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Silence of the Lambs

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About This Episode

We’re revisiting a film that didn’t just redefine the psychological thriller—it crawled under our skin and stayed there. The Silence of the Lambs turns 35 this year, and we’re looking back at what made it so chilling, so smart, and so enduring. From unforgettable performances to its lasting cultural impact, it’s time to open the case file on a true cinematic classic.

(May contain some explicit language.)

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Show Notes

TRANSCRIPT

Jon Welcome back. Gen X grown up podcast listener to this, the backtrack edition of the Gen X grown up podcast. We pick a single nostalgic topic and dig in deep. I am John joining me as always. Of course, my buddy, George. Hey man.
George Hey, how’s it going, everybody?
Jon You know, there would not be a show without moe Mo. Mo, how doing?
Mo Good. How’s everybody doing?
Jon Good. So in this episode, we’re revisiting a film that didn’t just redefine the psychological thriller. It crawled under our skin and stayed there.
Mo excuse
Jon The Silence of the Lambs turns 35 this year, and we’re looking back at what made it so chilling, so smart, and so enduring. From unforgettable performances to its lasting cultural impact, it’s time to open the case file on a true cinematic classic. And I do want to put up a little just warning sign at the beginning.
Jon If… discussions of brutality and horrible things bother you trigger warning, just letting you know, if you wouldn’t watch the movie, you shouldn’t listen to this backtrack so because we are going to discuss the terrible things.
George think that’s the first time you’ve ever given one of those disclaimers.
Mo Yeah, really.
George We talked about Friday the 13th and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and this is the one you give that ah
Jon Yeah. I tell you, ain’t nobody wearing faces in those. Well, I guess chainsaw massacre is right.
Mo That’s true.
George Well, yeah I mean, Leatherface, it’s kind of in the name.
Jon Yeah.
Mo Yeah.
Jon Yeah, the this one’s this one’s pretty severe, so I want to make sure everyone knows what we’re talking about.
George Yeah.
George he
Jon look yeah you probably If you clicked on it, you’re probably prepared, but I thought I would warn you anyway. Before we jump into that, it is time for the fourth listener email. Look, the three of us are here. We may listen.
Jon George might even listen to that this one because it’s about Silence of the Lambs. You never can tell.
George I might.
Jon But if anyone else does, you are our fourth listener. We’re so grateful to Amy T, who dropped us a line. Subject of her email was childhood80smusic.
Mo Yeah. Yeah,
Jon Here’s what she has to say. Dear John, George, and Mo, I discovered your podcast around Thanksgiving when I was looking for an 80s and 90s podcast to listen to when I traveled to Michigan. I live in Oregon to visit family.
Jon Happy that you found us, Amy. Thank you. I love your mix of humor, storytelling, fun facts, and history from my childhood era. that’s that’s That’s the bullet point.
Mo yeah
Jon That’s what we’re trying to hit on.
George Right.
Mo yeah yeah
Jon Glad it worked.
George he so We’ll just do that from now on. We’ll just read Amy’s email and be out and save us a lot of time.
Mo yeah
Jon Perfect. ah
Mo ah
Jon She says, I recently listened to your Billboard hits of 84 and 85 and the We Are The World episode.
George Oh, wow.
Jon I grew up listening to…
George Down a music rant. Yeah.
Jon Mm-hmm. Yes, you did. I grew up listening to pop music at a very young age. My first memories are around age five. My mom had a gigantic box radio on top of the refrigerator.
Jon She played it nonstop while my siblings and I got ready for school. And on Saturdays, I grew up with Barry Manilow, The Commodores, Neil Diamond, Air Supply.
George Hmm. There you go.
Jon She says, I have my own Spotify playlist called Mom’s Kitchen Radio.
Mo That sounds awesome.
George That’s nice.
Jon That’s spectacular, Amy. I jump ahead little bit in her email. She says, a few weeks ago, my brother texted me after he played his Spotify Unwrapped for 2025. Spotify determined his listening age to be 73.
Jon brother is 44. He blames my
Mo but
Jon he he said he blames my mom
George yeah
Jon Yeah, in the best possible way. My brother lives in Virginia. live Oregon and my sister is in between us in Michigan. We don’t get together often, but we have a deep care for one another. I am grateful for all the 80s music that is in the soundtrack of some of our best times together.
Jon Thank you for keeping those memories alive. Amy T. from Salem, Oregon.
Mo That’s awesome.
George Nice.
Mo I didn’t know Spotify did that. So you go in there and it’ll…
George Oh, yeah. Every service app does this damn end-of-the-year shit now.
Mo ah
Jon Yeah. But the listening age, I didn’t know about that.
George And they all make me feel horrible.
Jon ah but I listened to that. How much? You know, we we got a couple of fourth listener emails who just mentioned to us, sent us a screenshot. We showed up in their Spotify podcasts in the first or second slot kind of spots.
George Oh, well.
Jon And they were like, that’s ah fantastic.
Mo Nice.
Jon ah It’s too bad you don’t have more podcasts listen to.
Mo yeah
Jon And we’re the ones that made it at the top.
George ah
Jon We’re so grateful for you, though, that you do ah Listen, Amy, thank you for writing in. We love hearing the stories and your memories that we helped to bring back for you. Fourth listener, if you’re listening and you would like your email featured here on the show, it is drop dead easy.
Jon No, Silence the Lambs pun. All you have to do is fire off an email to podcast at genxgrownup.com. You know, we read every single one and most of them will eventually make their way to the show. All right. With that good business in the rear view mirror, it’s go jump into the body of this backtrack all about Silence of the Lambs right of this very quick break.
Jon Awesome. Okay. um I’m happy to start this one off. I think you’re gonna drive a lot of this, George. I’ll start this one off though, so we can get to the chit chat and then you push us along and we can, if you see one you want to grab, you see a place, of course, throw your name on it like we always do and we’ll do what we do.
George go
Mo Yeah.
Jon All right.
George Yeah, I’ll just go through them unless somebody has their initials on it. It’s fine.
Jon Perfect. Yep. Okay. Perfect. All right. We’ll go in. You know what? i think I’ll put the date first. Say it came out in 1991, blah, blah, blah. And then I’ll do the… so Okay. In 5, 4, 3.
Jon three
Jon Silence of the Lambs was released February 14th, 1991. Almost exactly, to the published date of this episode, almost exactly 35 years.
Mo Wow.
Jon five years And we have have so much to say about this.
Mo No. ah
Jon it’s It’s, spoiler alert, it is, no, no, no.
George It’s not a Valentine’s film. Yeah.
Mo no
Jon It is what came out of Valentine’s Day. Good point, yeah.
George It did.
Jon ah
George Yeah.
Jon Spoiler alert, I think we all enjoy, love, have good feelings about this film. But lest I just assume that, I want to do a quick ah roundtable and read the room and find out for each of you, what is your familiarity, relationship with this film. i want to start with you, Moe.
Mo Yeah, I saw it in the theater, you know, um you know, and when it came out in VHS, I think guy I think i actually had the VHS tape of this one. This is one I think I went out and bought.
Jon Like you bought bought it.
Mo Yeah, bought but it, bought it because, yeah, this is a movie that was played. don’t know. It’s like when you could watch many times because it was just so different than the other movies that are out there at the time, different from horror movies that it was just super interesting. um Yeah, so I’m very, very familiar with this movie.
Jon Okay. All right. George, how about you?
George Never heard of it.
Mo Ah.
Jon Okay.
George No, i ah I definitely kind of fell in love with this film. It came out in 91, as you said, and that was right when, John, you and I were first meeting right around that time period in the Star Trek Club.
Jon Yeah, 91, 92. That’s when I moved. to Yeah, yeah.
George Yeah, um and it was a it was a solid, solid film, not just because of the quality of the actors, which were and just unbelievable that they got those people in those roles.
George And we can talk a little bit about some of the stuff later on, but I just fell in love with the psychology of the film. I know, you know, we’re talking about a psychologist, you know, cannibal here, but just the psychology of the film.
Mo Mm-hmm.
George i went back and read the novel that it was based on, which we’ll talk about a little bit later. And, it’s just one of those. It’s kind of like Jurassic Park did for me at that time. Your wonderful wife, John, she introduced me to Jurassic Park because we were at a Star Trek convention.
George They had a little T-Rex skeleton on a button and she said, oh, they’re making Jurassic Park into a movie.
Jon Right.
George And I was like, what the hell is that? And she’s like, oh my God, you’ve got to read
Mo ah
Jon Really? That’s when you found out about it. Wow.
George That’s what I learned. And I read it just a week or two before the film came out.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George And that’s kind of, it’s not the same story, but it’s kind of my appreciation for Silence the Lambs is along the same lines.
Jon Yeah. ah You guys have regularly made fun of me for but my lack of knowledge of some of the most seminal films of our generation. And so, of of course, for the preparation of this episode, I went back and rewatched. Yes, I’ve seen Silence of the Lambs. Don’t worry. You don’t beat me up at least. ah You might now punch have to beat me up entirely.
Jon I get the feeling that I feel like probably my rewatch this week was my third viewing. That’s my feeling.
George Really?
Mo OK. That’s it, huh?
George Wow.
Jon I know I saw it in the theater for sure. I remember seeing it in the theater, but also it’s one of those things where as I’m watching it, I don’t know what’s the next thing that’s going to happen, but I’m starting to suspect.
Mo Interesting.
Mo OK.
Jon And then when it happens, I’m like, oh yeah, it’s this, here it comes. Right? So I knew what was coming, but I wasn’t. The nice thing was I got to experience this Not fresh, but in a way that I wasn’t like, I didn’t know every beat. What was the next scene? That kind of thing.
Jon And watching it now in preparation for this, i it’s such a good place to be in.
Mo Yeah.
Jon Because if you watch this movie too frequently and know it too well and get too familiar, things aren’t as shocking as they were the first time around, of course.
Mo oh yeah
Jon so You get a little bit of that back and I was able to appreciate that.
George Yeah.
Jon So…
George That’s nice.
Jon It’s ah and what what struck me is I’m sure we’ll talk much more about its legacy or whatever. And I mentioned the beginning here is that for a 35 year movie for a 35 year old movie, this could come out today and do phenomenally well.
Mo I think so too.
Jon It is so well written and acted and paced and edited and structured and scored. It’s, it’s like a, it’s a unicorn. It’s tremendous. and And, and being a, not just a horror movie, as you said, George, but also a psychological thriller.
Mo Yeah.
Jon A mystery, so much, so much to it. So anyway, ah you did tons of research for this, George, because you were such a fan of this movie.
Mo Mm-hmm.
Jon Why don’t we get started talking a little bit about the background of how this film came to us?
George Yeah, well, ah so first off, it was based on the 88 novel by Thomas Harris. He has four books in that franchise, and believe it or not, all but one of the five Hannibal Lecter films are titled after those books, which is very nice.
George You know, there’s Hannibal, Hannibal Rising, this one, Silence of the Lambs, of course. But ah I think Thomas Harris, so…
Mo Yeah. Right. Mm-hmm.
George he He is an incredible writer. If you haven’t read any of his work in the past, go check these books out because I know you’ve probably already seen the film, so you’ll be a little bit jaded, but he had his hands all over the film anyway, so it’s not going to be like jarring or anything like that. like for instance, like I was talking about with Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton was heavily involved with the screenplay for the Spielberg film.
George Even though a lot of stuff would change from the novel, it still had that same tone that Crichton had in his novel.
Jon Yeah.
Mo Yeah.
George And that’s why it works so well.
Jon Right.
George And I think this follows along that same line. um Ted Talley is the screenwriter and he was the one that was brought on to write the adaptation. And the reason why they brought him in and why he was so happy to do it.
George He had actually been gifted the novel by Thomas Harris before it was released prior and had fallen in love with it.
Jon Oh, ah like he was a fan already.
George So that’s another reason why it holds so well to the original storyline. He was.
Jon It wasn’t just a hire.
Mo yeah
Jon He was a hired gun, but he was a hired gun who already had an investment. ah
George Yes, 100%. hundred percent
Jon That’s great.
Mo Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
George Now, this is not the first Hannibal Lecter film. A lot of people get confused and think it is, but it’s not.
Mo she
George There was a film earlier in, let me see, 1986, if I remember correctly. So about five years prior, starred William Peterson called Manhunter. And it was almost the same storyline, but it was based off of the Red Dragon novel, which was the first novel in the Hannibal Lecter series.
George Silence of Lambs was only the second novel.
Jon I am learning this for the first time right now that this, this was not the introduction of Hannibal Lecter.
Mo Oh, really? Yeah. no
Jon So, okay.
George Not to the film world, no.
Jon So Manhunter, just going to ask you, you may save me a lot of time since it wasn’t Anthony Hopkins, since it wasn’t the people that we know, is it worth seeing what, or did that character actually come to life with silence of the lambs?
George Oh, goodness. um It’s an okay film. I’m not going to say it’s the best Hannibal Lecter film, but it’s not the worst either. ah That would I would give to some of the sequels, prequel.
Jon Okay, all right.
Mo Hehehehe.
George It’s very confusing because the movies that came out after Silence of the Lambs, but in the timeline…
Jon Right. In the timeline, yeah.
George like red dragon is the original story, but it’s not, it’s again, it’s Hannibal Lecter in prison and he is helping the FBI with a case sort of thing.
Jon Okay.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George Um, William Peterson is one of my favorite, and you know, longtime actors from a long time. He just, I’ve said that like 12 times because I love him so much. It was originally directed by Michael Mann from ah Miami vice fame.
Mo Yeah. My advice. Yeah.
George Uh, He also did the screenplay. I don’t think he did as good of a job, and I don’t necessarily like it when people do the screenplay and direct the film because they tend to live in a bubble, and i think stuff gets left out of a story that way.
George I think it’s good to have different people.
Jon and Checks and balances. Yeah.
George Yeah, checks and balances, exactly. um Orion Pictures was originally going to produce this film with Gene Hackman,
Mo Okay. I actually had a comment about the Red Dragon movie.
George Oh, sorry, sorry.
Jon Oh, that’s your good.
George I didn’t see that. My fault. Start over again.
Jon Good.
Mo Okay. So, you know, I actually saw the Manhunter movie. um It was very eighty s
George Mm-hmm.
Mo I mean, and and you and we watch it, you know that Michael, met like it was it looked like Miami Vice, quite honestly.
George It was, 100%.
Jon Is it? ah
Jon Really?
Mo But it was it.
Jon Well, it’s not terrible, but but it’s very 80s.
Mo But it was a terrible movie. It was not a terrible movie, you know. But when you look at it, you’re like, oh, yeah, this was 80s. Like you absolutely know this movie came out in the 80s.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George Yeah, and yeah oddly enough, another fairly famous actor played the elector in this film, Brian Cox. If you can see that in your mind…
Jon Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. can see that.
George Which is interesting because in this in Silence of Lambs, when it was first getting circled around Hollywood, he was having a lot of ah problems, Ted Talley and Thomas Harris.
Mo Huh.
George They were in a lot of problems getting it produced by different people. And it turned out Orion Pictures ended up picking it up. But because they were going to do a deal with Gene Hackman to adapt it for film, and Hackman was going to direct and star in the film as either…
Jon As Lecter?
George Well, as Lecter or Jack Crawford, the FBI guy who sends Clarice to Lecter.
Jon Oh, okay.
Jon Oh, right.
Mo Right.
Jon Okay. Oh, now Hmm.
George That ended up getting played by Scott Glenn.
Mo Right.
Jon What do I think of that? I wouldn’t want him as Lecter.
George I know.
Jon I could see Gene Hackman as the craw as the Crawford character, though, as the FBI guy.
Mo Yeah, FBI guy, yeah, sure, but yeah, not like there.
Jon Yeah, I don’t know.
Mo Anyway. Yeah.
George Well, wait, we’ll get into a little bit of all the different actors that they were that they were talking about for the Lecter role, because it is a long and distinguished list, and not a single one of them makes any sense in light of the role we got from Anthony Hopkins anymore, of course.
Jon Yeah.
Jon Yep.
Mo ah
Jon ah Where it ended up.
George But the other just little thing that I think is there was a really another interesting company that wanted to produce this film, John.
Jon Yeah, so it’s interesting. It’s always funny to find out what could have been. And the other one that’s weird is ah Steven Spielberg’s company, Amblin Entertainment.
Jon They were in the mix and they passed on it. And the reason was right. They said it’s kind of out of character for Steven Spielberg. No shit.
Mo Yeah.
Jon No kidding. Yeah. This is like a psychological horror thriller is not. I think of Spielberg as almost like the magic fairy dust blockbuster, you know, kids adventure kind of a wholesome thing that would not have made sense here for me.
Jon And i I think it was the right decision because that the tone of it, had he done it, it would not have had the grit. I don’t think.
George So… I agree that I don’t think he was right for this film, but think about, and this is pun intended, where did he cut his teeth?
Jon Jaws?
George Exactly.
Jon Yeah?
Mo Yeah.
George That’s a psychological horror thriller film, if anything that you’ve ever seen, and it’s summer blockbuster, but that whole film was about not showing the evil until the very end. So I, I don’t think he could have done as justice to it as Jonathan Demme did, but
Mo Yeah.
Jon Yeah? Yeah? yeah
George It would have been a neat alternate universe viewing for sure.
Mo Yeah, exactly.
Jon He maybe could have done better than I’m giving credit for, now that you mention it.
Mo Yeah.
Jon Yeah, maybe so.
Mo Because you also did the duel also, you know, but the guy in the truck, you ever see the duel?
Jon Yeah, which is just Jaws with a truck, which is the same movie pretty much.
Mo Yeah.
George Right. Yeah. Yeah.
George Well, ah you guys know, I love the numbers. A film grossed $272 million on million dollars budget.
Mo m
George i think they did okay
Mo Yeah, yeah, there ah they were happy people, investors, you know.
Jon Wow. And who knows when those numbers were taken because it’s not stopped making money. you It’s still making money, right?
George No, no, no.
Mo Yeah.
George Yeah. I think that’s theatrical release, but yeah.
Jon That’s just box office or whatever. Is it? Yeah. That’s, that’s insane.
George Yeah. To Moe’s point, Moe had the VHS tape.
Jon 19 million.
Mo Yeah.
George I doubt much of that is included in that number. The the movie overall for Orion probably did half a billion 1991-ish dollars, right?
Jon Right.
Mo That’s a lot of money.
Jon Hmm. Hmm.
George I mean, so really, you know, just an outstanding film. It probably funded the next three or four films after it because they kept going, well, it did make this much money.
Mo Yeah, that’s true.
Jon Sure. Mm-hmm.
Mo Yeah.
George Let’s give it another shot, right?
Jon Yep.
George um Mo, to your point, released on VHS in October of 91. So a very quick turnaround for a film back then.
Mo Yeah,
George I mean, that’s only what, like eight months, something like that?
Jon Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mo it’s very small, very short.
George February to October?
Jon To a year even, yeah.
George Yeah. By Orion Home Video. And you guys, I hope you remember, Orion Home Video was one of the best VHS players going at the time.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George I really enjoyed all their releases. But it ended up being the second most rented video 92 the following year. Didn’t have quite enough time in 91, but yeah.
Mo I can see that.
Jon That doesn’t surprise me a lick. It doesn’t surprise me at all.
George No, no, it was, it was an awesome film and it’s, it just kept getting more and more recognition. It’s one of those films that, you know, kind of like your buddy, did you see silence of the lambs yet? No. Oh, ah let’s go rent it for blockbuster right now.
Mo Yeah, I’ll see it again.
Jon Exactly. i I bet you it’s one of those movies that, as you said, they it’s not because that many people wanted to see it, which it was part of partly, but there was repeat rental.
Jon You know there was.
Mo Oh, absolutely.
George Oh yeah.
Jon Either, as you suggested, you know, my buddy didn’t see it, let me go rent it and get it again. Or, just as, how many times you go rent a movie and it was like, well, you rent one movie and it’s $4.95, three movies is 10.
Jon I’m like, well, shit, I’ll watch this again.
Mo Get signs of the lamps.
George Right.
Jon It was fantastic.
Mo Yeah.
Jon A Science of Lambs, here we go again, right?
Mo ah
Jon you’re gonna It’s that kind of movie because, even as I said, I watched it again in advance of this, but I could watch it again tomorrow. I wouldn’t have the same experience because it’s fresher in my mind, but it doesn’t drag.
George Mm-hmm.
Jon There are parts that go, let’s fast forward to the next exciting part.
Mo no
Jon It just doesn’t drag. It’s so well-structured.
George Yeah.
Jon ah I mean, and that’s that’s a credit to… it’s a credit to everyone, the director, the editor, of course, the writer, the pacing and all that stuff. It’s just such a such a amazing. OK, I talked. We dabbled a little bit in talking about the people that made this movie happen. we get back from this quick break. We’re to talk about that talent that brought this film to the screen. Stick around.
Jon OK, I saw an opening that jump anybody.
Mo Now you’re cool.
George Yeah, no, no, I’m good.
Jon OK, all right. Yeah, I just I saw a gap and i’m like, if it’s wrong, I’ll edit later. OK.
Jon You okay to jump in this one, Moe, or George?
Mo I could do it or whoever.
Jon You’ll make a toss to? Or anybody, sorry.
George You want to do it, Mo?
Mo yeah I could do it.
George Yeah, it’s fine.
Mo You
Jon Yep. Okay.
Mo you know, silence of the lamb seemed like one of those movies that was just like a perfect storm of talent.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George Mm-hmm.
Jon Yeah.
Mo you know I think they just got all the right people and all the right roles that just made the movie just you know almost a perfect movie in a sense. right it just It was just really good. And of course, you to start with the director.
Mo you know And it’s directed by Jonathan Dem. Is it Dem?
George Is it Dim or Demi?
Jon Is it Demi?
Mo Is it Demi?
Jon I thought it was Demi.
George I don’t know. I
Jon Let me double check for you.
Mo Yeah, me check too because I’m not sure.
Jon I’ll go so i’ll go check. Pronounce Jonathan.
George i been i said Demi like three times earlier, so if we’re wrong, that’s okay.
Mo So I can just keep i’ll keep it consistent then.
Jon I thought it was Demi. Let’s see. I’m going to check right now. I found the pronunciation thing. pushing play.
Jon It’s waiting.
Jon Oh, come on.
George Maybe it doesn’t know.
Jon It’s coming. It loaded.
Jon Demi. It is Demi.
Mo Demi? Okay.
George Okay.
Jon Yep, you’re right. Okay.
Mo So you have to start with the director, Jonathan Demi. You know, he was an odd…
Jon Not Steven Spielberg.
Mo Yeah, I mean, he was a…
George And not Steven Spielberg.
Mo Yeah, not Spielberg. In a way, though, he was kind of an odd choice because I don’t think he’s had, like, huge… This is probably his biggest movie, like, after he did this one. And he had some things before, but they were kind like, moderate successes.
Mo you know, from looking through his things like Caged Heat and some other ones. He did some Roger Corman movies, you know, so it’s an interesting choice, but it turned out to be correct.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George Yeah, and that Corman thing is going to come back up later in this segment for sure.
Jon Yep.
George um Yeah, yeah.
Jon All right. Yep. Right.
George he’s i I think Jonathan Demme was right man, right time kind of thing with this. He definitely… ah He corralled an a massive amount of talent in a way that made it better than the sum of its parts.
Mo Yeah.
Jon Hmm. You can see that.
Mo Yeah, and actually, he directed probably my my best favorite concert movie ever. Stop Stop Making Sense. Talking Heads. He’s the guy who directed that.
George Oh yeah.
Jon Oh, yeah. Uh-huh. Right. All right. So don’t we move on to this is the star of the movie, except she kind of isn’t, but kind of is depending upon what, whose performance you enjoy the most.
Mo Mm hmm.
Jon But it’s the first character you see, she’s introduced just running through the woods. and I’m like, Oh, is this girl in trouble? Oh, is she being chased through the woods or something?
Mo yeah
Jon No, she’s a bad-ass agent who is like on a training drill. Well, she’s, she’s, she’s about to be an agent. She’s training. She’s agent in training. Right.
George And she, yeah.
Jon So, uh, Jodie Foster plays Clarice Starling. Clarice. You can only say Clarice one way now these days, can’t you? Clarice. And it was…
Jon For me, it was an unexpected casting. But again, you talked about that perfect storm, Mo. It turned out so good because she’s so diminutive in stature.
Jon She’s a sweet young lady, red hair, a little bob, you know, and she’s, but she’s tough as nails and she doesn’t get, she gets a little flustered because she’s new, but she has a certain amount of composure that belies her her her stature and her her years on the, or her training for the job.
Mo Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Jon she amazed me in this probably throughout the movie as just rewatching it was me staring at Jodie Foster and not just because she’s a lovely young lady to look at, but impressed that she is getting across so much gravitas that isn’t necessarily on the page, but it’s in how she stands up to these other situations and these very, very imposing other people.
Mo Oh yeah, for sure.
Jon It’s heavy.
George but it was complete vulnerability. You said a phrase that when you first started talking about her character, badass. She’s not a badass at all in this role. She’s almost just barely above a damsel in distress, really.
George Because she’s a babe in the woods, so to speak, and that’s where she we see her.
Jon But you can, you’re right, but you can see she has it in her. Like there’s a, there’s an acting beneath it that she’s growing into, I guess. ah You know what I’m saying?
George Oh, yeah. I mean, the actress, but I mean the character.
Jon Yeah. I understand. Yeah. Yeah.
George Yeah. Yeah.
Jon It’s really, really impressive to watch.
Mo Yeah. Yeah, but I thought her character, though, was is definitely, I don’t know, I don’t i didn’t get the Damsel Distress vibe from her, because the scene where she first sees the body, and like as a test, they send her to do like the autopsy thing, and you know she just goes through it and you know seals herself and does it.
Jon She’s tough.
Mo you know i don’t know. I just saw her as a a tougher character than that, I guess, in my opinion.
George Well, I mean, I’m not saying her character wasn’t tough, but remember the first time she meets Lecter and she’s walking back through the hall and the guy slings his juices at her, right?
Mo Yeah, yeah.
Jon Yeah.
George There are tons of times in this where she is totally vulnerable and scared, including some of the final stuff in the film where, you know, it’s life is on the line situations.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo I’d be scared.
George She is definitely a trainee. She is not a full agent.
Mo Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, absolutely.
Jon I do see where going with that. I think I probably land somewhere between you and Mo.
Mo Yeah.
Jon I didn’t see her as a damsel in distress. I saw her as an inexperienced person who is clearly has has the fortitude to do this job. She just hasn’t had to do it yet.
Jon And every time she’s met with a challenge, she doesn’t shrink from it. She’s rattled. She’s flustered, but she doesn’t run away screaming. Right. She’s like, I’m going to deal with this.
George but But remember, this is not the job she wants.
Jon That’s right.
George She’s not training for a field agent job. She’s training for a job under Crawford in behavioral sciences.
Jon Yeah.
George She wants to be a profiler.
Jon Yep.
George Now, I never said, and I know the phrase come up with lot of times, I never said she was a damsel in distress.
Jon Yep.
George I said she was one notch above a damsel in distress for me.
Jon Okay. Yeah. All right.
George i
Jon understand you.
George I’m not trying to die on a hill because we got too much other stuff to talk about.
Mo I’m with you.
Jon ah
Mo Yeah, I’m with you, though. get what you’re saying, though.
George But i yeah, i like unlike a Sigourney Weaver in Aliens character, i think I think she played a vulnerability in this role that Jodie Foster brought forward that made you…
Jon It’s important. Yeah.
Jon who’s Yeah, that experienced badass.
George even more fearful than you would have been just seeing horrific things because you were relating everything through her eyes.
Mo you
George And so her vulnerability, her timidness in certain situations, her fear in certain situations dealing with Lecter. mean, you notice she builds it up throughout the film. I’m going off on a rant now.
George We’re going to be the Silence of the Lambs podcast before because I love this movie so much.
Jon i
George I think it was an important part of the character because otherwise I think the movie feels different to you as a viewer if she is a badass.
Mo Yeah.
Jon I understand where you’re coming from.
Mo Yeah, where you’re coming from, too.
Jon Yeah.
George Yeah.
Mo i’ the Yeah.
Jon Yeah.
Mo No. Yeah.
Jon And I argued that she, I’m pretty sure is the star of this movie, but probably not the most memorable character from this movie.
Mo no
Jon Yeah.
George Well, let’s go ahead and talk about Mr. Fava Beans himself with his Chianti, Hannibal Lecter, expertly played by Anthony Hopkins.
Mo Yeah.
George Now, we talked about the Gene Hackman possibilities earlier.
Jon Oh.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George He wasn’t the only big name to possibly be associated with this role that they wanted to go after. I’m going to just run down the list.
Jon Okay.
George Don’t stop me because every one of these is crazy. First off, Al Pacino.
Jon Mm.
George Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman’s, Jeremy Irons, and Daniel Day-Lewis were all considered for this role, including somebody who you would never guess would have auditioned for it, but he did go out for this role.
Jon Mm.
Jon Mm.
Jon Okay.
Mo Wow.
George this is 91 now. Forrest Whitaker went out for this role.
Mo Really? That would have been different.
Jon Really?
George Yep.
Jon Oh, I could see that.
Mo Actually, I kind sent to.
Jon I could, he could.
George You can see that now because of his gravitas, but 91 right out of fast times at Ridgemont High, Forrest Whitaker?
Mo Yeah.
Jon Right. Right. Maybe a 91 Whitaker, but he has, he has creepy in him.
Mo No, maybe not, but yeah.
Jon He has gravitas in him.
George He does. Mm-hmm.
Jon Oh, I could have seen that.
Mo Oh, man.
Jon Oh,
Mo When the movie came out, you know this had a ton of press, right? They were on every talk show. us And I saw an interview with Anthony Hopkins about the character. And he said he didn’t want to play it as an insane person.
Mo He wanted to play it as somebody who was so sane, so aware of everything that he appears insane.
George Right.
Jon Mm-hmm. Sure.
Mo Like he’s not, he just knows, he just sees everything. you know, he, nothing gets past him, you know, at all, which makes him look insane to somebody else from the outside.
George Yes.
Jon There’s something about Hopkins’ performance as Lecter that it starts when you first see him. Like, how does…
Mo Just
Jon He’s just standing in the middle of his cell. He’s not sitting.
Mo a smile.
Jon He’s not… he i don’t think he’s think he’s blinking.
Mo Yeah.
Jon He’s just kind of a statue. And he has an answer for everything. And he has a comeback for everything. And everything he does is made to make you feel uncomfortable, to give him the advantage.
Jon And even when he has that mask on, later they have him on the the the the hand truck and they’re moving around like he’s plywood.
George e
Jon right the moon around and All you can see is like maybe his lips through the the the the the thing and his eyes, just his eyes, they look at you like they’re going to kill you.
Mo Yeah.
George Yeah.
Jon And they’re it’s it’s it’s another one of those magical unicorn things.
George Without emotion.
Jon Yeah, it’s like, I i don’t even care. I don’t feel one way or the other about it, but I’m given a chance. I will end you for fun almost.
George Yeah.
Jon Yeah.
George To me, he comes across as Moriarty without a Holmes, and he’s up against Watson instead. And that almost, at the beginning, makes him feel like people are disrespecting his intellect.
George Like, in some of his first interactions with Clarice, he’s like, oh, so Crawford sent a little one to me this time. You know, it’s just…
Mo Yeah. Yeah. yeah.
George He’s so condescending, but at the same time, it’s not malevolent condescending. It’s just…
Jon He’s not wrong.
George No, no. It’s just matter of fact. Like you said, there’s no emotion in it. And What I really appreciate with the delivery is at this stage in Anthony Hopkins’ career, being a well-respected theater actor and everything, nobody would have pecked him for the villain role in a movie like this.
Mo so yeah
George Nobody would have put him in that. But he pulled it off so well, along with working with everybody else involved in the thing, that it became its own standard for villains later on in film.
Mo Yeah.
Jon That’s fair.
Mo The other thing about his character, though, is that he had a charisma. Like you, like you see on him, you’re like, you know, like something about him, like you, you liked in a way.
George Mm-hmm.
Jon Yeah.
Mo Right.
George I’d have had dinner with him.
Mo um Yeah.
George Hell yeah.
Mo Well, but yeah.
Jon Oh, he’d had had dinner with you for sure.
George i might have been dinner, but I’d have had dinner with him.
Mo Oh yeah. You know, there was a, chart I mean, um and like they said, there was just like, a he’s just charming. You know, like to said, something about him the way he, you is that in a way, like you saw him, like his eyes would scare you, but then after he talked for a while, can see him putting you at ease.
Mo You know, like, like if you wanted to, and then you die and he eats you.
Jon Yeah.
Mo But still, you know, in that middle part, you’re.
Jon ah
Mo Oh.
Jon And then later at the end of the movie, when he’s out on his own, like I get the feeling that he could probably choose to blend pretty well.
George Oh, you just spoiled it.
Jon Oh, oh no. Spoilers. 35 years ago.
Mo oh
Jon He has the ability to probably blend pretty well with other people and act normal. He’s not an idiot. He’s not insane. He’s hyper sane. He’s hyper competent in a way that’s like, oh, you are so dangerous because you’re just your brains on another level that nobody else is paying attention to.
Mo Yeah. And
George Well, he is that shark like we were talking about with Spielberg’s Jaws.
Jon hmm. Yeah.
George He’s just slowly moving through the water, waiting for an opportunity. And when the opportunity presents itself, he strikes with a viciousness that is so sudden, you’re taken about and paralyzed by it, and you have no chance to survive.
Mo and violent
Jon Yeah.
Mo Mm-hmm.
George he
Jon ah Okay. We have a few more to run through, but really it’s, it’s the Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins show really, but there are some other actors that certainly add to the quality of this.
George Yeah, yeah, it’s pretty much a two-man movie.
Mo yeah
George yeah
Jon ah Scott Glenn as Jack Crawford. So he’s the head of the FBI behavioral sciences division. And he’s, he, He effectively says, oh, I think you would do well to go in and catch Hannibal Lecter off guard.
Jon He sets her on this trajectory to and and he has ulterior motives.
George Mm-hmm.
Mo ah Big time.
Jon He’s playing both of them, really.
Mo Yeah.
Jon he’s He’s working both both ends against the middle and doesn’t tell them what all the motivations are and what’s really happening. And. And he has ah and I like how how Hopkins as Lecter tries to pit them against each other.
Jon Like Clarice, do you think he wants you sexually?
Mo yeah ah
Jon you know what mean?
George Right.
Jon He’s like, she might not have thought of that, but now she’s off her balance, right? it’s It’s not because he thinks that’s the case, but he knows those are things that this young lady will make her second guess herself and wonder about.
Jon It’s part of that brilliance. And of course, Jack Crawford, he’s doing the right thing. He’s a smart agent. He knows what it needs to be done.
Mo Mm hmm.
Jon It’s just he’s using all the resources available and Clarice is one of those resources.
Mo These are resources, right?
Jon Yeah.
George Well, he’s the head of the behavioral sciences division.
Mo Mm hmm.
George He’s not a dummy either, right?
Mo No, no, no.
Jon Right.
George I’m not saying he’s on Lecter’s level of intellect, but he’s very, very close.
Mo No.
Jon Nobody is. Yeah.
George He could almost be Lecter’s Holmes, but he’s slightly less than, right?
Jon Yeah.
Mo Mm hmm.
George it’s It’s a nice thing to see that the evil guy is actually the smarter of the two.
Mo Yeah.
George Even though he’s captured in N.S.L., he’s still the smarter of the two. And I like that Glenn plays Crawford that way because there’s there are times when he tells Clarice, like when he’s sending her there, don’t let Lecter get into your head because he understands what Lecter can do.
Mo Right?
Jon Yeah.
Mo Yeah. Don’t tell me anything personal.
Jon Yep.
George But then there’s other times when he makes faux pas, like when he’s introducing her to the ah other sheriffs and people when they go to look at the body and he’s, she’s like, I wish you would have shown me more respect in the room.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo Yeah.
George So they would know that they needed to respect me as well.
Jon Right.
Mo Yeah.
George And he like genuinely made a mistake and he had owns up to it. And so he, he has some vulnerability as well.
Mo Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Jon He took the note. He said, understood, noted.
George Yeah.
Jon Thank you. he He didn’t like, you know, I’m the boss, blah, blah, blah.
Mo Yeah.
Jon He’s like, I hear your point.
Mo Mm-hmm.
Jon Yeah. Yeah. Compassion. Unlike Lecter, who has all the intelligence and no compassion, this guy may not be on the same level, but he has emotional intelligence that maybe Lecter wouldn’t have.
George Right.
Mo yeah
George Yeah.
Mo So, I mean, we’ve talked to all these characters, but, we you know, and the elephant in the room or the buffalo in the room ah is Ted Levine as James Buffalo Bill Gum.
George What’s the best thing about Mondays?
Jon The buffalo in the room? Yeah.
Mo You know, the antagonist in this one, right?
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo He’s the guy who’s making all this stuff happen. You know, he’s his character. Like, this was his breakout role. Like, this is the one he’s done some stuff beforehand, but this is the role that just shot him up.
Mo And I say that he played like a good crazy person. I mean, like, you know, and they and when they showed it, like, yeah yeah I’ve never seen the theater. I’m like, I just remember thinking myself, this is disturbing.
Mo Like just watching him but was like, this is disturbing. Like this is bothering me at some level that like just watching him, you know, it’s like, Oh,
George Well, you know, it’s it’s not a unheard of for this role to have bothered a lot of people, even up until this day. This role that he played has garnered a lot of criticism from the transgender community because this role was seen as the thing that made a lot of conservative people fear transgender people as being violent and unhinged and not the same as everything else.
Jon Hmm.
George And all of that is true that that’s what this character was, but Lecter himself points out, he’s not a transgendered person.
Mo Yeah.
Mo Yeah.
Jon Yeah.
Mo Right.
George He’s just looking for his place.
Jon Right.
George And that’s what he’s latched himself onto. He’s really just a disturbed, you know, crazy person who has decided to identify himself in that way.
Jon Yeah.
Mo Yeah.
George Now there was one scene where everybody, it puts the lotion in the basket, right?
Mo Yeah. Yeah.
George That famous scene.
George But, When the girl is really freaking out and begging to be let out and please just let me call my mom and everything, you see for about 10 seconds, Buffalo Bill starts to almost cry and then screams at her, just put the fucking lotion in the basket because he can’t handle the emotional torture that he’s putting this person through.
Mo Yeah.
George Because he only wants what he needs from the person. He doesn’t really want to kill her. He just needs to satisfy his own thing.
Mo It’s sort of incidental, right?
George And she just is an object to get there.
Jon His hunger, a different kind of hunger.
Mo Mm hmm.
Jon Yeah. Yeah. It’s like a crack in his sociopathy. Like he’s clearly a sociopath and he who has no concern for the, or can even empathize with feelings of others.
Mo Yes.
Jon But then there’s that crack. You’re like, well, so even that, that is a nuance of the character that makes it like, He’s not just over the edge. He’s over the edge and there’s still a shred of humanity in there.
Jon And that’s even scarier because that could be me now because I’m not going to go over the edge, but maybe I could get broken like this guy. You know, it makes it more terrifying.
George Hmm.
Jon It’s you those little things and performances that are, again, not on the page or maybe they were. I don’t know. But they they feel like they weren’t on the page or between the lines. And you’re like, oh, that adds a depth that I wasn’t prepared for coming into this little 91 movie.
Mo Yeah, for sure. And one thing about his character, I think that really bothered me the most is that I was watching it. I’m like, this guy could exist.
Jon Oh, yeah.
Mo Like in my head, I’m like, somewhat ah somebody like that.
Jon He probably does.
Mo said, like, you know, sometimes the villains are so whatever. You’re like, OK, that’s little far fetched or a little bit, you know, they kind of push it over the line.
Jon Right. It’s not Blofeld, right?
Mo Yeah.
Jon it’
Mo You know, but this one, I’m like, this guy could totally exist.
George Right.
Mo Like this.
Jon Oh, yeah.
Mo He seems like someone you could be your neighbor and you would never know.
Jon Yep.
George Yeah.
Jon Yep. That’s scary.
George I just want to, if you guys don’t mind, I just want to round out the last two characters really quick because the next segment is us getting to talk about our favorite scenes.
Mo Yeah, please.
Jon Yeah, please do.
George And I think that’s probably one of my favorites that we’re going to do in this podcast, but real quick, Anthony held as Dr. Frederick Chilton. He wants to be, Lector’s Holmes, he puts himself up there on that intellectual level, and we all can see right from the beginning, he’s not even fucking close to Lector, or hell, even Clarice Starling at that point.
Jon Oh, mm-hmm.
Mo Yeah.
Jon Yep.
Mo Not in neighborhood.
George like Everybody is smarter than him.
Mo Mm-hmm.
Jon He’s just a self-important douche.
George Yeah, and you’re kind of happy with what you can see is going to happen to him at the end of the movie, but
Jon Yeah.
George And that’s really odd, right? Because you’re, like John said, you’re kind of rooting for a lector. When you get to that last scene a little bit, you’re like, yeah, fucking eat his ass.
Mo Yeah.
George Go ahead.
Mo Right. Yeah.
Jon He’s been treating you poorly.
George Get you some Chianti.
Jon Yeah.
George You know, and this guy, he’s obviously, you know, he goes through the whole thing of subterfuge and going behind the FBI’s back to the senator so that he can get the glory.
George And he’s my name is spelled Chilton, C-H-I-L-T-O-N in front of the press, you know, and everything.
Mo yeah
George Which, by the way, who puts a sociopathic serial killer in a museum jail? What what the hell was that about?
Jon That’s a good point.
Mo Yeah, he
George Like you’re just inviting the shit that’s going to happen.
Jon I hadn’t thought of that, but well, he’s, well, but isn’ it isn’t, isn’t Lecter like a trophy to him?
Mo yeah he is
Jon He wants people to know he’s got this guy under his thumb.
George He is. That’s a good point.
Jon So it actually kind of makes sense when you think about it.
George Yeah. That’s a good point. That’s a good point. Last up.
Jon Yeah. if Yeah.
George Oh, go ahead.
Jon ah One more. Cause if you hide him, nobody knows you got him. He wants people to know like, cause he’s a kind of an impotent character who’s getting power by who he has control over.
George Yeah.
Mo yeah
George Yeah.
George Yeah, because I think he even says to the press, he says something along the lines of, it was only through my interpretation of his brain that we solved this.
Mo Right.
Jon Right. Yep. i need the I need the glory.
George Yeah.
Jon Right. Yep.
George ah Last one, ah and this is literally just one of those little, you know, highlight things and you miss it kind of stuff. We talked about Jonathan Demme having some ties to Roger Corman. He actually got Roger Corman a part in this movie.
George and He plays FBI director Hayden Burke, who’s only in two scenes. The one where ah he yells at Jack Crawford for you know not talking to the senator before the whole gambit play of, you know, we’re going to let Lecter go live on the island.
Mo That’s great, though.
George And then he’s in the very, one of the ending scenes where he gives Clary Starling her badge when she graduates. That’s all he’s in there for.
Jon Okay.
George But it’s just nice to see that he pays homage to kind of his mentor.
Jon Yeah. All right.
Mo Yeah. Yeah.
Jon Yeah, it’s cool. All right. So what did you say we’re doing next? going champion a scene. Oh, this is rough.
Mo yeah
George We are…
Jon We do this at a lot of movie backtracks. I was the last to pick, and you picked two of the best ones. so And I still got a great one.
Mo so
Jon There’s so many good ones in here. We’ll reveal our picks and talk about them a little bit right after this.
Jon Not like they’re changing channels, but whatever. ah All right. Okay, thank you.
George Like I said in the previous segment, this is one of the things that I’ve been looking forward to the most in this podcast. And I i hate that it’s probably going to make the podcast way too long for the listeners, but it’s such a good movie that has so much to talk about.
George This is where we get to talk about our favorite scene from the movie that wasn’t already stolen by the other two people, as John mentioned earlier.
Mo Right.
Jon ah
George So Mo, why don’t you so get things started and let us know what your favorite scene in this film is.
Mo Yeah, we definitely say one of my favorite scenes, because like you said, there’s just so many to pick from here. But my favorite scene or one of my favorite scenes is the first meeting of Lecter.
Jon Hmm?
Mo um
George e
Mo Because it was like so like When you first see him, he looks harmless. He’s just ah an old guy standing there just with a little smile on his face.
George Yeah.
Mo you know And then once Joey Foster starts going through like that questionnaire, which everyone knows is BS. It’s just an excuse. Then you start seeing what he’s like. then’s like It’s like peeling away like a little bit more. And you also know that he was doing that intentionally. like He was just a little bit more. He showed little who he is. A little bit more. He’s showing who he is. you know Just throw her off guard. Keep her out of balance you know so he has the advantage on it.
Mo um asking just bizarre questions like out of the blue and things like that. You know, you can see that he’s just a master manipulator who’s super intelligent. you know And that just made him scary right off the bat.
Jon Did you notice, Moe? You probably did. Everyone probably has. But something that really impressed me is you don’t see Lecter for about the first 10, 15 minutes of the movie, but the whole time if they’re talking about him.
Mo Oh, yeah.
George Right.
Mo Mm hmm. Yeah.
Jon Here’s who he is. Here’s why you got to watch out for him. Here’s what he knows. Here’s what you want you to try to get out of him. Here’s what, and it’s such a buildup like this monster. And as you said, Mo, you get there.
Mo Mm-hmm.
Jon He’s just an old man standing around like, Hey, what’s going on y’all?
Mo In the jumpsuit, like, hello.
George right
Jon And it’s like, it subverts your expectations to a point. Like, wait a minute. I thought this guy was ah a demon.
Mo Yeah.
Jon Well, he is. Hang on. We’re getting there.
Mo Yeah.
George Right. Just a different kind. Like, I mean, you see all the other people that she walks past in that hallway and all of them fit what they all fit what you think he’s going to be until Mo pointed out you get there and he’s just like the guy who’s, you know, letting you cut in line at Sunday at the bakery.
Jon Yes, right.
Mo Yeah, they’re actual crazy, right?
Jon They’re like monsters.
Jon Yep.
Mo Mm-hmm.
Jon Yep.
Mo Yeah, he’d be waiting for it.
George That’s.
Mo He’s like waiting for a bus, right? He’s just standing there.
George Yeah.
Jon And as she walks down the aisle, they’re getting worse and worse. so you’re like, whoa, this buildup.
Mo Yeah.
George Worse and worse.
Jon And then it’s left her nice and calm.
Mo Yeah, nice and calm. you Very polite.
Jon yep
Mo you know?
George Yes. And she even makes, ah she even makes a point of his politeness later on the film when he escapes.
Mo Mm-hmm.
George And she said, the girl’s like, you know, he’s out. He could come after you. and she’s like, no, you don’t understand. He would consider that impolite.
Mo Yeah, it’d be rude.
Jon Yeah.
Jon Yep. That’s good. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Mo It would be rude. So, yeah, so that was my scene, which again, there’s just so many, but George, out of the many, many scenes, which ones did you pick?
Jon yep
Jon that’s good
George ah For me, it was a no-brainer. That’s why I wanted to do most of the work on this card because want this scene to get taken from me. Lecter’s escape from the museum jail.
Jon oh yeah
George um but So just to set the scene, he’s been transported to go meet with the senator.
Jon Crafty.
George Why the senator wouldn’t go meet him? i you know She’s got the jet.
Jon Yeah.
George Why go through all the rigmarole?
Mo Right. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
George But it was part of the story. Okay, fine. He’s in this museum up on the fourth floor, and he’s in this cage that’s in the middle of the room, not touching anything, right? It’s kind of a Magneto from X-Men kind of cage.
Jon Yeah. Yes.
George And he’s he’s in there, and He’s already preemptively figured out his escape before he ever got transported, right? He’s stolen the cartridge out of the pen from the psychiatrist.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Jon Yep.
George And you kind of get the little taste of that when the psychiatrist goes to sign the letter and doesn’t have his pen and they panned the lecterns. It’s very in your face.
George Now in 91, that was a lot subtler. Nowadays, audiences are so smart.
Jon Mm-hmm. Yeah. Pick up on it.
George They’re going to, oh, this shit is coming back, right?
Mo Yeah. No. Yeah.
George But the way he goes about his escape, he sits behind the little partition that they gave him and he’s listening to his music. He’s not in a rush.
George He’s just taking his time. He’s like, just one more minute, please. And it’s not so he can prepare. i think his character is genuinely listening to the music.
Jon Yeah.
George He gets up, he palms the cartridge so that they can’t see it. He very politely and calmly sits down, slips his hands through the bars and waits for the handcuffs.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George You may begin now.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George And the guy goes and handcuffs him. And all of this politeness just takes away their vigilance from them without them even noticing it.
Mo Mm-hmm. Yay. Mm-hmm.
George They go in, they go to put the tray down. He says, and he’s planned this. He’s planned this. Clarice gave him the drawings. He put the drawings specifically on that table.
George Please don’t harm the drawings. So the guy has to put down the tray next to Lecter to roll up the drawings and put it.
Jon Yep. Yep.
George And they do all. Demi is so great by making everybody go slow in this scene because it’s a buildup. Then the guy goes after he’s moved the drawings, he goes to pick up the tray And that’s when Lecter handcuffs him to the bars and they have that eyes locking moment for maybe half a second.
Jon Oh, no.
Mo Yeah.
Jon yep is oh no
Mo Where the guy’s like, Oh, crap.
George And the yeah and the guy’s like, exactly.
Mo Yeah.
George he’s like, oh no. And Lecter’s like, oh yeah, motherfucker, that’s right.
Jon It’s happening.
George And Lecter just goes off, right? He doesn’t attack this guy though. He goes after the free guy first, right?
Jon Right. You’re handcuffed. I’ll get to you.
George Yeah, let me knock this guy back a little bit, smash his head into the bars, bite his nose off of his face, and then slam him down on the ground.
Mo yeah
George Then, what is arguably my favorite part of the scene, he comes back to the character that’s handcuffed to the cage, And he picks up the baton. And he does all of this so slowly and methodically.
Mo Oh, yeah.
Mo And the music’s still going, isn’t it?
George And when he starts to make those swings, even the wind-up of the swing is slow.
Jon Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
George It’s not until he delivers the blow that he speeds up. And I think it’s only… a measured amount of force that his brain has told him, this is what you need to incapacitate and maybe kill this person.
Mo Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
George You don’t need to just go hog wild. Every blow is a determined stroke.
Jon e
George It’s brilliance.
Mo yeah
George In any horror escape film I’ve ever seen, it’s the best escape film or scene ever.
Mo I agree. yeah it You read the book, George, you said, right? And so one of the things um that you don’t get in the movie, which I could see why they didn’t do this, is Barney, who’s a minor character in the movie, he was basically who managed Hannibal Lecter.
Mo And the reason why he was over Lecter is because he never let his guard down.
George Yes.
George Never.
Mo Never. So Lector had to get away from him to escape.
Jon Mm-hmm.
George Yep.
Mo And that was part of it. He knew he had to get away from Barney because Barney never, like he would not have put that tray down on that table. You know, he would not, like he’s, he was just like, he was always on his guard with Lector at all times.
Mo So, you know, I guess there’s no way you really could do that in movie or make that clear. But in the book, I thought that was really interesting.
George Yeah, I would have devoted too much time to a plot point that only had one small payoff because all the rest of it, it’s really all focused on his distaste for the psychologist more than Barney.
Mo Yeah.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo Mm-hmm.
Mo Yeah.
George Because I don’t think Lecter distaste, he doesn’t hate anybody except for the psychiatrist. That’s the only character he really truly hates.
Mo Yeah.
Jon Hmm.
George He doesn’t hate Crawford.
Jon Yeah.
George He recognizes that Crawford is his adversary, but I don’t think he ever hates him.
Jon No, no.
Mo Yeah. And and I don’t think that he necessarily hated the psychologist. I think he’s just like, he just shouldn’t be alive. Like, like he’s his, his personality and he’s the type of person he is.
Jon No. Yeah.
George Maybe, yeah.
Mo Like, he’s just shouldn’t be around the world. Be better without him. Kind of, you know, like, yeah,
George Well, I think it’s almost a personal affront to him that they share the profession.
Mo Oh yeah, that’s true.
Jon Yeah. no yeah
Mo but Yeah. Yeah.
George And I think that’s where his disdain for that character comes in.
Jon yeah
George But I mean, that whole escape scene, just, he’s slowly taking apart everything that that lesser than psychiatrist put in play.
Jon Wow.
Mo Yeah.
Jon Yeah.
George And he’s doing it one slow step at a time. And even when he’s done, he sits down and relaxes for a while and then gets up and goes and kills the guard as he’s crawling out.
Mo yeah
George I’m like, Just so smooth and brilliant.
Jon Yeah. It’s good.
George I mean, I don’t like to root for the bad guy, but you got root for the bad guy in that scene a little bit.
Jon Yep. when you’re that good at what you do, you go, you like to see the craft in action.
Mo yeah that Yeah. Yeah.
George Right?
Mo Give credit where credit’s due.
Jon Yep.
George ah That’s enough about my scene. John, what scene did you decide to champion?
Jon Yep.
Jon I’m going to do a half George, which is, I have a favorite scene.
George Okay.
Jon I’m going to sneak in my favorite scene that I would kill to see that wasn’t in the movie.
George Ooh.
Mo Okay.
Jon i would I would pay full ticket price to see the conversation between Hannibal and Migs that made Migs swallow his own tongue and die.
Mo Oh, right.
George ah
Mo Yeah.
Jon You fight, it happens off screen. Like he literally talked to this guy into committing suicide.
Mo Right.
Jon Holy crap.
George In the weirdest way possible.
Jon Yes.
Mo Yeah.
Jon I’m like, so, so that’s, that’s my, that’s my half extra bonus.
Mo Okay.
Jon Right. So that scene wasn’t in the movie, but I would have loved to have seen how that played out. The fact that it wasn’t on screen made it better, of course.
Mo Mm-hmm.
Jon Right. But in the finale, there’s the standoff between Clarice and Buffalo Bill, where they’re both in the house and they’re, they’re running around and then the lights go out.
Jon And you saw earlier that Bill uses this night vision thing.
Mo Night Vision, yeah.
Jon Well, now it really comes into play.
George Right.
Jon And you are watching Clarice through the eyes of Buffalo Bill. You know where he is and how close he is to her. And he reaches out, almost touches her face a few times. You’re like, it’s like, like, Hey, I don’t want you to get hurt, but more importantly, I don’t want him to touch you.
George Mm-hmm.
Jon Like he’s so vile.
Mo Mm-hmm.
Jon That’s almost as bad as getting hurt. You know? And I wasn’t, that was one of those moments where I did not remember how the scene concluded because I was, I i i know she didn’t die, didn’t remember how she survived that moment.
Mo Oh, okay.
George oh
Jon And it was her awareness that, and they they zoom in on it. And when he cocks down, He has a revolver. When he pulls back the hammer on that revolver, they zoom in on it and they crank it up like it’s about 80 decibels in the theater.
George Oh.
Mo Yeah.
George Yeah.
Jon That’s what she hears. She’s so attuned to what’s going on. She hears the hammer cock back. And she just unloads in that direction. Whoever you are, you’re going down.
Mo Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Jon So it was, it it was how it illustrated her character and showed that she is panicking, but she has not lost her wits. And that’s the thing I’m talking about. She wasn’t waiting to be saved.
Jon She was at a precarious situation, but she had that, ability in her, that focus, that drive, that despite the fact this is I’m out of my element, this guy is a maniac, and I’m i’m out of my league, but I’m going to focus close, and it saved her life and allowed her to to wrap up that part, at least, of the film. I loved how that played out and how it showed her awareness saved herself.
George I think it’s the only scene in the movie that I think Demi had a misstep in.
Jon Really?
George Well, not in, I mean, it’s a, it’s a wonderful scene. Don’t get me wrong. I love it, but, the reality of him cocking that hammer when he’s the only one with full vision and she’s not, and they’re at point blank range.
George I mean, they’re literally feet away because he almost reached out and touched her face.
Mo Essentially. Yeah.
Jon You could just pull the trigger, right?
George Right. Yeah. I, how he missed with full vision and she hit six shots. Cause he does get a shot off. That part was, I mean, to say it’s not believable in this type of movie sounds disingenuous, but
Jon Okay.
George I would have liked them to at least shown him just not get the shot off. I think that would have been a little bit better. Like her, you’re to your point that she was so tuned into the sounds because her vision was gone that she gets the shots off first and he never gets a shot off.
George Now, I think if I remember correctly, the order is she gets a shot, then he gets a shot, then she gets three more. So maybe her shot he made his shot go off.
Jon I think it’s right. Yeah.
Jon Skewed him off. Yeah.
Mo Yeah.
George Yeah, because he was, you know, impacted by her bullet.
Jon Yeah.
George Maybe that’s the explanation.
Jon Yeah.
George And I can live with that if that is the case. But I would have liked I think it would have been smarter for him just not to get a bullet off.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo Yeah, I always thought that the flash from her first shot. Messed up his my vision and and then she could see him and then she could see and also that flash she see now could see where he is for a second and they could unload on him.
Jon Oh, his vision.
George Oh, that’s not bad either.
Jon Oh, yeah, that’s good, yeah.
George Yeah. Okay.
George Right.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo That’s my thing. you know, who knows?
Jon ah I thought you were going to say he should not have cocked the gun. He could have just pulled the trigger and it wouldn’t have given him away. It was his hubris.
George Yeah.
Jon He wanted the drama.
George Yeah.
Jon He wanted the ceremony of pulling back the hammer, aiming it and pulling the trigger.
George Yeah.
Jon You could you could just pull the trigger on a revolver. It will roll over and go.
Mo Yeah.
Jon But there’s the cocking of it that gave him away.
Mo Well, he’s playing with her.
Jon It was his own his own hubris. He was playing with her.
George Yes.
Jon Exactly.
Mo Yeah.
Jon Yeah.
George Yeah. He, he was s savoring a moment because this was the first time he had an opportunity to kill someone who was after him.
Jon Yeah.
Mo Yeah.
George Wasn’t the other way around, like his, all of his victims, he was the predator, but now he’s the prey and he has a chance.
Jon Yeah. Yeah. Usually he’s the. Yeah.
George Like he was reaching out, trying to play with touching her face like a cat does with a mouse. Right. I mean, yeah, I, I agree.
Jon Yeah.
George That’s why he would have pulled the hammer back as opposed to just fired, you know, a a full, true full pull of the trigger.
Jon Yeah. Sure. Sure.
Mo yeah And i also thought that he was like scoping her out to see what parts he wanted to keep.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo You
George Uh, maybe.
Jon Oh, I didn’t think about that.
Mo you know?
Jon Oh, this cheek will do well.
George She wasn’t big enough, though.
Jon This will do well.
Mo Yeah, you her fate.
George He needed, like, a size 14 girl, so.
Mo Yeah, that’s true. That’s a good point.
Jon ah Well, he can use her to make like a veil or something, something small, some gloves, maybe.
Mo Yeah, ah
George Ah, yeah. Fair enough. Yeah.
Jon I’m still creeped out about the last bit. before Before we get out of this episode, usually we talk about movies.
Mo ah
Jon We want to talk a little bit about the lasting legacy, the impact this film has had. We’ve talked a lot about how well revered and the the the box office and everything on this. But there’s from prequels to sequels to follow ups to, ah you know, a Cartman on South Park saying, put the lotion in the basket or else it gets the hose again.
George he
Jon All that, you know. The thing that grabbed me right away was that Clarice Starling looks so much ah the in in hair and face and posture and everything as Dana Scully from the X-Files, right?
Jon And I went looking and sure enough, the character of Dana Scully was directly inspired. In fact, in the first episode, Dana Scully even has red hair like Clarice did, although they they changed that later.
Jon And they were creating, they said, Clarice, we’re doing it perfectly with Clarice Starling. We need a highly educated, capable woman who thrives in a male dominated FBI.
George Right.
Mo Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jon The archetype was there.
Mo yeah
George right
Jon and They’re just like, we’ll just make another one and and cast someone else in the role. And that’s what they did. So it turns out that the similarity was not accidental. It was what they had planned.
George Well, you know, I want to talk just a moment about the films that are around Silence Lambs. Silence Lambs, obviously the most popular and for good reason, but we did get the prequel, Manhunter, William Peterson, directed by Michael Mann, like we said, from 86.
Jon Okay. Okay.
Jon Yep. Mm-hmm.
George But then the sequels that came later, which one of them is actually a prequel, we get Hannibal, then we get Red Dragon, which is the prequel book to Silence of the Lambs.
Mo Yeah.
Mo Right. They remade the Manhunter. Right. Basically.
George Yeah, exactly. And then we get Hannibal Rising. So we get all of those from 2001 through 2007. What’s interesting to me is the the directors that they were chosen and how I think the films got worse as they went along.
George And to me, it looks like the director also might have been a reason for that because we get Jonathan Demme, who we all agree did a tremendous job.
Jon Mm.
Mo yeah
Jon Ooh. Uh-huh.
George But then we get Ridley Scott for Hannibal.
Mo Yes.
Jon Yeah. Mm, okay.
Mo Which, he’s a good director, normally.
George which is a solid director.
Mo Mm-mm.
George Yep. Then we get Brett Ratner for Red Dragon.
Jon Hm.
Mo Mm-mm.
George ah No, thank you. And then we get some guy named Peter Weber for the last film. And obviously we haven’t had any since.
Jon I’ve never seen any of these other films. i just want to quickly ask you, is it the same cast? Do we have Anthony Hopkins reprising his role?
George Not all the time.
Jon and No, no.
Mo No. Except for…
Jon Okay.
George No, we do get, we do get him in two of the three sequels.
Mo Yeah.
George We get Anthony Hopkins.
Mo yeah
Jon Okay. But one’s a prequel, so he would be a younger version of himself probably.
George ah Yeah, yeah.
Jon No?
George But yeah, it’s and we get different FBI people.
Jon Yeah. Okay. right. Curious.
George I think ah Ed Norton is in one of them. I forget which one yeah might have been ah might have been the Red Dragon when I think that Norton was in.
Mo Yeah.
Jon Hmm. Weird.
George I can’t remember, but.
Mo Yeah, it was.
George i I think that Silence of the Lambs was so strong that they had an opportunity to turn this into the can’t miss serial killer franchise that the eighty s the 80s was all about blood and guts.
Mo Yeah.
George The 90s could have all been about, you know, psychological horror.
Jon Oh, oh.
George And I think, unfortunately, the sequels just missed the mark.
Jon Mm-hmm.
Mo agree There was ah one part in Manhunter, though, which is interesting because the main character in Manhunter or Red Dragon is the person who caught Lecter.
George Yes.
Mo That’s the main character. And yeah, and I remember Manhunter, they had a scene where he’s talking to Lecter because he’s using Lecter to try to find another serial killer.
George That’s William Peterson’s character. Or no, no. I can’t remember. I think so.
George Right.
Mo And he’s like, well, Lecter’s like, why are you coming to me? He’s like, because you’re smarter than him. And then Lecter says, so you must think you’re smarter than me since you caught me. And he’s like, no, you had a disadvantage. He’s like, what’s that? You’re insane.
Mo And Lecter just sort like nods and then moves on to the next topic.
Jon ah
Jon Hmm.
Mo He’s like, oh, yeah.
Jon Know your weaknesses.
Mo Okay, pretty good.
George I don’t have anything on the mythos. so I didn’t put that in there.
Mo Who put that one in? Did you put that one, Sean?
Jon Not me. We can heal it.
Mo I didn’t put that in there.
Jon Okay. ah
George Yeah.
Jon I can mention TV shows. You’ve been doing a lot of talking.
Mo Okay.
Jon All right. Yep.
George Yeah, that’s fine.
Jon Yep.
Jon We then got some, which is pretty common now, Star Wars is big, Star Wars TV shows, you know, whatever. You have a good franchise, let’s just do something with it. So we got a couple of series from 2013 to 2015, couple seasons called Hannibal.
Jon That came out for a bit. And then just, this is just two, three years ago, 2021, I guess, Clarice, which I, now it’s, this was like following that character, which is like interested of the rest of the series seems um the series, the movies and the series seem to follow.
George Yeah.
Jon the bad guy, the, the, that character. And then we get to focus more on go back to Starling and find out what it is about her. Where did she get to just got one season is all it got. I didn’t catch either of those, but I was fascinated.
Jon Now that I have a more better memory of lambs, I might go back and watch. If you guys watch those, did you, did you?
Mo I saw Hannibal.
George I’ve watched Clarice.
Mo Oh, I saw Hannibal. So…
George Okay, well, I’ll let Mo go first then.
Jon Okay.
Mo Okay. oh Hannibal, it was it was a strong, it was a good series.
Jon Was it?
Mo Yeah, i liked it.
Jon Okay. right.
Mo The character, he said it was, he said it was a little weird because the main character is Hannibal, but it was ah it was it was a good series.
Jon Yeah.
Mo It went for two or three seasons. So, you know, it definitely had something to going for it.
Jon Yeah. Yeah. What about Clarice George?
George Clarice was pretty decent. um It wasn’t great and it did have some missteps toward the end, but I think um what was nice was we got Paul Crindle back.
George Paul Crindle is the deputy director of the FBI who was in the room with the director when he was yelling at Crawford’s character. And he’s also the guy who was in the airplane hangar.
Jon Okay.
George backing up the senator and saying like, you’re a disgusting asshole. Let’s get this jerk away from her. That character, he’s a main character in the Clarice series played by Michael Kudslas, who is a great actor. And he played him with an addiction issue, which was also very cool. And they had a team around her. So she was brought on to the team by him.
George And then, the whole series goes around her trying to find people. ah Buffalo Bill has a recurring thing in the series. So does, yeah.
Jon Oh, really? Okay.
George um So does the Senator’s daughter because this series takes place directly after the events of silence of the lambs. So the, the Senator’s daughter is going through all kinds of emotional issues because of the whole thing.
Jon Oh, okay. Entry point.
Jon I like it.
George And yeah, it, it’s a good series. Is it awesome? yeah
Jon Well, I…
George But I would have liked to have seen it get a second season to resolve some stuff.
Mo Grab the one.
Jon Okay. right.
Jon Okay, I’ll jump in on this. I grabbed one. I’ll do a couple here, and then I’ll…
George Okay.
Jon You guys did that. I’ll grab these. Okay.
George I’ll grab the last one.
Jon Yeah, three, two.
Jon And often when we’re talking about the legacy of films, you know, of course, it’s sequels and prequels and things like that in the series, but also how… how it is ah seen by its peers, seen by the industry, seen by that.
Jon And so we have several of those here. First one I saw is in 2018 Empire ranked Silence of the Lambs number 48 on its list of the 500 greatest movies, not thrillers, not horrors, movies of all time in the top 50, number 48.
Mo That’s pretty good.
George Mm-hmm. Yep.
Jon Pretty damn good. AFI, American Film Institute, ranked it 65th greatest film in America cinema and film. the fifth greatest thriller. Now, I gotta to go check that list and see what the first four are.
Mo Okay, I can see that.
George Nice.
Mo like I can see what the verse four are.
Jon But…
Mo Yeah, curious now.
Jon but Because, I mean, i just… I’m not saying it is the absolute best, but I can’t think of four better off the top of my head. so I’m gonna look and see what they are.
George ah It’s one of those where you look at the list and go, oh, well, maybe…
Jon oh yeah.
Mo Yeah.
Jon All right. Maybe so. Yeah.
George It may be a five-way tie, right?
Jon Perhaps. Yeah.
Mo Yeah.
George ah You know, also the ah U.S. Library of Congress, they deteemed they deemed this culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant, and they preserved it in the National Film Registry in 2011.
Jon isn
George So not a lot of films get that mark, and more so than a ranking list, I think that shows just how significant it is to our culture.
Jon Of course they did.
Mo yeah
Jon Yep.
Mo And most of all, it’s like one of the few times the Academy Awards kind of got it right. You know, because it won five. I mean, it won best ah best picture, best director, best actor, best actress, and best adapted screenplay, which, I mean, that’s like the big five.
Jon Holy shit.
George and That’s the big five.
Jon but
George Yeah.
Mo That’s like the big five.
Jon well What, what’d we say? The perfect storm, the rare unicorn.
Mo Yeah.
George Jump.
Jon It’s like they all hit ah at the same time. It was just, Oh damn.
Mo Mm-hmm.
George Yeah. Yeah.
Jon Makes sense.
George Finally, to bring it all back around to last week’s podcast, i want to say AFI’s 100 Years 100 Movie Quotes.
Jon Oh,
George They listed this as number 21, ladies and gentlemen. A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. And I’m not going to do the because I can’t do it.
Mo yes
George But there you go.
Jon here you go
Mo I was someplace
George It may be one of the creepiest moments in history of cinema.
Jon it’s it Oh.
George And you see that close-up of his face in like so many clip montages.
Jon Oh.
Jon Mm hmm.
George right like Anytime they want to talk about a horror guy, you see that.
Jon Yep.
George Because it’s so different than every other horror guy.
Jon Yeah, it is. Yeah. Crazy.
Mo I was in a restaurant and they had fava beans and that’s all I could think about.
Jon Right. Can you.
Mo That’s the only thing I was going through my head.
George How many times you think people did that to him, right?
Mo i know.
George Yeah.
Mo like It’s like the wrong thing to have on a menu in a restaurant because it’s like…
Jon right it Is it just like a pairing? Could you order it with a Chianti?
Mo With a Kiyoti.
Jon you just do that? you know and I’m to have the number 17.
Mo Kiyoti.
Jon That’s the fava beans, liver, and Chianti.
Mo yeahti
Jon Thank you very much. That’s what I want for now.
George e
Jon I’m creeped out again. Fantastic. Guys, thank you for walking through Silence of the Lambs with me. 35th anniversary of this film. Still as relevant and as powerful and as enjoyable film to watch today as it was.
Jon three and a half decades ago. Before we leave you, we do want to thank another brand new patron who’s supporting us now financially or a patreon.com. Jeff G. Thank you, Jeff.
Mo Woohoo!
Jon Like so many other kind folks before you headed over to patreon.com slash Gen X grown up. and decided that what we do was worth supporting to ensure that we continue to do it.
Jon Set up that regular monthly financial pledge for as little as a buck a month. That’s all it takes. It’s not like it’s a hardship. You know, you can’t buy a soda for a buck anymore, it seems. So come on, help us out a little bit.
George yeah
Jon We certainly appreciate you, Jeff. We love that you went the extra mile to help us out there and and join with such a roster of amazing folks. That is going to wrap it up for this backtrack edition of the Gen X Grown-Up Podcast. Don’t worry. We’ll be back in a couple of weeks with a brand new one. Another regular episode coming your way shortly, too.
Jon Until then, I am John. George, thank you so much for being here.
George Yes, sir.
Jon Mo, you know, i appreciate you, man.
Mo Always fun, man.
Jon Fourth listener, it’s you. We all three appreciate most of all. And we cannot wait to talk to you again next time. Bye-bye.
George See you guys.
Mo Take care, everybody.
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About The Author

Mo As someone who barely manages to squeeze in as a GenXer my memories include more of the 70's than those younger GenXers. Reading and movies are my passions with some video gaming thrown in there for good measure!

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