The Silence of the Lambs - Being There Even when you’re Not [Blog]
Directed by Jonathan Demme
Released February 14, 1991
IMDb
Just some thoughts and ramblings on a movie I recently saw.
I’ve been taking acting classes for a few months now, and it’s been very eye-opening and freeing for me to go through. Over the years I’ve gotten more and more recluse, more shy and in my shell, and the classes have helped me get out of my own head and embrace my own weirdness.
One of the scenes I had to do was in The Silence of the Lambs where Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling are first introduced to each other, with me filling in the role of Hannibal obviously. It was a very tricky character to get right, and after some extensive rehearsal and notes from the teacher, the second take we did was pretty good.
There’s about a million and one “classic” movies I havn’’t actually seen, and The Silence of the Lambs was one of them, so I decided now was as good of an excuse as any to watch it.
Overall, I was surprised by how much I liked the movie. I tend to find older movies (movies from the 90’s are now considered “older”, oh god I’m old) a bit boring because I’ve been spoiled by modern film techniques and editing, but it was tightly paced and edited throughout.
While watching the movie, the main thing I was keeping an eye out for was Anthony Hopkin’s Hannibal performance, of course, and I was surprised to learn that he’s not actually in the movie too much because his presence is felt throughout the entire film. After his escape from the cell a little over halfway into the movie, he’s not seen at all until the very end, yet there was always this aura, this ambience around all the characters as they try to solve the case. He already knows the answer to the case, everyone else is just playing catch up.
It makes me reflect on my own presence, not just in relation to acting, but in relation to my broader life; friendships, career, family, online presence, all that kind of stuff. People who I’ve only interacted with for a limited amount of time, or maybe not at all via a parasocial online persona, but have nevertheless impacted me and still influence me whether they know it or not. Who do you allow to do that to you?