Great Character: Jame “Buffalo Bill” Gumb (“The Silence of the Lambs”)
In a month-long run-up to Halloween, our Great Character focus this month is boogeyman. To kick off things, Jason Cuthbert analyzes Jame “Buffalo Bill” Gumb from the movie The Silence of the Lambs:
Before director Jonathan Demme explored skin-crawling inhumanity with The Silence of the Lambs in 1991, the only other motion picture that could be placed in the horror genre that had been nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award was The Exorcist in 1973. But Demme’s serial killer nightmare written by screenwriter Ted Tally, adapted from Thomas Harris’ novel, remains the only horror show to take home the Best Picture Oscar, including four other figurines for Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay).
Understandably, Jodie Foster’s FBI trainee Clarice Starling and Anthony Hopkins’ savvy savage Dr. Hannibal Lecter get the main attention, being the main characters and all. But the murderous misfit demeanor of Jame Gumb, even the spelling of his name “James” is off, by Ted Levine (Heat, Shutter Island) is one cold-blooded performance.
The Silence of the Lambs plot summary from IMDB:
A young FBI cadet must confide in an incarcerated and manipulative killer to receive his help on catching another serial killer who skins his victims.
Jame Gumb’s methods of prey make him a particularly disturbing antagonist, known as “Buffalo Bill” for his skin-removing treatment of overweight women as if they were cattle. Kidnapping plump ladies after pretending to be injured and in need of assistance is already a terrifying thought — turning sympathy into torture. But his modus operandi jumps even higher off of the roof of insanity when we learn that his chopping off of female body fat is not a demented protest against obesity, but his means of creating a female skin suit to hide his manhood.
This morbid melancholy murderer has been said to be the fictional composite of several real-life serial killers including: Ed Gein (female skin suit), Ted Bundy (pretending to be injured) and Green River Killer (dumped female bodies in rivers/inserted their corpses with objects.) Although the novel delves further into “Buffalo Bill’s” soul-crushing formative years of brutal abuse by the hands of foster parents, the film version of Jame Gumb actually benefits from leaving us wondering what the hell happened to this guy?
DR. HANNIBAL LECTER: “Look for severe childhood disturbances associated with violence. Our Billy wasn’t born a criminal, Clarice — he was made one through years of systematic abuse. Our Billy hates his own identity, you see. He always has, and he thinks that makes him a transsexual. But his pathology is a thousand times more savage and more terrifying.”
What made “Buffalo Bill” hate himself so much, and do we even want to know? When it comes to measuring the massive weight of whatever squashed his sanity — Jame Gumb gives us the most loaded description with the least amount of bullets:
JAME “BUFFALO BILL” GUMB: “You don’t know what pain is!”
Gumb insists upon referring to his innocent victim as “it” and to talking at her in the third person — as if she was invisible — his calculated delusion to justify her inhumane treatment by verbally dehumanizing her. Jame’s eerie voice floats between frail and ferocious, as if it was a stained carpet reacting to the soiled footprints that will never disappear.
What makes Jame Gumb’s transformative dance scene carve its freaky image deep under the subconscious is the gruesome contrast between his celebration of his flesh costume and the traumatized screams of his next potential victim below his feet. Party music and wearing another person’s skin were never meant to go together.
Gumb’s face reeks of shameless victory — a carnival of carnage seen through “madman glasses” — evil that evil created in its own image. But it’s the balanced portrayal of imbalance, Jame “Buffalo Bill” Gumb’s twisted yet straight-faced approach to coveting beauty with ugly intentions that makes this nemesis to society a GREAT CHARACTER.
Clarice Starling lost her father — a sheriff — when he surprised two robbers who shot and killed him. In effect, those murderers acted as boogeymen who haunted Clarice throughout her life. Looking at Clarice from a psychological perspective, she needs to face down a boogeyman in order to move forward in her life.
Hence Buffalo Bill.
She needs to save Catherine Martin in order to stop the nightmares. She needs to kill Buffalo Bill in order to slay the boogeyman who has been tormenting her.
Thanks to Jason for the post. Next week, another cinematic boogeyman.
Meanwhile join us in comments for a discussion of Jame “Buffalo Bill” Gumb.
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