Genre Presentation: Thriller – “The Silence of

the Lambs”
The genre of Thriller is known to be extremely diverse when it comes to categorisation, it
comes in the forms of mysteries with many key differences. Elements that are common in
this genre vary from tension, anxiety, fear but mostly differ with other factors of it being
action based, multiple choice (interactive in certain cases), crime/conspiracy/spy, political,
historical and psychological. Thrillers also give you more than enough lore and explanation
of the narrative presented to illustrate the clear motives of the characters so that the current
and past stories link together to provide further insight into the universe itself. Most thrillers
contain a sense of mysteries within their own worlds and majority left on cliffhangers or left
in between important points of character arcs or journeys, but not all need to conclude on
such circumstances.
The historical evolution of this genre had been introduced in concepts as the branch of
creativity with forms had stemmed from written work which started with literature (from
poetry to books). The first piece that had been published was in “2100 BC” and was called
“The Epic of Gilgamesh” which was a tale of a king and his rival who had become friends
over the course of the story, they would journey to lands unknown to them and encounter
messengers and considering that they were beings of the supernatural variety, hostility was
their only resort and that the only way to be rid of them was for the king and his rival to fight
them. The second piece of literature in this genre began centuries after and started in the
1800s. “Brother’s Grimm” had been published around this century and it was a story that
had been retold for German folk who loved the concept of mystery and the buildups around
such stories. Another piece of literature that was written in 1812 was “The Spy” which
introduced the concepts of secret agents uncovering cases in the most bizarre events during
war times, it had also birthed the possibilities of what would, could or should happen given
each character’s arc and there were to be limitations set unless a narrative required it to be
the case.
The sub-genre I will be focusing on is Crime/Conspiracy/Psychological Thriller as I find it to
be the most intriguing, they would always take place in unseen territory where crimes and
killers are to be investigated in the world of fiction and non-fiction, and that intelligence is
considered a currency within these territories. Majority of the times the depiction of
protagonists could be seen as either a hero of the story or a victim of his/her own demise
(the same can said for fictional antagonists as well). The clip that I have selected is from a
fictional story of Hannibal Lecter called “Silence of the Lambs” and the scene follows Clarice
Starling, a trainee at the FBI (played by Jodie Foster) who is sent to interview Hannibal Lecter
who is already serving time for the cannibalistic crimes he had committed (played by
Anthony Hopkins) on account of the murders that had happened by Buffalo Bill, these kind
of films require elevated imagination for it to progress as well as the actor’s job to utilise
theirs to properly put themselves in their shoes and dilemmas.
Upon watching the introduction stage of the two characters, Anthony Hopkins’ character
already becomes unsettling, even as the scene progresses. He is stood still as if he were a
statue and his legs and feet glued together (almost immobile) for that split second, we can
already see that he tenses up his body leaving nothing but his head to move around to
execute this posture. In comparison to crime documentaries about psychotic killers, most
would exert their hostilities using their whole body to illustrate themselves, But Anthony
Hopkins’ performance in this film completely differed from this fact. Instead of his body, the
exertion of hostility, unsettling mannerisms and the everlasting antagonising gaze he gives
her all emits from his face and eyes. From when he greets Jodie Foster’s character “Good
Morning” to questioning her about her credentials, the vocal tone is uncomfortably
soothing, whereas his eyes appear to be staring deep into her soul, almost a death-like gaze
which would symbolise how he gradually rips into her later in the scene. His facial muscles
appear to be emotionless at first sight but as he speaks with Clarice Starling, we can see a
slight grin forming to the right side of his mouth slowly creasing the cheek the moment we
hear him ask if she was a part of Jack Crawford’s team, to which she replies with an
affirmative “Yes”. The moment where Anthony Hopkins’ character asks for her credentials,
we then see a complete shift in vocal tone as well as facial muscles when he asks her to
come “Closer”, the unsettling mannerisms which are considered to be a psychological
gesture begin to amplify as his objective next was to toy with her to see if she would crack.
His body language and posture come to a big shift as he too starts to move closer to Jodie
Foster to have a look at her credentials, but Anthony does this in a very unordinary manner.
His smirk transitions to an emotionless stare with each slow step he takes as well as his eye
coordination being utilised, perfectly showcasing his use of Stanislavski’s method,
meanwhile his concentration does not break at all when further dialogue exchanges occur
with Jodie Foster’s character. The part that really interested me was when Anthony Hopkins
had told her to “Sit…Please?”, Anthony illustrates great uses of his facial muscles when the
sudden twitch forward occurring in his neck muscles made him look like a wild animal
tempting its prey, his eyes also suddenly go from a slight squint back to a beady satanic look.
His vocal tone is all over the place at first, but he reintroduces his uncomfortably soothing
voice again whilst maintaining the unsettling presence of his character’s personality. We
then cut to an extreme closeup of Anthony Hopkins focusing solely on his face as this would
deliver his character in a strong and unnerving way, almost as if it has turned against Jodie
Foster’s character with his interrogation of her. Whilst asking about what a cellmate called
“Multiple Miggs” said to Starling, he clarified that he could not smell the thing Miggs was
smelling but attempts to goad and strike fear into her by smelling her through the holes of
his glass prison door, extracting every detail about her bodily scent. The way he actions this
out is by utilizing his body to lift himself up and flare his nostrils up to indicate it.
Anthony Hopkins brings about a sense of eeriness to the character of Hannibal Lecter
through the use of Stanislavski, an inspiration from an antagonist that he had admired for
the character ( HAL 9000 – “2001: A Space Odyssey), as well as the integration of instinctual
muscle memory. The other thing I would like to address is the ambience of the scene, it
helped the scene to move at its own pace as well as adding to that haunting feeling the
audience would sense in that environment, not to mention that there is no music during the
progression of the scene which makes the experience of it all very raw and authentic. It also
added to the fact that Jodie Foster’s character was very nervous at first meeting him and the
scene didn’t necessarily need to have music for that feeling to gradually get worse for her
character.
In conclusion to this essay, “The Silence of the Lambs” has had a successful execution when
it comes to the portrayal of a non-fictional character and the sort of environment it would
be like for an extraordinary thriller tale. While the narrative itself being intoxicating and
disturbing, there are elements that help ease the continuous tension of the film, such as
Jodie Foster’s on screen presence, the audience would most definitely feel like she was a
real person from her character’s personality traits and human behaviour. However, the dark
tones of the film are very much enhanced by the director of photography’s composition and
camera angles (not to mention that the colour grading had symbolised how dull it really was
around the prison space that Hannibal was confined to). The thing that I would like to take
away from this analysis and the actor’s performances itself, is to master when and how I
should control my body muscles, I have a very bad habit of making a few incorrect facial
expressions because of not warming up a lot before/lack of prep time. I would also like to
take away and practise eye coordination as it is very crucial for the camera to not only meet
your eyeline when in extreme/medium close up, but also to be aware of it being in my
presence and to guide him/her for better tracking/visualization.

THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS – LINK TO MOVIE CLIP:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5dA92wqmME

REFRENCES –
Jackson, J. (2023, June 29). What Is a Thriller? | Celadon Books. Celadon Books.
https://celadonbooks.com/what-is-a-thriller/