Live Life Team
Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Hannibal Lector in “Silence of the Lambs” may be one of the greatest villains of films. Everything about Hopkins’s performance—his voice, his manners, his ability to leap from calm to animal in a matter of seconds—all stays with you days after viewing the film. Upon one of my most recent viewings of the film, I realized how little screen time Dr. Lector receives.
Our introduction to Lector, and for me the most chilling, is early in the film when Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) interviews him at a hospital for the criminally insane. It’s disturbing to watch as Lector and the inmate in the next cell psychologically brutalize Starling. The other three or four scenes are equally frightening in completely different ways. Lector toys with Starling’s emotions like a cat plays with string all the while screen time if given to the FBI’s search of a serial killer. It leaves the viewer wanting more, more of his etiquette and more of his manipulations.
We are shocked when he lashes out and then further shocked when he helps Starling. Clearly, the viewing audience wanted more and got it with a sequel and then a prequel. I saw them a while back and thankfully I’ve forgotten most of those. At this point, I want to keep my palette clean with his meagre eighteen minutes in “Silence”. I think the good doctor would understand.
