The word “holocaust” comes from two Greek words, one meaning “whole” and the other meaning “burning”/”burned.” The connotation of the word implies a burnt offering, such as a sacrifice to a deity. In Schindler’s List, both the imagery of burning and the idea of sacrifice figure prominently, never letting the viewer forget the purpose of the film is to remember the Holocaust and honor its victims and survivors.

As noted in this week’s warm-up post, Schindler’s List is a black-and-white movie–but not all of the film is lacking color. In the opening scene, a Jewish family gathers around a table in their home. An older man sings, while the candles in two tall candlesticks burn. The camera focuses on the flame of one of the candles as it burns low, and very subtly the film morphs from color to black-and-white, after which the candle goes out with an upward stream of smoke. Several points seem to be made in this scene. First, we see the unity and harmlessness of the Jewish family and their religion. The scene is peaceful and hauntingly sad as the family disappears from view–just as millions of Jews disappeared forever during the Holocaust. The smoking candle also hints at the decimation of the Jews that will be pictured later in the film: What was strong and warm will become weak and then will be no more. Furthermore, there is the obvious connection with the definition of holocaust: The Jews will both literally (especially in the crematoriums of the death camps) and figuratively be burned up by the horror of the Nazis’ “Final Solution” to the Jewish “problem.” Perhaps one hopeful idea that one can draw from the smoldering candle is that the Holocaust will eventually burn itself out, its hatred and ignorance finally consuming it.

Another (and more famous) feature of Schindler’s List with a color connected to the idea of burning is the little girl in the red coat. She first appears during the German liquidation of the Krakow ghetto, one of the most violent scenes in the film. The little girl scampers around, unsure of what is happening and not knowing where to go. She walks by soldiers and enters tenements that have already been cleared of their residents. Eventually, she crawls under a bed, but the film’s viewers know that her hiding place is lame and she will be captured. Schindler stops at a place overlooking the ghetto while riding horses with his mistress and sees the little girl in the streets below. He is deeply moved by her plight, but does nothing to help her or anyone else. Much later in the film, the little girl appears again. Still dressed in her red coat, but now deceased, she is wheeled past a shocked Schindler on her way to the massive pile of burning Jewish bodies as the Nazis prepare to retreat in the face of the advancing Allied forces. The brief scene changes Schindler forever; he resolves to save as many of his Jewish workers as he can. The little girl herself, though physically annihilated in the Holocaust, also plays a symbolic role. Being so young and wearing the color red (red being clearly connected with fire and burning), the little girl again connects the innocence of the Jewish people with the horror of their massacre and immolation during World War II. She also, according to Steven Spielberg, represents how obvious it was to those in the highest levels of government in the Allied nations (especially the United States) that the Holocaust was occurring–still, those leaders did nothing to stop the killings, choosing instead to focus on winning the war.

Spielberg partly blames those Allied leaders for the millions of Jews who were forced to become sacrifices–actual burnt offerings–during the Holocaust. While there’s no denying the unfathomable price paid by the Jewish people during the second World War, the thing about sacrifices, at least in the Old Testament/burnt offering context, is that they must be given willingly. And that is not true of the Jews during the Holocaust. While many, if not most, surrendered their possessions, their rights, and their lives, they did so each time with the belief that their situation had gotten as bad as it could possibly be. Each new regulation, every additional limit to Jewish freedom was the height of what German racism must be able to imagine. Several Jewish characters express this misguided belief during the film, and they are always wrong. The Germans demanded every sacrifice of the Jews–even the incomprehensible surrender of their lives–but the Jews did not hand themselves over to the Germans willingly. They clearly wanted life and not the torture and death they were given.

The character in Schindler’s List who does sacrifice willingly is Schindler himself. Though at first he’s only interested in money and women and worming his way into the “it” crowd of influential Nazis, by the end of the film, he has transformed into a man who gives everything he has–his women, his business, and his money–in order to save others. He is jokingly called Moses by the evil Amon Goeth–and Schindler is indeed a lot like the biblical hero in that he gives up a life of luxury to lead an enslaved people to eventual freedom. Thomas Keneally’s original title for his novel on which the film is based is called Schindler’s Ark, again emphasizing a biblical character (Noah) who lost much to save many.

For Me Then…

In their salvific roles, Moses and Noah can be seen as precursors of Jesus Christ, so it is interesting that a film focusing on Jews during the Holocaust contains a somewhat Christian message of hope and renewal. Schindler himself, with all his faults, makes a pretty lame Christlike figure–still, his rescue of over 1,200 Jews, as well as the sacrifice he must make to achieve this, puts an end to Jewish “burnt offerings” and ushers in a new period of life and restoration.

Like the beginning of the film, the end also features fire and color (spoiler alert!). Once he has rescued them, Schindler’s Jews are permitted again to celebrate the Sabbath–with candles like those they had at the beginning of the movie. And at the close of the film in a deeply moving (and full color) scene, the actual surviving Jews that Schindler saved, along with the actors who played them in the film, place rocks on his tombstone as a memorial. Here, the abandonment of black-and-white coloring again indicates renewal. The past will never be forgotten–nor should it be–but there is hope in the future because of people like Oskar Schindler, people who see the right and do it, despite the risk to themselves and in spite of the fact that they may never receive anything in return.

Six million is a huge number, hard to comprehend, difficult to picture in one’s mind. Six million is the estimated number of Jews killed in the Holocaust that was planned and executed by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party in the first half of the twentieth century. Add to that number the several millions of Gypsies, homosexuals, and disabled or mentally ill persons also massacred by the Nazis, and the final death toll of the Holocaust is closer to ten million.

For Steven Spielberg, arguably the most famous and successful movie director of our time, the Holocaust is not so much about numbers as it is about individuals. A Jew himself, Spielberg recalls how the Holocaust has always been a part of his life: “When I was very young, I remember my mother telling me about a friend of hers in Germany, a pianist who played a symphony that wasn’t permitted, and the Germans came up on stage and broke every finger on her hands. I grew up with stories of Nazis breaking the fingers of Jews…In a strange way my life has always come back to images surrounding the Holocaust. The Holocaust had been a part of my life, just based on what my parents would say at the dinner table. We lost cousins, aunts, uncles.”

In the early 1980s, when Spielberg was first approached to make a film based on Thomas Keneally’s 1982 novel Schindler’s Ark (published in the U.S. as Schindler’s List), he declined, thinking he was not at a point in his life where he could deal with the difficult subject matter in a way that was meaningful enough. Ironically, Keneally had also hesitated before tackling the Schindler story. On his way home to Australia from a book signing in Beverly Hills in 1980, Keneally entered a shop looking for a new briefcase. The shop owner was a man named Poldek Pfefferberg, a Jewish man who, along with his wife, had survived the Holocaust because Oskar Schindler had employed them in his factory–and, thus, had put their names on his famous list. For years, Pfefferberg had petitioned any writers or film-makers whom he encountered to take up Schindler’s story. After seeing Pfefferberg’s extensive files on Schindler, Keneally agreed to write the book. It took nearly a decade after the book’s publication for Pfefferberg to finally convince Spielberg to bring Schindler’s story to the big screen. Schindler’s List (1993; Universal Pictures, Amblin Entertainment) was released the same year the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum was dedicated in Washington, D.C. The following year, Spielberg founded the USC Shoah Foundation, an organization “dedicated to making audio-visual interviews with survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust and other genocides a compelling voice for education and action.” To date, the foundation has collected over 55,000 audio-visual testimonies conducted in 65 countries and 43 languages.

The first black-and-white movie to win Best Picture since 1960’s The Apartment, Schindler’s List went on to win 7 Oscars for its 12 nominations: Art Direction, Cinematography, Film Editing, Music (Original Score) for John Williams, Writing (Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published), Directing for Steven Spielberg, and Best Picture. It failed to win for Sound (which it lost to Spielberg’s other 1993 blockbuster Jurassic Park), Costume Design, Makeup, Actor in a Supporting Role for Ralph Fiennes as Amon Goeth, and Actor in a Leading Role for Liam Neeson as Oskar Schindler.

Not intended to please audiences as much as to display past reality to a present culture that needs to remember the staggering cost of empowered hatred, Schindler’s List remains one of the most moving motion pictures ever created. And it will never cease to be relevant. In an interview he gave last year in honor of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the film’s release, Spielberg told NBC News’ Lester Holt, “I think there’s even more at stake than there was back then [in 1993]…When collective hate organizes and gets industrialized, then genocide follows…We have to take it more seriously today than I think we have had to take it in a generation.” In other words, the message of Schindler’s List–that people must stand up to evil; resist injustice; and risk their own fortunes, comfort, and lives to save those who cannot save themselves–is something we should never tire of hearing and something we should never stop striving to live up to. It is no surprise, then, that Steven Spielberg considers Schindler’s List to be his greatest achievement: “I don’t think I’ll ever do anything as important,” he said. “So this, for me, is something that I will always be proudest of.”

For more thoughts on Schindler’s List and its significance, please check out this weekend’s post!

In Unforgiven, Sheriff Little Bill Daggett doesn’t allow guns in the town of Big Whiskey. This is ironic for a couple of reasons. First, the year is 1881, and Big Whiskey is part of the old Wild West, where guns are just a part of daily life. The era of the Old West is coming to a close; but for the moment it still exists; and where it exists, there are weapons. Second, the film is super quick to show its viewers that one doesn’t need a gun to commit an atrocious act of violence. When a couple of cowboys disfigure (with a knife) the face of a Big Whiskey prostitute, their heinous act sets in motion a series of violent encounters, namely between Little Bill and several gunfighters who come to town to enact a revenge killing on the cowboys and collect the $1,000 reward promised by the prostitutes to whomever can accomplish the task.

In short, while the heavily armed Little Bill and his men prohibit others from carrying guns, those others find themselves at the mercy of a corrupt system of law enforcement in which those who have the weapons make the rules, decide who is guilty/innocent, and assault anyone they please (once they’ve confirmed that their victims are weaponless and helpless, of course).

Into this mess ride Bill Munny, his old partner Ned Logan, and his new partner the Schofield Kid. Back in the day, Munny and Ned were heavy drinkers and prolific killers. But after both men married, their lives changed dramatically–especially Munny’s. Now a middle-aged widower with two young children, Munny tells everyone how his wife had helped him transform his life. He insists that he doesn’t drink anymore because each evil, violent act he committed in the past had been a result of his drunkenness (His “drink made me do it” defense is put on a bit thick, in my opinion). When the Kid shows up at Munny’s house because he’s heard and believed the stories about Munny’s expertise at killing people, Munny is hesitant to go along with the Kid’s plan to seek out and kill the Big Whiskey cowboys. But the reward money calls to him; and although he has no personal connection to the wronged woman, he recruits Ned and heads off to Big Whiskey, a choice that hints that Munny might not be as changed as he keeps claiming he is.

We viewers become especially convinced that something is truly lacking morally in Munny when (spoiler alert!) he takes the rifle from Ned, who can’t bring himself to shoot the cowboys, and deliberately aims and fires repeatedly at the more innocent cowboy. Munny hasn’t been drinking alcohol this time, and it isn’t his possessing a gun that makes him do it. Though he yells to the other cowboys to comfort their mortally wounded comrade in his last moments, his minor compassion comes too late. Munny still does the deed–seemingly just for the money–and he helps the Kid pursue and execute the second guilty cowboy as well.

At this point in the film, what we get from the Kid, an irascible, obnoxious, bloodthirsty character for most of the movie, is what we originally thought we would get from the “reformed” Munny. The Kid is dramatically affected by his first kill. He tries to express his regret to Munny: “It don’t seem real… how he ain’t gonna never breathe again, ever… how he’s dead. And the other one too. All on account of pulling a trigger.” Munny replies (and please excuse the profanity), “It’s a hell of a thing, killing a man. Take away all he’s got and all he’s ever gonna have.” Both men make note of the power inherent in holding a gun, but the Kid feels the great weight of responsibility for the life of his fellow man and is so sickened by what he’s done that he refuses his share of the reward money and leaves Munny to seek revenge on Little Bill, who has killed Ned.

It is in this last scene, Munny’s revenge quest, that his true nature is revealed. Little Bill and his cronies are celebrating what they see as their elimination of all the “rabble” in the town, so they are unprepared when Munny–drunk and armed with the Kid’s gun–walks into the saloon and promises vengeance on them all. Little Bill then asks Munny to identify himself as the man who had killed women and child in the past; and without hesitation, Munny does. No more does he blame his past on liquor or claim that his wife had changed him before her premature death. Instead, he seems to become his real self. As he blows away one man after the next, his aim is perfect, his demeanor is calm, and his mercy is non-existent. Leaving behind the carnage in the saloon and venturing out into the storm, he threatens all the townspeople, ” All right, I’m coming out. Any man I see out there, I’m gonna shoot him…I’m not only gonna kill him, but I’m gonna kill his wife, all his friends, and burn his…house down.” Now Munny has the gun and dictates everyone else’s behavior.

For Me Then…

Each time someone storms into a school, business, house of worship, etc. and employs guns to kill innocent people, it seems that the same few questions are bounced around in the news, on social media, and in our everyday conversations: Who has the right to own a gun? Or, who has the right to use a gun, and when should a gun be used? Better yet, why does/should one use a gun? Unforgiven asks these questions too, but its ending with Munny’s successful and bloody revenge quest, something that will cement both his legend and the eternal blackness of his soul, muddies the waters of the gun control debate: Sure, guns are dangerous, but how was Munny supposed to protect himself against the corrupt and armed Little Bill unless he had a weapon of equal or greater fire power?

Furthermore, the film actually draws parallels between Munny and Little Bill. In addition to the fact that they share the same first name, both characters emphasize (in very similar language) that it takes a certain something to look down the barrel of a gun at one’s fellow man/woman and pull the trigger. That “something” is definitely not a positive thing, as we see after the Kid’s killing of the cowboy. It doesn’t seem to matter if the one who is armed is also wearing a badge of authority or not. One man can be as corrupt as the next, and it is the inside of a man that determines if/how he uses a weapon–whether that weapon is a gun or a knife or his own fist. It also doesn’t seem to make a difference if one kills a scum bag or an innocent bystander. The act of eliminating another person–whoever that person is and whether or not his/her death is justifiable–is something that scars the soul forever.

With all its storytelling of gun-slinging legends (there is a lot of emphasis on myth and reputation in the film), Unforgiven does the opposite of glorify gun violence. Even though Munny “gets aways with” his revenge killings at the close of the film, we know what his final end will be because before he dies Little Bill tells Munny that he will see him in Hell–and Munny agrees that this will be so. Both men are killers, one “legally” and the other not so much. But both are unforgiven because they are unrepentant of their crimes. Taking a human life–in any way, says the film–is so atrocious an act that there is no real hope for those who dare to do so, for those who can pull the trigger.

In real life, on the contrary, there is hope for people to escape their evil pasts and corrupt presents. Jesus Christ offers new life to those who are truly repentant of the bad deeds they have done. Munny doesn’t find this freedom from his past, though for most of the film he believes he has. The problem is that he has put his faith in people–in his wife to reform him and in himself to be able to resist the temptation to drink and kill–in order to turn his life around. But his wife dies, and his humanity is weak. He can’t save himself, and in the end he owns–and revels in–the actuality of what the legends say about him: he is brutal, murderous, and self-condemned–regardless of his weapon of choice.

On May 19, 1992, 17-year-old Amy Fisher walked up to the Massapequa, New York, house that belonged to her married lover, 35-year-old Joey Buttafuoco. When Joey’s wife, Mary Jo, answered the door, Fisher treated her to a concocted story about her even younger (and non-existent) sister having an affair with Mary Jo’s husband–and then shot Mary Jo once in the head.

Not even a month prior to this “Long Island Lolita Incident,” four white Los Angeles police officers were acquitted of assault charges after having been videotaped viciously beating Rodney King, a black man pulled over for a traffic violation. The acquittal sparked intense rage and violence in cities across the U.S. and led to the L.A. Riots in which more than 3,000 fires were started, over 50 people were killed, about 4,000 were injured, and approximately 12,000 were arrested.

Both Mary Jo Buttafuoco and Rodney King survived their attackers, but their assaults were, sadly, just a couple of notable occurrences of violence in a year that saw a film that is also preoccupied with violence win the Academy’s highest award. Although New York and L.A. are certainly not part of the Wild West that features so prominently in Unforgiven (1992; Warner Bros. Production, Warner Bros.), the film’s focus on intoxication and its consequences, gun possession/violence, murder for hire/conspiracy, and police corruption/brutality echoes in the real-life events of both the year of the film’s release and our own present time. Unforgiven asks what it takes to kill another human being–and what that act costs the killer. It examines the role–or, maybe “plight” is a better word–of women in society. It looks at how people are haunted by their pasts and how we cannot escape our previous deeds. It explores what defines each of us as human beings.

Unforgiven beat out major BP contenders such as A Few Good Men and Scent of a Woman to take home Oscar’s big prize. All in all, it won four Academy Awards out of nine nominations: Film Editing, Actor in a Supporting Role for Gene Hackman as Little Bill Daggett, Directing for Clint Eastwood (who became one of only a handful of actors to win an Oscar for his work behind the camera, a feat he would repeat in 2004 with BP Million Dollar Baby), and Best Picture. It failed to win in the categories of Art Direction, Cinematography, Sound, Writing (Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen), and Actor in a Leading Role for Clint Eastwood as Bill Munny.

Unforgiven was only the third Western film to win Best Picture, after 1930/31’s Cimarron and 1990’s Dances with Wolves, and it opts for the approach of the latter more than that of the former–attempting to picture the West as it actually was, rather than creating an idealized form of the American frontier. The result is visually stunning, but morally disturbing at parts–two facts that undoubtedly contributed to both the complexity of the film as well as its Oscar success.

For more thoughts on Unforgiven and its significance, please check out this weekend’s post!

On this Father’s Day, let’s talk horror. By definition, horror movies are films that are “calculated to cause intense repugnance, fear, or dread”; they “may incorporate incidents of physical violence and psychological terror” and “may be studies of deformed, disturbed, psychotic, or evil characters; stories of terrifying monsters or malevolent animals; or mystery thrillers that use atmosphere to build suspense.”  While most critics would agree that The Silence of the Lambs fulfills enough of this definition to qualify as a horror film, its sole purpose is not to simply terrify or repulse its audience. In fact, like many of the other BP winners of the late twentieth century, The Silence of the Lambs is about freedom.

Throughout the film there are obvious situations in which various characters find themselves imprisoned and/or restrained. Dr. Hannibal (the cannibal) Lecter is confined to a subterranean cell at the beginning of the film, a straight jacket (with the now-famous mask) later on, and a giant bird cage of sorts when he effects his escape. Catherine Martin, the young woman Clarice Starling and the FBI desperately seek to save from “Buffalo Bill” the serial killer, first becomes Bill’s prisoner when he tricks her into his van, then is held captive in a dry well beneath his house.

In addition to these blatant examples of confinement, more characters experience other forms of bondage. Buffalo Bill himself, a.k.a. Jame Gumb, believes he is a woman trapped in a man’s body. Lecter is constrained to obey his desire for blood and death. Starling is imprisoned, so to speak, by the traumatic events of her childhood, specifically the murder of her father and her witnessing the slaughter of spring lambs by the farmer she has been sent to live with after her father’s death. She tells Lecter that she, now as an adult, can still hear the lambs screaming. And the moths that feature so symbolically in the film are themselves captives of their own cocoons before they reach adulthood.

The Silence of the Lambs uses these instances of imprisonment to set up images of freedom–and also to ask questions about how freedom can be attained and what it means to truly have freedom. In Buffalo Bill’s distorted thoughts, deliverance from his captivity in a male body will be possible after he kills enough women to make a “woman suit” out of their skins. One wonders, though, if it will be possible for Bill to ever kill “enough” women. He seems to hate them, even refusing to gender-ize them (he refers to Catherine as “it”)–perhaps because they are what he cannot be. (Spoiler alert!) Thanks to Starling and the FBI, Bill doesn’t get to experience what he sees as freedom. He dies in a way that is as violent as he lived.

For Hannibal Lecter, as well as for Catherine Martin, freedom is a physical state. The way Lecter revoltingly displays the body of one of the guards he kills (the guard is spreadeagled and draped with a cloth so as to look like he’s flying out of the cage) is just a mockery of freedom. Lecter escapes the cage, but the fact that he has to hide (or deny) his own identity by literally covering his face with that of another guard indicates that Lecter is not truly liberated. He may be physically free, but he is not free of what actually binds him–his evil desires to kill and eat his fellow human beings. For Catherine, the other physically liberated character in the film, her own ingenuity and determination to survive contribute to her freedom. She was a captive, but she fought her captor, and she wins in the end. The viewer can believe that somehow she will end up stronger for her horrifying ordeal and brush with death.

For Starling, though, the film version of The Silence of the Lambs is a little ambiguous as to her achieving her freedom. Her haunting by the screaming of the lambs being slaughtered is definitely a driving force in her quest to save other helpless victims (like Catherine, who ironically turns out not to be that helpless). But at the end of the film when she receives a congratulatory phone call from Lecter on the occasion of her graduation from the FBI Academy, the escaped killer asks her if the lambs have stopped screaming; and Starling doesn’t answer this question. The novel assures its readers that after Catherine’s liberation Starling sleeps “in the silence of the lambs,” but the movie leaves its viewers wondering if rescuing one woman will be enough to undo the damage of Starling’s childhood and give her the freedom she craves.

For Me Then…

As I mentioned when we were talking about Get Out last year, I’m not a huge horror film fan, but I do appreciate a film that makes me think. The Silence of the Lambs certainly challenges one’s mind, so it definitely didn’t sink to the bottom of my BP rankings list. That being said, I feel that the film blurs the line between good and evil (which I don’t like). Clearly, murder and cannibalism are wrong, but Hannibal Lecter has become such an iconic bad guy that the true horror of who he is supposed to be and what he does can be lost on viewers. For instance, the movie attempts to end on a humorous note when Lecter tells Starling (while calling her from some tropical country) that he is “having an old friend for dinner,” meaning, of course, that he is going to kill and eat someone (the creepy Dr. Frederick Chilton who tormented Lecter while he was a prisoner in Chilton’s “care”). In reality, this statement is (or should be) revolting. At least partly, I think we can blame Anthony Hopkins’s brilliant performance for why we somehow sympathize or gravitate toward Lecter. But for whatever reason, Lecter comes across as semi-likable, and that’s just sick.

Still, if we go back to the idea that the film focuses on freedom, Lecter’s final words to Starling are even more revealing of his character–and of the human condition. As the movie presents examples of imprisonment and freedom, it also asks the question of what one should do once one has attained the freedom one desires. In the characters of Catherine and Starling–empowered female characters–we see two people who choose to pursue right once their freedom has been secured. Catherine cuddles Buffalo Bill’s “orphaned” poodle as she is escorted from his house. Although earlier in the film the dog is somewhat pictured as an accessory to Bill’s holding Catherine against her will, in the end Catherine sees the dog as a victim as well, a victim that she, in her newfound strength, can nurse back to health and goodness. In Starling’s case, the cessation of the lambs’ screaming should allow her to embark on a career of saving people. We see her graduate and become an FBI agent; and despite the film’s not confirming that she has made peace with the events of her childhood, we viewers have hope that the rest of her life will be positive (just don’t read/watch the sequel…). But for Lecter, the physical freedom he gains simply allows him to recommence his crimes. He is still in a prison of his own making. Hence, true freedom, says the film, isn’t dependent on where one finds oneself physically. Freedom is, at least in part, of one’s own making. Plus, it is deeply tied to morality. One cannot be free and devour one’s fellow humans. To wallow in evil is to not be free at all. In this sense, Lecter is terrifying, for his absolute disregard for humanity leaves him in peril of being a prisoner to his sin forever. And that is a horrifying reality.

So here it is, the film that I’ve been dreading for, well, years. Yes, I’m back from my grand adventure (thanks for your patience!) and ready to jump back into our BPs. The Silence of the Lambs (1991; Strong Heart/Demme Production, Orion) beat out a couple of worthy contenders to grab Best Picture, namely Disney’s masterpiece Beauty and the Beast, the first completely animated, full-length film to nab a BP nod. The Silence of the Lambs is a landmark film as well, though. To date, it is the only horror film to have won the Academy’s highest honor–unless Alfred Hitchcock’s spooky Rebecca (1940) can be considered a horror movie. Just a handful of horror flicks have even been nominated for BP, so The Silence of the Lambs‘ win is a pretty big deal.

It also still stands as the most recent winner of the “Big Five” Academy Awards (Actor, Actress, Directing, Writing, and Best Picture), the only five Oscars The Silence of the Lambs won for its seven nominations (it lost in the Film Editing and Sound categories). Clocking in with a mere 16 minutes of screen time (some people claim it’s only 12 minutes!), Anthony Hopkins won Actor in a Leading Role for playing Dr. Hannibal Lecter in a performance that would end up defining his career. Jodie Foster won her second Oscar in three years when she took on the role of Clarice Starling, an FBI trainee who develops a freaky trust with Lecter while tracking another serial killer. Best Directing went to Jonathan Demme, and Writing (Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published) went to Ted Tally for his adaptation of Thomas Harris’s very successful 1988 novel of the same name.

Granted, The Silence of the Lambs, along with its precursor Red Dragon (novel, 1981), its sequel Hannibal (novel, 1999), and the series prequel Hannibal Rising (novel, 2006) are not for the faint of heart (or weak of stomach). They are gruesome, psychologically disturbing, and downright disgusting. Still, I must admit that the storyline is engrossing, and it was difficult to look away from the screen (except during the bloody parts when I hid under a blanket…). But I won’t be watching the rest of the series. I’ve had enough violence.

Speaking of violence…Thomas Harris, author of The Silence of the Lambs, did his research prior to beginning his famous works. In the late 1970s, he visited the FBI Behavioral Science Unit in Quantico, Virginia, where he sat in on classes and interviewed agents about serial killers and the FBI’s role in pursuing them. Harris and the FBI would have had a lot of “material” to work with at that time in U.S. history. Some of the most notorious serial killers had their heyday in the 1970s: the Manson family, the Zodiac Killer, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, David Berkowitz (Son of Sam), the Hillside Strangler, and Jim Jones of the Peoples Temple cult, to name a few.

1991, the year the film version of Harris’s novel was released, saw its own share of violence. The new year wasn’t even a full month old when serial killer Aileen Wuornos was arrested. Wuornos, whose childhood was its own horror story, had murdered several men in Florida (Ironically, Charlize Theron won a Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Wuornos in 2003’s Monster). Dr. Jack Kevorkian was also a frequent player in the news in the early ’90s. “Dr. Death,” a proponent of euthanasia, claimed to have assisted in the suicides of at least 130 patients–until the State of Michigan barred him from using his suicide machine in 1991. So perhaps what is most freaky about The Silence of the Lambs is that, with all the violence prevalent in our culture, the film’s premise is not really too far-fetched after all. Disturbing thought.

For more on The Silence of the Lambs and its significance, please check out this weekend’s post!