Sunday, September 19, 2010

Hannibal analysis - part 9: Lecter's scented letter to Starling

CATEGORY: MOVIES










Starling carefully opens the letter she has just received from Hannibal Lecter.









The Las Vegas postmark, no doubt placed on the envelope by a re-mailing service, is meant to appeal to Starling's 'trashy' side - it is designed to suggest that Lecter wants to have a 'quickie wedding' with her.







Later, while Starling is listening to a recorded tape of her interview of Lecter in Memphis, Tennessee,[a] she experiences a sudden urge to smell the letter. This use of her sensation function shows that she is becoming more like Lecter in terms of psychological functions - Lecter's goal is to 'modify' her as required and then unite with her.


A perfume expert 'determines' that the source of the scent is an ambergris base with "Tennessee lavender." Lecter used the ambergris for its aphrodisiacal properties. The lavender plant is native to dry climates and thus, would not normally grow in the damp American Southeast, where Tennesse is located. The point is that "Tennessee lavender" is a fictional name: the perfume experts are here helping Lecter to deceive Starling. Lecter has designed things so that the experts will give her a short list of perfume shops that includes the one where he bought the perfume, so that she can then trace him. From the beginning, Hannibal has set things up so that she is guided to him.


a. Starling's interview of Lecter in Memphis, is shown in The Silence of the Lambs, the Lecter movie that was released prior to Hannibal, in 1991.


   

Posted at 5:48 PM
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