-year-long desire for a better environment
takes over his consciousness and thwarts her attempts to pry Buffalo Bill's
identity from him.
- Critical Flaw
as it relates to Worth:
Lecter attaches such
a high value to the information he possesses -- Buffalo Bill's identity
-- that he gullibly believes the FBI when they offer him a better prison
and a seaside vacation.
-
ACT
PROGRESSIONS:
-
-
The
Objective Throughline Act Order:
- Objective Story
Signpost #1 as it relates to Progress:
Clarice is finishing
up her FBI training; Buffalo Bill has moved on to his fifth skinning victim,
while hundreds of cops are merely "grabbing at straws" in attempts
to find him; Crawford is getting nowhere in his attempts to interview
Lecter.
- Objective Story
Journey #1 from Progress to The Future:
The Objective Story
accelerates from characters trying to make sense of the facts they've
gathered, to intense concern about what will happen to the Senator's daughter
if they don't.
- Objective Story
Signpost #2 as it relates to The Future:
The Objective Story
gets more complicated with Buffalo Bill's kidnapping of the Senator's
daughter. Her future becomes everybody's concern, as Clarice is included
on the case. Clarice and Crawford promise Lecter a better future if he
cooperates, but not if she dies.
- Objective Story
Journey #2 from The Future to The Present:
Emphasis shifts from
worry over what might happen to a desperation over what to do now to prevent
it.
- Objective Story
Signpost #3 as it relates to The Present:
Dr. Chilton makes
a real deal with Lecter and the Senator, but only if:
CHILTON: You'll answer me now, or by God, you'll never leave this... Who
is Buffalo Bill?
Lecter takes advantage of his new circumstances in Tennessee to make an
escape; the Senator's daughter seizes the moment and grabs Buffalo Bill's
dog; Clarice obsesses over the evidence in the case file.
- Objective Story
Journey #3 from The Present to The Past:
The characters' frustration
with what's in front of them leads them to place hope in well-trodden
ground, leading to the OS climax.
- Objective Story
Signpost #4 as it relates to The Past:
Crawford delves into
Jame Gumb's past and takes his SWAT team to Gumb's last known address;
Clarice goes back to Buffalo Bill's first victim and traces her to a previous
work location, finding Buffalo Bill; Lecter reverts to his penchant for
eating people.
The
Subjective Throughline Act Order:
- Subjective Story
Signpost #1 as it relates to Memory:
At their first meeting,
Clarice comments upon Lecter's drawings:
CLARICE: All that detail, just from memory...?
LECTER: Memory, Officer Starling, is what I have instead of a view.
His assessment of her background based on her appearance causes her to
recollect her late loving father.
- Subjective Story
Journey #1 from Memory to The Preconscious:
Clarice and Lecter
move from getting-to-know-you fond memories to her gut response to the
killings.
- Subjective Story
Signpost #2 as it relates to The Preconscious:
Lecter's fascinated
by how Clarice responds to viewing gruesome corpses, first the transvestite
in the car:
LECTER: How did you feel when you saw him, Clarice? May I call you Clarice?
CLARICE: Scared, at first. Then - exhilarated.
LECTER: Ahhh... Why?
CLARICE: Because you weren't wasting my time.
--and with Buffalo Bill's victim:
LECTER: Tell me, how did you feel when you viewed our Billy's latest effort?
[...]
CLARICE: By the book, he's a sadist.
- Subjective Story
Journey #2 from The Preconscious to The Subconscious:
As Lecter gets deeper
inside Clarice's head, the subject shifts from her professional reactions
to killing to their personal drives -- escaping and silencing the lambs,
respectively.
- Subjective Story
Signpost #3 as it relates to The Subconscious:
Lecter probes deeper
into Clarice's psyche and finds what's motivating her to track serial
killers -- the screaming of the lambs.
- Subjective Story
Journey #3 from The Subconscious to The Conscious:
Hurt by Clarice's
betrayal, Lecter considers their relationship at an end, while Clarice
contemplates the message he left her with.
- Subjective Story
Signpost #4 as it relates to The Conscious:
Lecter says a final
goodbye to Clarice by telephone. Her influence has mellowed him, and for
the first time he doesn't want to victimize somebody he got close to.
Clarice, though, remains steadfast -- she still considers him a threat
to society.
-
The
Main Character Throughline Act Order:
- Main Character
Signpost #1 as it relates to Learning:
Clarice is finishing
up her education at the FBI Academy when she's recruited to learn what
she can about Hannibal Lecter and what he knows.
- Main Character
Journey #1 from Learning to Obtaining:
When she realizes
Lecter trusts and respects her as a person, Clarice is ready to deal with
him for Buffalo Bill's identity.
- Main Character
Signpost #2 as it relates to Obtaining:
Clarice's mission
becomes to obtain Buffalo Bill's identity from Lecter.
- Main Character
Journey #2 from Obtaining to Understanding:
The more clues Clarice
gets from Lecter, the more she must expose herself in order to appreciate
how killers think.
- Main Character
Signpost #3 as it relates to Understanding:
Clarice struggles
to comprehend how all the facts she possesses add up.
- Main Character
Journey #3 from Understanding to Doing:
Figuring out what
the map pattern and covetousness add up to, Clarice follows the trail
to Buffalo Bill.
- Main Character
Signpost #4 as it relates to Doing:
Having interpreted
the case file, Clarice tracks down Buffalo Bill and confronts him in the
OS climax.
The
Obstacle Character Throughline Act Order:
- Obstacle Character
Signpost #1 as it relates to Conceptualizing:
Lecter can't imagine
how the FBI expects to get information from him by sending a rookie like
Clarice, but envisions a way to deal his way out of his cell.
- Obstacle Character
Journey #1 from Conceptualizing to Being:
Upset when the deal
he's looked forward to sours, Lecter shifts his concern to deceiving Chilton
and the Senator.
- Obstacle Character
Signpost #2 as it relates to Being:
Lecter pretends to
cooperate with Dr. Chilton and the Senator, in order to escape his asylum
cell. He plays possum in his new cage to lower the guards' defenses.
- Obstacle Character
Journey #2 from Being to Becoming:
Encouraged by his
fooling of his captors, Lecter becomes the guard Pembry in order to escape,
then assumes the EMT's identity.
- Obstacle Character
Signpost #3 as it relates to Becoming:
Hannibal the Cannibal
slices off Officer Pembry's face and wears it, transforming his appearance
to get past the Tennessee SWAT team and escape.
- Obstacle Character
Journey #3 from Becoming to Conceiving:
Delighted at his transformation
into a free man, Lecter hatches his plan to revenge himself on Dr. Chilton.
- Obstacle Character
Signpost #4 as it relates to Conceiving:
Now that Lecter is
free, he comes up with the idea that Clarice will not come after him,
quid pro quo for his not stalking her. He also has plans for his next
meal:
LECTER: [...] I'm having an old friend for dinner.
Miscellaneous Other Storytelling Items:
Clarice wants to prove
herself as an FBI agent. Lecter is prepared to play the bargaining game
in return for a better view. Working together and with the other Objective
Characters, they outsmart Buffalo Bill and rescue his hostage.
The overall plot of
The Silence Of The Lambs begins with Clarice Starling being plucked out
of the FBI academy by Special Agent Ray Crawford and being sent to interview
serial killer Hannibal 'the Cannibal' Lecter. Admiring her pluckiness,
he realizes he has information she wants, and uses her to bargain his
way out of his cell. She learns to interpret his cryptic clues to the
identity of serial killer Buffalo Bill, who has skinned five women and
has now kidnapped a Senator's daughter. But when she deceives him, he
deals instead with his captor Dr. Chilton. Reaching Tennessee, he kills
his guards and escapes in grisly fashion. While Crawford's FBI follows
up Lecter's false lead, Clarice re-investigates Bill's first victim and
thwarts Buffalo Bill in a shoot-out, rescuing the Senator's daughter.
How secure can we
feel in the knowledge that the FBI is out there, tracking down serial
killers, those antisocial psychopaths who gleefully kill innnocent citizens
to satisfy their perverse pleasures? Does locking them in "escape-proof"
prisons permanently nullify them as a threat to society, or is killing
them the only true solution? Clarice seems to think that saving innocents
from victimizers will bring her inner peace, but she can't verify that
at story's end. Lecter's not convinced that tracking them down one at
a time, following their trail of death, provides any security. As his
example proves, when one door shuts, another one opens. As we leave the
theater, we harbor the uncomfortable feeling that there are more Hannibal
Lecters out there...
- Subjective Character
Synopsis:
It's a relationship
of psychological manipulation, resulting in a win-win situation. While
Clarice is intent on saving lambs from the slaughter, she must submit
herself to the psychological knife of Lecter's genius and reveal her secret
fears to him. In return, he is using her (and the knowledge she covets
from him) as a means of effecting an escape from the clutches of the cruel
Dr. Chilton. When that tack fails, he has no further use for Clarice,
though he retains a fondness and admiration for her.
- Master Character
Synopsis:
Driven by unresolved
issues from her childhood, Clarice is a lone woman trying to prove herself
in the man's world of the FBI. To do so, she must face the worst of humankind--brilliant
serial killer Hannibal Lecter--in order to apprehend another killer Buffalo
Bill, and to please her boss, Ray Crawford. Lecter's intrigued by Clarice
and helps her find Bill's identity in return for learning her innermost
secrets and a transfer to a better prison. Clarice, with a male mental
sex, incorporates Lecter's female problem-solving techniques in order
to see the big picture and figure out who Bill is. When Senator Martin's
daughter is kidnapped by Buffalo Bill, Clarice and Crawford falsely promise
Lecter a transfer in desperation. Feeling his power usurped, Lecter's
cruel jailer Dr. Chilton reveals their deception and makes a new deal
with Lecter. Lecter agrees in order to get out of his cell, then murderously
escapes. Clarice defeats Bill in a one-on-one confrontation and rescues
the Senator's daughter. Lecter reveals a change in his nature by not pursuing
Clarice, though he'll seek revenge on Chilton. Clarice remains steadfast
in her conviction to track serial killers such as Lecter.
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