The elucidatory BFI Modern Classics series goes from strength to strength with the publication of yet another beautifully packaged, meticulously researched and user-friendly analysis of a modern work of cultural and commercial import. Designed to combine careful research with high-quality writing and inventive perspectives on a diverse selection of titles, the series has become an entertaining and indispensable resource for theorists, academics, and general readers of film literature.
A Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of East Anglia and the author of Working Girls: Gender and Sexuality in Popular Cinema and Spectacular Bodies. Genre and the Action Cinema, the author is well placed to tackle Jonathan Demme's multiple Oscar winning adaptation of Thomas Harris' best-selling novel. Becoming only the second R-rated movie to achieve a clean sweep of all five major awards at the 1992 ceremony - Director, Actor, Actress, Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay - The Silence of the Lambs garlanded instant critical and commercial success, becoming a key reference point for tracking the 1990s obsession with police procedure and serial killing and a seminal picture in the growing pantheon of films on the subject.
The book of course draws illuminating parallels with pre and post Silence titles such as Psycho (1960) and Seven (1995), to name but two. The film's central characters: the insane, cannibalistic but fiercely intelligent and highly cultured Hannibal Lecter and the ambitious, tenacious, strong-willed FBI agent Clarice Starling have become contemporary icons. An already established performer, Jodie Foster as Starling cemented her reputation for choosing, interesting, resonant, determinedly feminist roles. As Lecter, respected Welsh actor Anthony Hopkins became an international star, in the process spawning a fetish for hockey masks and the favoring of devouring human organs with fava beans and a little Chianti.
Scrutinizing the ways in which Demme's film deals with the key themes of reason and madness, identity and belonging and aspiration and transformation, Tasker alludes to the dominant and diverse critical and psychoanalytic theories to achieve an informative and pervasive exposition. A highly effective patchwork that borrows freely and intelligently from the Gothic, horror and thriller conventions, with a distinct nod in the direction of the often problematically termed 'Women's Picture,' Tasker's analysis of Silence's hybridity in terms of genre is well-thought, informative and revealing in terms of the connotations of the film's highly stylised production values and its often conflicting but powerful mise-en-scéne. The author's examination of how architecture and other design elements powerfully contribute to the film in terms of tone and meaning - Rebecca (1940) is a particularly apt reference - is aided by an excellent and diverse choice of stills that are perfectly illustrative and also revealing in terms of the influence of artists such as William Blake and Hieronymous Bosch on the visual aesthetic of the film.
Given Tasker's background, it comes as little surprise that the book is astringent in its rigorous deconstruction of the film's representations of gender and sexuality and the complex and, for many, often troubling issues it raises concerning sexual politics. Moreover, Tasker offers perceptive commentary on how the film succeeds and fails as a feminist text, contrasting and comparing other films and books such as Copycat (1995), Blue Steel (1989) and the heroine of Sara Paretsky's popular V.I. Warshawski series. Foster's post Silence status is intelligently added to the mix. To backtrack, the book offers a sensitive, objective and cogent treatment of the furore created by the film's presentation of Jame Gumb/aka 'Buffalo Bill's' transgressive sexuality and the campaign raged against the film by outraged gay male viewers who found Gumb's deviant sexuality to contain traces of homophobia. Tasker binds Gumb's deviance - pointing to images of swastikas in his basement - with his gender and his profound misogyny and not his sexuality. It is in this area and Tasker's incorporation of articles by eminent scribes such as B Ruby Rich and Barbara Creed that the book is perhaps most insightful, rational and compelling.
Tasker of course pays suitably close attention to the axiomatic relationship between Starling and Lecter, teasing out every possible connotation of their interaction. Centralising the film's construction in both narrative and thematic terms to the four key exchanges between the pair, the author draws on issues of patriarchy, class, culture and sexuality to peer into the murky depths of audience identification, performance, star appeal and indeed the correlation between Demme and co-writer Ted Tally's representation of the liaison and that of original author Thomas Harris. In this regard, Tasker - who also competently covers the way that the film was marketed to position it as a thoughtful genre piece - touches upon big screen Harris adaptations, past: Manhunter (1986) and future: Hannibal (2001) and Red Dragon (forthcoming).
Aside from mistakenly crediting Sigourney Weaver as 'Helen Hunt' in a still from Copycat (her character was 'Helen Hudson'), there's very little but praise to be offered for this book. Erudite, concise, exhaustively researched and thoroughly illuminating, I read it in one sitting and was immediately overcome by a compulsion to view the film again.
Reviewed by Jason Wood
