Thriller Research Silence of the Lambs

Explore the use of film language for effect in an opening sequence to a thriller. How does the director engage the audience?

I chose an American thriller created in 1991 called ‘Silence of the Lambs’, which was directed by Jonathan Demme, taking part mainly in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The weekend in which this film was released, ti made a gross of $13,766,814 managing to exceed its own budget in the first week. It was displayed by Orion Pictures.

I decided to start analysing the film around five minutes into the start as it means that it captures the moment where we first see Hannibal Lecter.  The scene starts with a close up on Clarice Starlings face as she looks closely into the camera building intimacy with Starling and what she is looking at, she appears to be in the centre of the closed frame carrying the weight of the edit. Starlings face is lit strongly using high key lighting from the left of the frame at eye hight, which gives the impression that what she is looking at has an affect on her and takes away any interested in the back of the scene. The camera slowly tilts up while zooming into her face that overlaps with non-diegetic synchronous sound of classical music slowly increasing in volume as the Starlings face fills up more of the frame. This creates a slight build up for the audience. The camera then reverses to show a point of view shot pans towards the left showing a board filled with photos of the deceased appearing to be partly skinned. The music stays the same through out this scene and includes mainly long edits. It cuts to Starlings profile with light shinning on her face coming from above, she fills up the left hand side of the frame while a figure appears behind out of focus. Filler lighting behind Starling is used to draw attention to the figure. The focus then changes rapidly from her face to Mr Crawford, the camera appears to rotate around Starlings, following Crawford. As he reaches his desk the frame stays static using an over the shoulder shot. During Crawford's’ dialogue the music starts to fade. Through out their conversation both of them stay in frame cutting from one over the shoulder shot to another. This shows that Crawford is not in control of the situation and over powers Starling. As they sit down, Starling is shot on her own separating both of them, although, when it cuts to Crawford he takes up dramatically more of the frame that she does, which helps assert dominance, his position is also very laid back, taking up a lot of space. This contrasts from her behaviour as the camera is slightly above her face creating an intimidated, shy atmosphere. All the lighting through out this scene comes from above, giving natural lighting from the ceiling, to plighting may suggest innocents, which contrasts to the topic of Hannibal Lecter. 

This intense scene between Starling and her boss is broken up suddenly by an establishing long shot of a forensic hospital. Staying on this shot their is an overlay of dialogue of a man whom has not been in the scene yet and diegetic sounds of birds creating an eery atmosphere, helping to build up a chilling ambience which continues through out this scene. The dominance seem to change as the camera stays below Starling through out the first scene of her arriving, in contrast to Dr Chilton who is show from the point of view of Starling. The first scene in the hospital uses very warm, brown colours which is used to contrast to later on as it is all shot with white lights replicating a hospital, asylum feel. The shots have very long edits as the camera tracks and pans to follow them. Mainly long shots are used, despite a moment where Dr Chilton shows Starling a photo of a nurse, the audience does not see this photo although there is red light being used and extreme closeups of the characters faces. This creates a slight mysterious feel to what Hannibal Lecter does to his victims, which allows the audience to imagine it themselves which can make curtain things more scary. As she steps inside the camera uses a dolly shot to pan around the room from her perspective stopping on Barney. There is a high pitch alarm during this edit adding to this slightly ghoulish scene. It also creates other unanswered questions. The sounds of the gates and locks as the close appear to be louder than anything else you hear drawing your attention to the security of the building. Classical music starts to build as she steps closer to the chair. The camera work starts to get more obviously hand help and shaky which helps to portray her fear. The camera tracks as she walks showing gated prison like rooms, the characters inside resemble a stereotypical view on what psychopaths are like. As the camera pans towards Hannibal Lector, the music increases although his room is well lit, and it is much more organised than what you would have expected. He is positions in the middle of the frame with top lighting that is usually related to innocence, it somehow creates a slight liking towards the character which foreshadows later events.