Daily Dialogue — December 19, 2018

“Now I want your full attention, Starling. Be very careful with Hannibal Lecter. Dr. Chilton at the asylum will go over all the physical procedures used with him. Do not deviate from them for any reason whatsoever. And you’re to tell him nothing personal, Starling. Believe me, you don’t want Hannibal Lecter inside your head.”

— The Silence of the Lambs (1991), screenplay by Ted Tally, novel by Thomas Harris

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Warning suggested by Lois Bernard.

Trivia: When characters are talking to Starling, they often talk directly to the camera. When she is talking to them, she is always looking slightly off-camera. Jonathan Demme has explained that this was done so as the audience would directly experience her point-of-view, but not theirs, hence encouraging the audience to more readily identify with her.

Dialogue On Dialogue: This is about as clear a warning as one person can give to another… and yet Clarice completely defies Crawford to the point she allows Lecter to — symbolically — “get inside” her head, a deep dive into her inner psyche. Yes, there is the quid pro quo agreement between them for her to get information from Lecter about Buffalo Bill, however, I believe there is something more internal going on with Clarice. She is living in a state of Disunity because she has not resolved feelings about her father’s death, all of that wrapped up in the trauma of having witnessed the slaughter of the spring lambs on her uncle’s Montana farm. She has tried to repress those unresolved feelings, but they haunt her in her dreams, that “awful crying of the lambs” as Lecter later on describes it. My theory: Clarice subconsciously needs Lecter to become her ‘therapist’ to help guide her into her psyche to that which she fears most to confront: the events of her past. It is the only way she can move toward Unity by bringing all of that ‘stuff’ into the light of consciousness. In that respect, this scene telegraphs where the plot is going to go.