The Silence Of The Lambs (1991)

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R

Jonathan Demme

Kenneth Utt, Edward Saxon & Ron Bozman

Ted Tally – screenplay

Thomas Harris – novel ‘The Silence of the Lambs’

Howard Shore

Tak Fujimoto

Craig McKay

Orion Pictures

United States

English

Bellaire, Ohio, USA (bridge into Belvedere, Ohio)

Bimini Airport, South Bimini Island, Bimini Islands, Bahamas

Carnegie Museum of Natural History - 4400 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

Department of Labor Frances Perkins Building - 200 Constitution Ave. NW, Washington, District of Columbia, USA

FBI Academy, Quantico, Virginia, USA

Glenwillard, Pennsylvania, USA (Bimmel house in Belvedere, Ohio)

Lambert International Airport - 10701 Lambert International Boulevard, St. Louis, Missouri, USA

Layton, Pennsylvania, USA (Gumb House in Belvedere, Ohio)

McKeesport, Pennsylvania, USA (morgue/embalming room/funeral home interiors)

Memphis, Tennessee, USA (stock footage)

Old Allegheny County Jail - 5th Ave & Ross Street, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA (as Baltimore State Forensic Hospital: interiors)

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

Rural Valley, Pennsylvania, USA

Shaler Township, Pennsylvania, USA (wrong house in Calumet City)

Soldiers and Sailors Museum and Memorial - 4141 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA (Shelby County Courthouse)

Washington, District of Columbia, USA

Western Center - 333 Curry Hill Rd., Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, USA (Baltimore State Forensic Hospital exterior shots)

ASCAP Awards

1992 Won ASCAP Award Top Box Office Films Howard Shore

Academy Awards

1992 Won Oscar Best Actor in a Leading Role Anthony Hopkins

1992 Won Oscar Best Actress in a Leading Role Jodie Foster

1992 Won Oscar Best Director Jonathan Demme

1992 Won Oscar Best Picture Edward Saxon, Kenneth Utt & Ronald M. Bozman

1992 Won Oscar Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium Ted Tally
1992 Nominated Oscar Best Film Editing Craig McKay

1992 Nominated Best Sound Tom Fleischman & Christopher Newman

Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA

1992 Won Saturn Award Best Actor Anthony Hopkins

1992 Won Saturn Award Best Horror Film

1992 Won Saturn Award Best Make-Up Carl Fullerton & Neal Martz

1992 Won Saturn Award Best Writing Ted Tally

1992 Nominated Saturn Award Best Actress Jodie Foster

1992 Nominated Saturn Award Best Costumes Colleen Atwood

1992 Nominated Saturn Award Best Director Jonathan Demme

1992 Nominated Saturn Award Best Music Howard Shore

American Cinema Editors, USA

1992 Nominated Eddie Best Edited Feature Film Craig McKay

Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival

1991 Won Silver Scream Award Jonathan Demme
Awards of the Japanese Academy

1992 Nominated Award of the Japanese Academy Best Foreign Film

BAFTA Awards

1992 Won BAFTA Film Award Best Actor Anthony Hopkins

1992 Won BAFTA Film Award Best Actress Jodie Foster

1992 Nominated BAFTA Film Award Best Cinematography Tak Fujimoto

1992 Nominated BAFTA Film Award Best Direction Jonathan Demme

1992 Nominated BAFTA Film Award Best Editing Craig McKay

1992 Nominated BAFTA Film Award Best Film Edward Saxon, Kenneth Utt, Ronald M. Bozman & Jonathan Demme

1992 Nominated BAFTA Film Award Best Original Film Score Howard Shore

1992 Nominated BAFTA Film Award Best Screenplay – Adapted Ted Tally

1992 Nominated BAFTA Film Award Best Sound Skip Lievsay, Christopher Newman & Tom Fleischman

Berlin International Film Festival

1991 Won Silver Berlin Bear Best Director Jonathan Demme. Tied with Ultrà (1990)

1991 Nominated Golden Berlin Bear Jonathan Demme

Blue Ribbon Awards

1992 Won Blue Ribbon Award Best Foreign Language Film Jonathan Demme

Boston Society of Film Critics Awards

1991 Won BSFC Award Best Cinematography Tak Fujimoto

1991 Won BSFC Award Best Director Jonathan Demme

1991 Won BSFC Award Best Film

1991 Won BSFC Award Best Supporting Actor Anthony Hopkins

Casting Society of America, USA

1991 Nominated Artios Best Casting for Feature Film, Drama Howard Feuer

Chicago Film Critics Association Awards

1992 Won CFCA Award Best Actor Anthony Hopkins
1992 Won CFCA Award Best Actress Jodie Foster

1992 Won CFCA Award Best Director Jonathan Demme

1992 Won CFCA Award Best Picture

1992 Won CFCA Award Best Screenplay Ted Tally

César Awards, France

1992 Nominated César Best Foreign Film (Meilleur film étranger) Jonathan Demme

Directors Guild of America, USA

1992 Won DGA Award Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures Jonathan Demme & Kenneth Utt (unit production managers) (plaque); Ronald M. Bozman (first assistant director) (plaque); Kyle McCarthy (second assistant director) (plaque)

Edgar Allan Poe Awards

1992 Won Edgar Best Motion Picture Ted Tally

Golden Globes, USA

1992 Won Golden Globe Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama Jodie Foster

1992 Nominated Golden Globe Best Director - Motion Picture Jonathan Demme

1992 Nominated Golden Globe Best Motion Picture - Drama

1992 Nominated Golden Globe Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama Anthony Hopkins

1992 Nominated Golden Globe Best Screenplay - Motion Picture Ted Tally

Golden Screen, Germany

1991 Won Golden Screen (Columbia (distributor)

Hochi Film Awards

1991 Won Hochi Film Award Best Foreign Language Film Jonathan Demme

Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards

1992 Won KCFCC Award Best Actor Anthony Hopkins

1992 Won KCFCC Award Best Actress Jodie Foster

1992 Won KCFCC Award Best Director Jonathan Demme

1992 Won KCFCC Award Best Film

London Critics Circle Film Awards

1992 Nominated ALFS Award Actor of the Year Anthony Hopkins

1992 Nominated ALFS Award Actress of the Year Jodie Foster

1992 Nominated ALFS Award Director of the Year Jonathan Demme

1992 Nominated ALFS Award Film of the Year

National Board of Review, USA

1991 Won NBR Award Best Director Jonathan Demme

1991 Won NBR Award Best Film

1991 Won NBR Award Best Supporting Actor Anthony Hopkins

New York Film Critics Circle Awards

1991 Won NYFCC Award Best Actor Anthony Hopkins

1991 Won NYFCC Award Best Actress Jodie Foster

1991 Won NYFCC Award Best Director Jonathan Demme

1991 Won NYFCC Award Best Film

PGA Awards

1992 Won Motion Picture Producer of the Year Award Edward Saxon, Kenneth Utt & Ronald M. Bozman

People’s Choice Awards

1992 Won People's Choice Award Favorite Dramatic Motion Picture

Sant Jordi Awards

1992 Won Sant Jordi Best Foreign Actor (Mejor Actor Extranjero) Anthony Hopkins

Satellite Awards

2007 Nominated Satellite Award Best DVD Extras for: the collector's edition

Writers Guild of America, USA

1992 Won WGA Award (Screen) Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium Ted Tally

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The first horror movie to win an Academy Award for Best Picture, The Silence of the Lambs also has the distinction of being only the third movie in history to win the five major Oscars - after It Happened One Night (1934) and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975).

An adaptation of Thomas Harris's best-selling novel, the film was a deserved winner, featuring superb performances from Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins, with director Jonathan Demme, previously best known for comedy, delivering a continuous shiver down the spines of the audience without ever resorting to gore. Foster, as FBI recruit Clarice Starling, is asked by her superior, Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn), to visit notorious serial killer Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter (Hopkins, in a role originally offered to Jeremy Irons), a former psychiatrist held in a subterranean prison who may have an insight into the psyche of a murderer named Buffalo Bill (creepily brought to life by Ted Levine), which will help the FBI catch him.

Of course, the witty, cultured Hannibal is too clever to give up such information easily. He draws Clarice into an uneasy, disturbing relationship in which he demands insight into her childhood in return for his opinions. It is their exchanges, in Hannibal's dark, gothic dungeon, separated only by glass, that are at the film's heart as Foster and, most notably Hopkins, give tour de force performances, delivering Ted Tally's often quotable words - "A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti" - with delicious (if that word can be used in reference to a movie about a cannibal) verve.

Since the movie's release in 1991, Hopkins's memorable character has taken on a life of its own, appearing in the disappointing 2001 sequel Hannibal - with the role of Clarice played by Julianne Moore - and more enjoyable prequel Red Dragon (2002), based on the same Harris novel as Michael Mann's superior, stylish Manhunter (1986).

The pattern on the butterfly's back in the movie posters is not the natural pattern of the Death's-Head Hawk Moth. It is, in fact, Salvador Dalí's "In Voluptas Mors", a picture of seven naked women made to look like a human skull.

The Tobacco horn worm moths used throughout the film were given celebrity treatment by the filmmakers. They were flown first class to the set (in a special carrier), had special living quarters (rooms with controlled humidity and heat) and were dressed in carefully designed costumes (body shields bearing a painted skull and crossbones)

Anthony Hopkins described his voice for Hannibal Lecter as, "a combination of Truman Capote and Katharine Hepburn."

Scott Glenn's character of Jack Crawford was based on real-life FBI Special Agent John E. Douglas, an early member of the FBI's Behavioral Sciences Unit, who coached Glenn on his portrayal of a member of the BSU. Douglas, still an active FBI Special Agent during production, was in the midst of tracking Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer, who was convicted of killing seventy-one women and believed to have killed more than ninety between 1982 and 1998 in Washington state.

Buffalo Bill is the combination of three real life serial killers: Ed Gein, who skinned his victims; Ted Bundy, who used the cast on his hand as bait to make women get into his van; and Gary Heidnick, who kept women he kidnapped in a pit in his basement. Gein was only positively linked to two murders and suspected of two others. He gathered most of his materials not through murder, but grave-robbing.

The inspiration for the Silence of the Lambs was the real life relationship between University of Washington criminology professor and profiler Robert Keppel and real life serial killer Ted Bundy. Bundy helped Keppel in his investigation of the Green River Serial Killings in Washington. While Bundy was executed 24 January 1989, the Green River Killings went unsolved until 2001 when Gary Ridgway was arrested. On 5 November 2003, Ridgway pleaded guilty to 48 counts of aggravated first degree murder in a King County, Washington (Seattle) courtroom.

Anthony Hopkins has stated that he saw the character of Lecter as similar to HAL in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968); that is to say, a highly complex, highly intelligent, highly logical killing machine who seems to know everything going on around him.

After Jodie Foster first read the Thomas Harris novel, she tried to buy the rights herself, only to find Gene Hackman had beaten her to it.

Director Cameo: Jonathan Demme wearing a blue cap at the end of the film.

Hannibal 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?

Murray: Is it true what they're sayin', he's some kinda vampire?
Clarice Starling: They don't have a name for what he is.

Jack Crawford: Believe me; you don't want Hannibal Lecter inside your head.

Hannibal Lecter: [on telephone] I do wish we could chat longer, but... I'm having an old friend for dinner. Bye.

Hannibal Lecter: You still wake up sometimes, don't you? You wake up in the dark and hear the screaming of the lambs.
Clarice Starling: Yes.
Hannibal Lecter: And you think if you save 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 Starling: Where are you, Dr. Lecter?
Hannibal Lecter: I've no plans to call on you, Clarice. The world is more interesting with you in it.

The moth landing on the red roll of string at Buffalo Bills house has a black string attached to its back. This was probably not an issue during the low resolution days, but it's clearly visible in high definition.

The superbly crafted suspense thriller…slams you like a sudden blast of bone-chilling, pulse-pounding terror. Reviewed by: Peter Travers of Rolling Stone.

It has been a good long while since I have felt the presence of Evil so manifestly demonstrated as in the first appearance of Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs. Reviewed by: Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times.

The plot is squeezed dry in this bloody Valentine from Hollywood and becomes annoyingly predictable. Thriller stumbles on its own success. Reviewed by: Jay Scott of The Globe and Mail (Toronto).

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