Great Characters: Hannibal Lecter (“The Silence of the Lambs”)

In the AFI series “100 Heroes and Villains,” atop that list as the #1 villain of all time is Hannibal Lecter. However in the movie The Silence of the Lambs (screenplay by Ted Tally, based on a novel by Thomas Harris), the irony is that Lecter is not the story’s Nemesis. Rather Buffalo Bill aka Jame Gumb (Ted Levine) is as he’s the character who Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) tracks down and engages in a final struggle. Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) is better understood as the story’s Mentor.

Here is how Lecter is introduced in Ted Tally’s script:

DR. LECTER’S CELL

is coming slowly INTO VIEW… Behind its barred front wall 
is a second barrier of stout nylon net… Sparse, bolted-
down furniture, many softcover books and papers. On the walls, 
extraordinarily detailed, skillful drawings, mostly European 
cityscapes, in charcoal or crayon.

Clarice stops, at a polite distance from his bars, clears 
her throat.

CLARICE
Dr. Lecter… My name is Clarice 
Starling. May I talk with you?

Dr. Hannibal Lecter is lounging on his bunk, in white pajamas, 
reading an Italian Vogue. He turns, considers her… A face 
so long out of the sun, it seems almost leached — except for 
the glittering eyes, and the wet red mouth. He rises smoothly, 
crossing to stand before her; the gracious host. His voice 
is cultured, soft.

DR. LECTER
Good morning.

Certainly seems like a villain. Of course, committing the murders he did, particularly in such a gruesome fashion, does make Lecter a really bad guy. But not with Clarice. As a Mentor, he not only provides insight and information about Buffalo Bill, eventually the key clue that leads her to the town where Gumb lives, equally as important Lecter guides Clarice on another journey — into her very psyche. He knows from the moment he sees her that there is much more to who Clarice presents her to be:

Suddenly he whips the tray back at her, with a metallic CLANG 
that makes her start. His voice remains a pleasant purr.

DR. LECTER
You’re sooo ambitious, aren’t you…? 
You know what you look like to me, 
with your good bag and your cheap 
shoes? You look like a rube. A well-
scrubbed, hustling rube with a little, 
taste… Good nutrition has given 
you some length of bone, but you’re 
not more than one generation from 
poor white trash, are you Officer 
Starling…? That accent you’re trying 
so desperately to shed — pure West 
Virginia. What was your father, dear? 
Was he a coal miner? Did he stink of 
the lamp…? And oh, how quickly the 
boys found you! All those tedious, 
sticky fumblings, in the back seats 
of cars, while you could only dream 
of getting out. Getting anywhere -
yes? Getting all the way — to the 
F…B…I.

After a series of probing questions get Clarice to confess the tragic truth from her past — how her father, a sheriff, had been killed by two burglars — Lecter continually pushes Clarice to face the emotional truth of that experience and what happened on the farm on Montana including the notable quid pro quo sequence:

Leading to this critical ‘confession’:

BACK TO THE ADULT CLARICE

staring into the distance, shaken, still trembling from the 
child’s shock. We see Dr. Lecter, over her shoulder, studying 
her intently.

DR. LECTER
They were slaughtering the spring 
lambs?

CLARICE
Yes…! They were screaming.

DR. LECTER
So you ran away…

CLARICE
No. First I tried to free them… I 
opened the gate of their pen — but 
they wouldn’t run. They just stood 
there, confused. They wouldn’t run…

DR. LECTER
But you could. You did.

CLARICE
I took one lamb. And I ran away, as 
fast as I could…

IN FLASHBACK

a vast Montana plain, and crossing this, a tiny figure — the 
little Clarice, holding a lamb in her arms.

DR. LECTER (V.O.)
Where were you going?

CLARICE (V.O.)
I don’t know. I had no food or water. 
It was very cold. I thought — if I 
can even save just one… but he got 
so heavy. So heavy…

The tiny figure stops, and after a few moments sinks to the 
ground, hunched over in dispair.

CLARICE (V.O.)
I didn’t get more than a few miles 
before the sheriff’s car found me. 
The rancher was so angry he sent me 
to live at the Lutheran orphanage in 
Bozeman. I never saw the ranch 
again…

DR. LECTER (V.O.)
But what became of your lamb?
(no response)
Clarice…?

BACK TO SCENE

as the adult Clarice turns, staring into his feverish eyes. 
She shakes her head, unwilling — or unable — to say more.

DR. LECTER
You still wake up sometimes, don’t 
you? Wake up in the dark, with the 
lambs screaming?

CLARICE
Yes…

DR. LECTER
Do you think if you saved Catherine, 
you could make them stop…? Do you 
think, if Catherine lives, you won’t 
wake up in the dark, ever again, to 
the screaming of the lambs? Do you…?

CLARICE
Yes! I don’t know…! I don’t know.

DR. LECTER
(a pause; then, oddly 
at peace)
Thank you, Clarice.

I’ve often wondered about why Lecter felt so “oddly at peace” and thanked Clarice after her confession. I think it’s this: Clarice allowed Lecter to be her guide, to lead her into the darkest part of her self, deep pools of pain, guilt, and sorrow about her father’s death, and in so doing honored Lecter by trusting him, even allowing him to be what he once was — a great psychiatrist. 

As I suggested, a Mentor.

Hannibal Lecter is a great character for multiple reasons and one of them is that his role provides a remarkable spin on the Mentor archetype, a demonstration of vast wisdom in helping Clarice housed in the body and soul of a psychotic killer.

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