Silence Of The Lambs Analysis

While watching The Silence of the Lambs I have noticed the use of some semiotics. The first one would be the fog. Fog is the iconic element of many horrors representing danger, and being unsafe but also a mystery as something that cannot be seen because of the fog might be hiding in it. As it was used in the forest in the opening scene, it made the forest seem as a much more dangerous place than it really is, and having the image of a woman in there gives a feeling of uncertainty to what will happen to her. Another semiotic which I have noticed is the use of moths. Moths are night butterflies, and butterflies are a sign of rebirth or as it would be more relevant to the story of finding own identity, referring to Buffalo Bill which didn't feel himself as a man and wanted to be reborn in a woman's skin, hence the murders. The last semiotic which I noticed was the clever use of darkness, which is another iconic element of nearly all horror stories. It was used in many situation, when Clarice was in garage of some kind, when she found the head in a jar, it was mostly dark in there and it felt really unsafe, just like something was about to jump out on her. The other use of darkness was when Clarice was nearly killed by Buffalo Bill. The action there really brought the tension up and left the viewers in doubt  if Clarice is going to survive, especially that Bill had noctovision glasses and he could easily see Clarice, how scared she was and didn't even know which way to walk to escape. This semiotic has shown the real horror part of the film, and was used really well.


The opening scene in Silence of the Lambs, clearly shows the horror genre of the film. This is because of the eeriness within the forest, which is caused by the fog that is just above the ground and the dark and unlively colour of the forest just like it would be dead. The forest seems to be a very large place as we can see in the first few seconds when we are introduced to Clarice when she is climbing a steeper part of the forest and the camera shows that the a horizon full of trees. This part adds a little bit of eeriness because the forest seems to be very secluded, and the viewer might not feel really comfortable with a woman, which seems to be there alone, to be in that place. Supposedly, it might be because the viewer can see her running, but they don't know if she is running away from something or someone, or if she just does her regular training. She surely doesn't look scared but the viewer might be unsure of her fate, because if she isn't running away from anyone, then what is she doing in those woods, and will something attack her during the running? These might be the questions that the viewer will think of when watching the very beginning, and will start to connect with Clarice as a character. But this scene is what shows the viewer that it is a horror movie, because it raises so much questions, and shows her vulnerability because if she would be attacked by someone in such a large forest then, there surely wouldn't be any help for her as no-one would hear her screaming if something happened. Also, the soundtrack that is played in the background sounds very mysterious, making the this scene seem even more eerie than it is, this is because it is quite a normal exercise for people to go for a jog, even around a forest, but the soundtrack makes the viewer wonder, what actually might happen next to Clarice. So, as the viewer learns a bit later on, she is on a FBI training camp, and does her routine exercise and in there are few signs which have been cleverly put in the foreground of the shot. They might seem like normal signs but it is quite easy to figure out that they correspond to the character which the viewer meets a bit later, Hannibal Lecter. This is because the viewer learns that Lecter used to kill people and then eat them, which means that they were in hurt, agony and pain, and Hannibal loved to do it, so the words might be a connotation of Hannibal's behaviour but also represent Buffalo Bill's action, but as far as the film shows it Bill didn't really love the killing, as he was rejecting that idea as much as he could, treating woman that he captured as objects rather than people, so I suppose that the signs reflect the idea of Hannibal's character rather than Bill's. Another thing which is barely visible about the signs which might also, correspond to Lecter is the last, a bit blurred sign; when the movie is stopped in the right moment the viewer might just about to make out the word 'pride' which has really faded out.  Theoretically, it might also reflect Hannibal's character because it can be easy seen that he was proud of his actions and did not regret anything that he did; and he did show that he is capable of continuing his work if he gets out of jail.

 

The main character in Silence of the Lambs is portrayed to be a strong, individual woman, which can handle anything. But also, because of the fact that she is a woman she is disregarded by a lot of people. This can be mostly seen by the actions of the policemen which see no real authority in her. This happens when she and her boss are talking with the policemen at a funeral and when she begins to tell them what to do they look at her like they would be surprised that a woman gives them commands. This just shows how much respect they have for her, but there is no surprise in this, because if she is in a mostly men orientated job, like it can be seen in the lift where she is practically surrounded by them, then they don’t expect a woman to be as good as them in the same job. But she proves them wrong, at the point when the men stop believing that she will be useful and take her of the case.

 

 

She shows that not only they were wrong when looking through the suspects, but she finds the real killer and saves the kidnapped girl. This shows that she has a strong character and doesn’t give up easily which has helped her when she was talking with Lecter. At that point we can nearly see her breaking, as she was really touched by his opinions about her life, but she gets back on track each time and gets some information from him. This also shows that she takes risks to achieve what she has to, as she was warned not to play Lecters’ games as he might destroy her psychologically, but she does that anyway. Clarice is also, portrayed as an attractive woman because, Buffalo Bill admires her for a long time before he decides to kill her, this just shows that even for him she was attractive. But also, a lot of men try to “hit on her” as she asked one man herself. Another scene, where it can be seen that Clarice is portrayed as an attractive woman is when she is running with her friend on the training camp and male officers gaze at them even though they have run next to them, they still look back. Apart from being attractive she is also, seen as a sexual toy by the prisoners. This can be seen at the point when she enters the prison and all the men start behaving like animals and one even throws his cum on her, showing that he would want to do only one thing with her.

The Queer Theory is relatable to one of the characters in this film, more precisely to Buffalo Bill. This is because he would want to become a woman, but it was made impossible to him, so instead he dresses like a woman and puts make-up on his face to look like one. But he is so obsessed with the idea of becoming a woman that he kidnaps woman and kills them to cut the skin from their backs to make himself a woman suit that he would probably want to wear. This is a very negative portrayal of a homosexual because people might associate all homosexuals to be so obsessed about the other gender that they might kill to become someone else, but it isn't really relatable to all homosexuals as all people are individually different from others and they cannot be stereotyped because of someone's behaviour. But as it was said in the film, we learnt that Buffalo Bill wasn't born a homosexual, he was cruelly treated, so this might connote that he hated himself for being so weak that he couldn't protect himself  and wanted to become someone completely extremely different, and maybe because he considers women as beautiful but weaker creatures then he felt like he needed to become one to match his way of feeling about himself.

I think that the most memorable scene in the film was the crucifixion of the policeman when Lecter was escaping. This kind of death might connote the way in which the policeman died, as he was beaten to death by Hannibal, or tortured. This means that his death might symbolise the death of Jesus, that both of them died as martyrs.

Apart from the points which I have already discussed I have found some more interesting scenes which I wanted to talk about. The first one would be about Buffalo Bill, and the way he treated his victims. In the video above there is a scene in which he talks to the kidnapped girl and he doesn't talk to her normally but refers to her as to an object "It rubs the lotion on its skin and does this whenever its told". Also, after she screams that she wants to see her mummy again, we can see a slight movement on Buffalo Bills mouth in a gesture like he would be nearly crying. This might connote that he isn't really excited about the killings and only does them for the skin and after he would have enough he would stop, how else could it be explained that he is sad that he hurts the girls and refers to them as 'it' as an object, which was never alive, it never felt anything. This might suggest that it is easier for him to kill if he refers to the girls in this way, if he doesn't associate his victims as humans . Another interesting scene was shown when Clarice was supposed to meet Lecter for the first time and she was warned that he is really dangerous by showing her a picture of a nurse attacked by Hannibal. We aren't really shown the picture but as the shots move between the characters there is a bright red light shining on them, I suppose that this light might refer to the picture at which they are looking at, and the colour of the light represents the blood, signifying that the nurse wasn't in a good state after the attack, and that the picture consisted of a very bloody image. After the meetings with Clarice, Lecter knows that she depends on him and that he is in control to how much information she obtains, this allows him to play around with her and manipulate her however he wants. For example, he lets Clarice walk off, but when he calls he back she comes running hoping to gain more information, and this action makes Lecter more satisfied as he is in the centre of interest and everything depends upon him. The last interesting scene is right at the beginning of the film when Clarice is called into her boss's office and before he comes in, she has time to look at some of the articles about Buffalo Bill. I suppose that this moment let her hook onto the case. I suppose that at this time she heard the crying of the defenceless lambs once again, meaning that when she could help in the case, she wanted to find the killer even more than anyone else to take revenge for all these women which couldn't defend themselves and eventually save the lamb that she blames herself for throughout the film.