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Oscar sweeps are few and far between. Even rarer are Oscars awarded to horror films. So when Jonathan Demme's 1991 adaptation of Thomas Harris' Silence Of The Lambs swept the Academy Awards that year, it was not only a vindication for the genre, but it helped to legitimize horror within the critical cognoscenti.
Thomas Harris is a bit of a literary enigma. With Brett Ratner's film version of Red Dragon having debuted, Harris can now lay claim to having all of his non-fiction catalogue immortalized in film....though that will total only five movies, and some accounts indicate that he's never watched any of them. Four of these constitute the Dr. Lecter cycle; Harris' first novel, 1974's Black Sunday, was an unrelated tale of a terrorist planning to bomb a sports event. And while Michael Mann's 1986 Manhunter, which was the original adaptation of Harris' first Lecter book Red Dragon, took a "Miami Vice"-style forensics approach, Demme's Silence Of The Lambs is more deeply character-oriented and entrenched in human tragedy.
In Demme's film, FBI trainee Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) is tapped by her boss Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn) to interview the incarcerated serial killer Hannibal Lecter. Although Crawford doesn't disclose the full agenda to Starling, she later learns that he wants Lecter's insight into capturing a menacing serial killer whom the press has dubbed "Buffalo Bill." Under the leering eye of sanitarium director Dr. Frederick Chilton (Anthony Heald), Starling goes to see Lecter.
The moment Anthony Hopkins looms into frame from behind the protective glass, it's clear that he will command the film. And he does just exactly that. At once charming, terrifying and undeniably manipulating, Dr. Lecter treats Starling with condescension at first, then with penitence once a cellmate commits what Lecter deems a "discourteous act of unspeakable rudeness." Whether she likes it or not, Starling has made something of a friend in Hannibal Lecter. When it later becomes clear that he knows exactly who "Buffalo Bill" really is, it's up to her to get the truth out of him--in exchange for personal information about herself--while Lecter toys with the authorities who barge in on her investigation.
The "Buffalo Bill" killer is, in fact, a confused transsexual with the unlikely name Jame Gumb (Ted Levine). And his reason for targeting whom he targets--young, slightly-overweight women--is truly unsettling once all has been revealed. The final confrontation between Starling and Gumb make for a truly nail-biting sequence of cinematic sleight-of-hand.
And the Oscar sweep mentioned in the first paragraph? Let's see....statuettes for both Hopkins and Foster (acting), Demme (directing) and Ted Tally (adapted screenplay). Earned Oscars, though? In no uncertain terms, yes. And what of 2001's follow-up, Ridley Scott's Hannibal? The source material was decidedly darker, and even Foster passed on the project (Julianne Moore has assumed the Clarice Starling role). Then there's Ratner's Red Dragon redux to work into the equation. No matter. As recent as Silence Of The Lambs seems to be, it's now over a decade old and climbing. God, where does the time go?
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