Accept the podcast hosts stopped screaming? Non however! We follow last episode's discussion of the Best Actress nominees of 1991 — including the groundbreaking, genre-defying tale of female outlaws Thelma & Louise — with a look at the dark'south large winner, The Silence Of The Lambs. The serial killer thriller not just won the Best Actress Oscar, but too Best Thespian, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Motion picture — a feat accomplished by only two other films in the Academy's 93 twelvemonth history.

Similar Thelma & Louise, The Silence Of The Lambs is at present known for inserting intelligent, fully realized female characters into a genre typically dominated by men. And like Thelma & Louise, The Silence Of The Lambs generated enough of controversy upon release, particularly effectually its gender-bending antagonist, Buffalo Nib. Of course, it besides birthed one of the most memorable and quotable screen villains of all time, with Anthony Hopkins' brief but tasty turn as cannibal psychologist Hannibal Lecter.

In this episode, we dissect the film both as a crowd-pleasing, smash-biting thriller and through the lens of its sexual politics. Jodie Foster'southward much-lauded performance fabricated FBI trainee Clarice Starling one of the greatest screen heroines of the 90s, merely does she however agree her own against the infamous Dr. Lecter thirty years afterwards?

Is The Silence Of The Lambs notwithstanding a snack? Or should nosotros send this thing back to Baltimore? Take hold of your best purse and your cheapest shoes, lodge an exotic moth in your throat, and get a dainty bottle of Chianti ready, because this podcast is going all the mode to the FBI. Bon appétit!

Listen to the podcast here or on iTunes.

The Silence Of The Lambs is a no-brainer topic for a podcast similar ours. Information technology's kind of amazing we didn't get to information technology until our 90th episode. The only reasoning I tin give is that we were saving information technology for a special treat.

The motion-picture show is iconic. It contains some of the most quoted moving-picture show dialogue of all time. Hannibal Lecter is one of the most legendary villains of all time. It's a popular movie that people have seen and dear.

Only it is also respected by critics, and oftentimes written virtually by academics. Information technology could exist watched as a instance study in how to tell a story visually — the production design and cinematography are very focused on theme and character, far beyond being functional for a crowd-pleasing suspense thriller. The screenwriting is masterful, just also economical.

A lot of times, a picture show this good might fly under the radar — but non this one! Information technology was as well honey by the Academy, which awarded information technology the "Big Five" Oscars for Adjusted Screenplay, Histrion, Extra, Director, and Motion picture, making information technology i of iii films to ever earn all the top prizes. (Alongside It Happened I Night and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, it'due south in suitably legendary visitor.)

We've covered Oscar winners and crowd-pleasers and cult favorites and critical darlings, but I'm not sure nosotros've ever covered a motion-picture show that was all of these, and more than. Often, a pic as popular and celebrated as The Silence Of The Lambs was dorsum in 1991 would be reappraised, and accumulate some detractors. I'm certain there are people out in that location who recollect The Silence Of The Lambs is a mediocre or even terrible moving picture, but there aren't too many. On the whole, it seems similar people still collectively bask and admire this film. It'due south literally ane of the merely movies it feels similar "everyone" tin agree on.

Well, well-nigh. If The Silence Of The Lambs is disparaged at all these days, information technology's usually considering of the Buffalo Bill grapheme. Jonathan Demme's motion picture is part of a much larger conversation about how homosexuality and especially transgender characters have been depicted in film and literature. Information technology'south fair to say that The Silence Of The Lambs touches on these issues without fully addressing them (largely because the volume needed to be pared down for pacing reasons). Thomas Harris' volume makes information technology clear that Buffalo Pecker isn't transgender — he has a very specific pathology that is unique to him. The moving-picture show depicts it the same way, but leaves a lot of the context cryptic. I understand why some queer viewers felt put off past the film back in 1991, and why the moving-picture show was protested, though I don't ultimately think the picture show is transphobic.

Function of what I dearest about Buffalo Pecker is how difficult to define he is — in some means, very masculine, in others more than feminine; he'southward an amalgam of several unlike series killers, becoming something like a supervillain who defies simple categorization. In a movie that's all about psychology and gender, I remember it's fascinating to brand the antagonist a man who's constantly condign something else, calculation layer upon layer to our understanding of him (or lack thereof). The fact that he's so impossible to define ultimately makes him scarier. Seizing on the fact that he, at one point, dons lipstick and tucks his penis away as evidence that he'south supposed to be transgender is ignoring everything else about his character that contradicts that.

Maybe it's because the "Farewell Horses" scene is merely likewise expert. It sticks with us. Ted Levine's performance in that moment sticks with us. It makes that 1 scene feel, possibly, more of import than it actually is. Buffalo Beak does seek out gender reassignment surgeries, but he'due south rejected because the doctors believe he's non actually transgender. Over again, the film glosses over this, so I can sympathize arguments nearly why this reads as problematic, but ultimately I give the movie a pass because of how intricate and intelligent it is nigh gender and psychology everywhere else. I can't believe that a moving-picture show that'southward then smart about so many other things would be then obtuse about this. I give Demme the benefit of the doubt.

I'm truly in awe of Jonathan Demme's direction, and the film itself. Both Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins' performances are some of the best of all time. It'due south rare to find a truly perfect film, but The Silence Of The Lambs qualifies. It does so much so right.