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.