The Silence Of The Lambs

I appreciate it more every time I watch it, there are very few films that achieve complete and utter perfection, but this is one of the few. Every performance, every shot, every camera angle, every note of music. The film is very faithful to the book, but its probably the only instance where Ive read/ seen both and absolutely prefer the film to the book.

I'm like that about Moby-Dick. The book is brimming with science and it's as if Melville loses sight of telling the story.

Completely agree. It’s a special film.

One thing I don't understand about Silence of the Lambs, every time I watch it, is that it has a very made for TV look to it I feel. I know this might come as a surprise maybe, but it just looks like that to me, compared to other thriller of the same year, such as Terminator 2, or JFK or something in the thriller genre.

Silence just looks so soft or something like that. Does anyone else notice this?

Without a doubt, yeah. It's a very strange thing but it does come across like a TV movie.

I've always felt this film was overrated...Hopkins is brilliant, Foster was better in The Accused, but the film doesn't have a lot of re-watch appeal for me.

So looking back after watching the Lecter movies again, how would you rank them? For me I would probably say:

1. The Silence of the Lambs
2. Manhunter
3. Red Dragon
4. Hannibal Rising
5. Hannibal

Manhunter
The Silence of the Lambs
Hannibal Rising
Hannibal
Red Dragon

There is another question I have on The Silence of the Lambs after watching it again.

SPOILER

Near the end when Crawford and the FBI realized that they raided the wrong house, Crawford has this look on his face and says Clarice, as if he knows Clarice is in immediate danger and is going to die. How does he know this though? How does he know that Clarice is in grave danger of the killer at this time, especially since they have no idea where the killer lives?

I think there is a deleted scene in which she mentions she thinks the killer is in location A, while the FBI believe it's location B. When location B proves to be incorrect, he assumes she is right with location A and that's why he looks concerned. She had been right in the past and her track record would deem her right again.

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Suspect's Reviews

But she wouldn't think that though, because when she arrives at the killer's house, she doesn't think it's him. It's not only till she already comes inside and she sees certain items in his house that clues her in. So she wouldn't have said to Crawford that she felt the killer was there, if she didn't know.

She thought he might live there; but, she was hoping she'd be wrong as she was not particularly looking forward to a confrontation with Buffalo Bill.

Oh okay, but she seemed totally surprised like she wasn't expecting it at all, compared to, 'a-hah, that possible hunch turned out to be right'.