The silence of the lamb is a very interesting movie. This movie was published in the year 1991. Thomas Harris who learned about Ted Bundy, Gary M. Heidnick and Ed Gein, shaped the character of Buffalo Bill. Ed Gein was the most influential for the silence of the lamb. One significant tie between Gein and Bill was that Gein decided to become a woman after his mother’s passing in hopes to collecting body parts to build a “woman’s suit”, like Bill did.
I enjoyed the entire movie and I was really anxious to find out what would happen to Clarice since no one else could get through to Hannibal Lecter so that she could find out about the Buffalo Killer. This movie gave me much suspense to the storyline of Lecter and Buffalo Bill to the authorities pursuing him. I am a huge fan of the Hannibal “Cannibal” Lecter; he has done amazing work in his recent movies. He has a very high IQ, this is one characteristic in an organized serial killer which he can be considered to me as a very organized killer and well observant. I would also say that he is a very manipulative person.
I think his murders were on a deeper level of social pathologies which are the real evil ones. I also think that he is considered a psychopath, which he has no regard for anybody. Presented in the scene where he escaped and killed the two officers with no remorse. Identifying Buffalo Bill, I think that Lecter was very good in psychological manipulation, in which he is a “psychiatrist”. In this movie, Clarice Starling is a rookie pulled from her training at the FBI Academy to take on a task presented by a man named Jack Crawford, assuming that he is her mentor at work.
He has assigned her to interview Hannibal “Cannibal” Lecter which most people wasn’t able to do, due to his refusal. Dr. Lecter was a psychiatrist and he was an incarcerated cannibalistic serial murder. Cannibalism is the practice of someone who devours the flesh of humans or the internal organs of human beings, which a person who studies it is a cannibal. This assignment that Starling was learning from related to the serial killer of Buffalo Bill. Buffalo Bill started out as a bad joke in Kansas City homicide. I would consider Buffalo Bill a serial murderer who kidnaps and murder his victims.
A serial murderer is someone who kills three or more people due to abnormal psychological gratification. As presented thirty five minutes into the movie, he killed three or more victims then became lazy as Crawford mentioned. He would also skin his victims because it excited him and I’m guessing he has a motive to kill overweight women to make him a “woman suit”. Bill would kill women within his own ethnicity. He would also keep trophies as Clarice said at the beginning of the movie whereas the Hannibal would kill his victims and then eat his trophies.
Trophies are keepings of victims such as body parts, teeth, legs, or arms. There was a scene where there was killing that seemed similar to Buffalo Bill and Clarice was asked to describe the killer. She described him is a White male between the 30–40 age range who hunts within his own ethnic group. He also has his own house instead of an apartment because of his own privacy of his killings. He was described by her as very cautious, precised, and getting better at his work. This again seems to me to be an organized killer. As the movie goes along I think that Bill is a disorganized killer.
His house is very trashy and dirty. He also has Catherine Ruth who he abducted in his own house. Looks like his hygiene is very poor as well and his crime didn’t seem as planned out. It seems that he is involved in infibulation, because one of his nipples is pierced. He shoots, skins, and dumps his victims in different rivers. This can also mean that he is disposing of the bodies. Disposal of the body means that the killing is over which was described in the movie Bill would throw the bodies in a river. There was a Moth found in one of his recent victim’s throat and also in Benjamin Raspail’s head.
I think that these Moth findings are signatures also called modus operandi left behind from the Buffalo Bill Killer. Signatures can help determine the level of progression and the sophistication of the predator. Lecter describes this as a change also stating that Bill wants to change. I think this change means that Bill wanted to change into a woman. Bill wasn’t born a criminal but he was made a criminal due to the fact of childhood traumas associated with violence. He hates his own identity which he thinks that makes him as a transsexual.
Since Bill has experienced childhood traumas to which makes him hate his own identity I think that bill has suffered from some psychoanalytic factors. Which I think I would say he is having trouble with his ego, ego means when developed from birth and serves to guide and individuals behavior to conform to rules, laws, and community standards. It is the component of the mental which can also be to why he thinks he is a transsexual very common to his killings. There was a scene where Bill dressed up as a woman putting on lipstick and prancing around like a woman with his genitals tucked in between his legs.
To identify Buffalo Bill, Lecter leads starling to a riddle where Benjamin Raspail a former patient of Lecter head was found which Lecter had killed. This was some type of link between Raspail and Bill. In exchange for Sterling’s childhood Lecter would then lead her with clues about Buffalo Bill. Dr. Chilton taped a conversation between Lecter and Starling, revealing starling’s deal, offered to transfer Lecter with his own deal making. Lecter agrees and gave up Buffalo Bill’s biological name, his description, and his address to Ruth Martin the senator of the United States, which is also Catherine Martin’s mother.
Come to find out the information given to senator by Lecter was false. In order for Starling to receive the correct information Lecter he demands her to finish the story of her childhood. Starling revealed the attempts of rescuing the lambs, Lecter kind of rejects her, where she was left her case file before being escorted out of the building. Something also very interesting happened when Lecter escaped, he was able to escape and fool the police of his whereabouts. In the ambulance truck he peels off one of cops faced, which Lecter was revealed.
Starling was notified of Lecter’s escape, and then she realized that the very first victim, Frederica Bimmel knew Bill in reality before he killed her. Presented in the movie Bimmel was a tailor, which she had dresses depicted to the patches of skin removed by Buffalo Bill‘s victims. Starling also realized the connection between Jame Gumb and Buffalo Bill. Her interviews were led to the house of “Mr. Jack Gordon”, who is actually Gumb . Starling enters the house where she sees drawings and pictures of butterflies, which symbolizes change.
She draws her weapon and while Gumb disappears suddenly into his basement. Starling follows him in order to attack him when she stumbles upon Catherine Martin in this dry well before she is in to darkness. Gumb then stalks her with his night vision glasses which he then prepares to shoot her. But hearing his revolver, starling turns around and shoots Gumb dead. A few days later, starling is promoted to FBI agent. She then gets a call from Hannibal who is about to make another kill to his downfall of Mr. Chilton.
He states to Starling that he is “having an old friend for dinner”. In conclusion, this film was based on actual characters and it was an actual portrayal. I think this was a very good film and I would recognize anybody to watch it. I think that in order to figure something out like Starling to identify the serial killer Buffalo Bill through another serial killer you have to do some things that you aren’t comfortable with doing. She wasn’t comfortable telling her childhood memories to someone she didn’t but she did in order to be successful within her work ethics.
I think the actors also did a great job in acting out the movie as well. I think this movie can portray something that happens in real life as well. After looking up research, this movie had a huge impact on the LGBT community. The LGBT stands for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and the Transgender. It portrayed a negative transgender character. In the book and in the movie it portrays this differently. Levine, who played Buffalo Bill, said that he would never play a role like that again. There is no real story connected to Hannibal Lecter himself because he doesn’t exist.
