Although it is my custom to watch scary stuff althroughout October, I’m usually not much of a horror movie kind of guy. I need to be in the right mood, and that doesn’t happen too often outside of spooky season. Silence of the Lambs, however, is one of the few exceptions to this rule.
Its numerous spinoffs tend to be Lecter-centric, and certainly Hannibal is an interesting character in his own right. In Silence, however, the protagonist is not everyone’s favorite dad-joking, suit-wearing, people-snacking psychiatrist but FBI agent-in-training Clarice Starling.
Agent Starling is an adept woman competing in a man’s domain, something that crystalizes every time she shares and elevator or works alongside law enforcement in the field. She’s short, constantly talked over or ignored, but she has two important things in her favor: 1) her capacity for abstract thought, and 2) her friend and fellow agent-in-training Ardelia Mapp.
Clarice is not merely capable; she’s the right person to crack this case. She’s more socially aware than your average g-man (I always enjoy the moment Jack Crawford recalled that she once grilled him in a class he was teaching regarding the bureau’s activities during the Civil Rights years), and unlike many charlatan profilers and other such “experts,” she is actually well-read when it comes to psychiatric disorders.
This brings us to the unfortunate truth of this movie: some of its scenes are still used to harass trans people by comparing them to the serial killer whom Clarice is hunting, Buffalo Bill. Agent Starling does specifically say in the film that this dangerous psychopath is not a trans person, but this distinction was forgotten by the average viewer in the 1991 in favor of lurid scenes of the killer donning makeup and performing a menacing dance.
Nevertheless, the absolute perfection of the story’s pacing, the natural way events are irreversably set into motion, and the stunning events at the close of the film draw me in every time. Each viewing still feels fresh, and even though I know how the story concludes, I’m still terrified for Clarice every time I watch her searching in the darkness, gun drawn, while a killer casually observes her through nightvision goggles.
Aside from the insensitivity to trans issues, there are other parts of this film which have not aged well. An FBI agent-in-training who was openly critical of the Bureau for its rather aggressive past with civil rights activists would likely be washed out long before reaching Clarice’s level. While we like to believe that those who are tasked with public safety are good guys and that the only people they pursue are bad guys. However, the reality is that the Bureau’s shameful conduct regarding civil rights activists and marginalized groups in general is still happening right now.
I can’t deny that there is something nice about believing that an agent like Clarice could exist. I’m reminded of Akira Kurosawa’s many films set in feudal Japan which generally portrayed Samurai as honest, compassionate, righteous, brave, and heroic. Were these generally accurate portrayals when compared to the vast majority of samurai? Absolutely not. But that doesn’t stop their stories from being enjoyable for the spark of hope they nurture in the viewers’ hearts – that the world can be made better by people who choose to do good.