On this site will be posted analyses of popular media productions. These analyses will have to do with determining the underlying meanings of various movies, songs, and certain novels. Methods used to analyze a given production will include exploration of the creators' use of symbolism, allegory, metaphor, etc., and deciphering any arcane or obscure references that it may contain.
Barney picks up a dead pigeon or dove from a Washington, D.C. street.
Barney brings the bird into his home. Pigeons and doves constitute the bird family Columbidae within the order Columbiformes, which include some 300 species of near passerines. The Holy Spirit is sometimes represented in art by a dove. This dead bird is a 'metaphor' for Barney (who represents the Holy Spirit) having become corrupt; for recall that he sells illegally obtained items that belonged to Hannibal Lecter.
The upper right corner of a photograph in Starling's work area. The two sets of three digits each, ostensibly part of an FBI file or evidence item number, are actually biblical references: '189' is a reference to Genesis (the first book of the bible, thus the '1'), chapter 8, verse 9, which is associated with Barney's actions above, in that the dead bird Barney handles represents a dove: "But the dove could find nowhere to perch because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark."[New International Version] The '253' reference will be discussed later in the analysis.
Dante and Beatrice, by Henry Holiday. Dante (standing at far right) looks longingly at Beatrice (in white) passing by with friend Lady Vanna (red) along the Arno River in Florence. [Image from the Wikipedia 'Dante and Beatrice (painting)' page, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.]
Beatrice di Folco Portinari (1266–1290) was a Florentine woman and the principal inspiration for Dante Alighieri's La Vita Nuova. Beatrice also appears as Dante's guide in The Divine Comedy (La Divina Commedia) in the last book, Paradise, and in the last four canti (parts) of Purgatory. Being the incarnation of beatific love, as her name implies, it is Beatrice who leads into the beatific vision.
In Hannibal, part of the conversation that takes place between Hannibal Lecter and the Pazzis (after the showing of the opera Vide Cor Meum), has Allegra Pazzi saying to Lecter ('Dr. Fell'), with regard to the content of the opera, "Dr. Fell, do you believe that a man can become so obsessed with a woman from a single encounter?" Lecter responds, "Could he daily feel a stab of hunger for her and find nourishment in the very sight of her? I think so. But would she see through the bars of his plight and ache for him?" The fundamental romantic metaphor at work in the movie Hannibal is that Lecter represents Dante, and Clarice Starling represents his beloved, Beatrice (note the common '-rice'/'-ice' ending of the two names, Beatrice and Clarice). The fragment of conversation quoted above refers to the fact that Hannibal's obsession with Clarice began at the moment of their very first encounter, in The Silence of the Lambs (the prequel to Hannibal). Subsequent to this, Lecter encountered Starling an additional three times (in The Silence of the Lambs). (All four encounters took place while Lecter was imprisoned).
In Christian theology, the beatific vision is the eternal and direct visual perception of God enjoyed by those who are in heaven, imparting supreme happiness or blessedness. While humans' understanding of God while alive is indirect (mediation/prayer, not actually looking at Him), the beatific vision is direct (immediate, visual), or literally, seeing God. In other words, the beatific vision means a soul is actually looking at God, as is, viewing Him without any sort of censorship like that found in the biblical book of Isaiah. Furthermore, seeing God in the beatific vision does not take the viewer's life.[a]
Hannibal Lecter believes that if he gets close enough to Clarice, who represents Beatrice, then he will experience the beatific vision.
a. Wikipedia, 'Beatific vision'. Web, n.d. URL = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatific_vision.
The Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity teaches the unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three persons in one Godhead. The doctrine states that God is the Triune God, existing as three persons, but one being. Each person is understood as having the one identical essence or nature, not merely similar natures. Trinitarianism, belief in the Trinity, is a mark of Roman Catholicism, Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy as well as of the "mainstream traditions" arising from the Protestant Reformation, such as Anglicanism, Methodism, Lutheranism and Presbyterianism.[a] The three persons of the Trinity and their main characteristics are listed below.
The Father God the Father is the title and attribution given to God in many monotheist religions. In Christianity, God is called Father because he is the creator, law-giver, and protector, and because of the mystery of the Father-Son relationship revealed by Jesus Christ. In general, the name Father signifies that he is the origin of what is subject to him, a supreme and powerful authority and protector. Moreover, God the Father is viewed as immense, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, with infinite power and charity that goes beyond human understanding.[b]
The Son The doctrine of the Trinity identifies Jesus of Nazareth as God the Son. He is co-eternal with God the Father (and the Holy Spirit), both before Creation and after the End. So Jesus was always "God the Son", though not revealed as such until he also became the "Son of God" through Incarnation. "Son of God" draws attention to his humanity, whereas "God the Son" refers more generally to his divinity, including his pre-incarnate existence.[c]
The Holy Spirit The Holy Spirit is co-equal and co-eternal with God the Father and God the Son. He is different from the Father and the Son in that he proceeds from the Father (or from the Father and the Son) as described in the Nicene Creed. His sacredness is reflected in the New Testament gospels which proclaim blasphemy against the Holy Spirit as unforgivable. The Holy Spirit is believed to perform specific divine functions in the life of the Christian or the church. These include:
1) Conviction of sin. The Holy Spirit acts to convince the unredeemed person both of the sinfulness of their actions, and of their moral standing as sinners before God. 2) Bringing to conversion. The action of the Holy Spirit is seen as an essential part of the bringing of the person to the Christian faith. The new believer is "born again of the Spirit." 3) Enabling the Christian life. The Holy Spirit is believed to dwell in the individual believers and enable them to live a righteous and faithful life. 4) As a comforter or Paraclete, one who intercedes, or supports or acts as an advocate, particularly in times of trial. 5) Inspiration and interpretation of scripture. The Holy Spirit both inspires the writing of the scriptures and interprets them to the Christian and/or church.[d]
As we will soon see, the character Barney in Hannibal, represents a 'corrupted' Holy Spirit.
a. Wikipedia, 'Trinity'. Web, n.d. URL = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity.
b. Wikipedia, 'God the Father'. Web, n.d. URL = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_the_Father.
c. Wikipedia, 'God the Son'. Web, n.d. URL = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_the_Son.
d. Wikipedia, 'Holy Spirit in Christianity'. Web, n.d. URL = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Spirit_in_Christianity.
CATEGORY: MOVIES; WARNING: THIS ANALYSIS CONTAINS SPOILERS!!
[Image at left from the Wikipedia 'The Silence of the Lambs (film)' page; "The Silence of the Lambs poster",[a] licensed under fair use via Wikipedia.]
Welcome to the analysis of The Silence of the Lambs. Buttons at the bottom of each post enable navigation through the parts of the analysis. You may want to view the table of contents. Regarding the appearance of possible anti-Semitism on this blog, please see the 'Disclaimers' section near the bottom of this page.
The Silence of the Lambs was released in 1991, and is based on the book of the same name written by Thomas Harris. It was directed by Jonathan Demme (pronounced 'DEM-ee'), and the screenplay was written by Ted Tally. It stars Anthony Hopkins, Jodie Foster, Ted Levine, and Scott Glenn.
The film centers around the actions of four main characters: Hannibal Lecter, the insane murderer who partially eats his victims; Jame Gumb, aka Buffalo Bill, the serial killer who skins his female victims; FBI agent-in-training Clarice Starling; and FBI agent Jack Crawford, Starling's supervisor. Underneath the surface action, the movie contains heavy symbolism and metaphor, which this analysis will expose.
Top left: Hannibal Lecter. Top right: Serial killer Buffalo Bill (Jame Gumb). Above left: FBI trainee Clarice Starling. Above right: Starling's supervisor, Jack Crawford.
Note that Jame Gumb's first name is word play on Jaime/Jamie, both of which can be the name of either a man or a woman; and his last name, Gumb, reminds one of chewing gum, which is placed in the mouth; Gumb places a moth cocoon in Benjamin Raspail's mouth, and in the mouth of one of his female victims as well.
Gumb's 'androgynous'-sounding first name functions as a reference to his gender identity confusion - he thinks he will have become a woman if he wears a 'suit' composed of women's skins. Shown at left is Gumb wearing an almost-completed suit of skin.
Gumb's skinning of his female victims reminds one of the shearing of sheep (i.e., lambs).
Regarding the act of silencing, recall that in a scene early in the movie, Lecter 'silences' fellow prisoner Miggs by making him swallow his own tongue, which results in Miggs' death. Also, Clarice relates to Lecter a story about how, as a child, she had tried to save a special lamb from being slaughtered by workers on the ranch she was living on at the time, by telling it to be quiet while she was running away with it, so that anyone who came looking for her would not hear the lamb and therefore not be able to find her.
Jack Crawford represents a father figure for Starling, in that he appears to her to be such. He assigns her to consult Lecter, to get information that will, hopefully, help the FBI apprehend Buffalo Bill.
a. Poster for The Silence Of The Lambs: The poster art copyright is believed to belong to the distributor of the film, Orion Pictures, the publisher of the film or the graphic artist.
[If you are only interested in viewing the explanation of the film's hidden plot, continue on to part 8 of the analysis. Otherwise, use the buttons below to navigate the analysis.]
Let us analyze the names of the two species of moths that are used in the movie, Acherontia styx and Acherontia atropos (as we will see later in the hidden plot thread, Benjamin Raspail's head actually contained a specimen of A. styx).
The Acheron is a river located in the Epirus region of northwest Greece. In ancient Greek mythology, Acheron was known as the river of pain, and was one of the rivers of the Greek underworld. In the Homeric poems the Acheron was described as a river of Hades.[a] The river Styx was a river in Greek mythology which formed the boundary between Earth and Hades. It circles the underworld nine times. Based on the foregoing, it makes sense for Gumb to have put Acherontia styx in Benjamin Raspail's head, since Gumb is Satan's pupil, and Satan resides in the underworld.
Atropos ("inexorable" or "inevitable", literally "unturning") was the cutter of the thread of life. She chose the manner of each person's death; and when their time was come, she cut their life-thread with her shears.[b] Going by this symbolism, it makes sense for Gumb to have placed Acherontia atropos in the mouth of one of his victims (that of the West Virginia girl), since he is tailoring (working with thread) to create the skin suit.
a. Wikipedia, 'Acheron'. Web, n.d. URL = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acheron.
b. Wikipedia, 'Moirae'. Web, n.d. URL = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moirae.
[If you are only interested in viewing the explanation of the film's hidden plot, continue on to part 25 of the 'unified analysis' of the first three Hannibal Lecter movies.]
[UPDATE: The analysis of The Silence of the Lambs has been extended, in the 'unified analysis' of the first three Lecter movies.]
Previously, we have looked at Augustine's Confessions on biblical creation. From Book 12, chapter 3, with Augustine speaking to God (as always),
"[T]ruly this earth was invisible and unformed, and there was an inexpressibly profound abyss above which there was no light since it had no form. Thou didst command it written that "darkness was on the face of the deep." [Gen. 1:2] What else is darkness except the absence of light? For if there had been light, where would it have been except by being over all, showing itself rising aloft and giving light? Therefore, where there was no light as yet, why was it that darkness was present, unless it was that light was absent? Darkness, then, was heavy upon it, because the light from above was absent; just as there is silence where there is no sound. And what is it to have silence anywhere but simply not to have sound? Hast thou not, O Lord, taught this soul which confesses to thee? Hast thou not thus taught me, O Lord, that before thou didst form and separate this formless matter there was nothing: neither color, nor figure, nor body, nor spirit? Yet it was not absolutely nothing; it was a certain formlessness without any shape."
The well in Jame Gumb's basement (shown at left), in which his victims are kept prior to skinning, represents the abyss present at the beginning of creation, of the 'evil kingdom' that Lecter and Gumb are (or were) to 'create'; and the respective victims in the well are, to Gumb, "formlessness without any shape."
Recall that we are interested in Gumb's (evil Freemasons') allegorical act of (more precisely, bungling attempt at) creation. From Augustine's Confessions, Book 11, chapter 5:
"But how didst thou make the heaven and the earth, and what was the tool of such a mighty work as thine? For it was not like a human worker fashioning body from body, according to the fancy of his mind, able somehow or other to impose on it a form which the mind perceived in itself by its inner eye (yet how should even he be able to do this, if thou hadst not made that mind?). He imposes the form on something already existing and having some sort of being, such as clay, or stone or wood or gold or such like (and where would these things come from if thou hadst not furnished them?). For thou madest his body for the artisan, and thou madest the mind which directs the limbs; thou madest the matter from which he makes anything; thou didst create the capacity by which he understands his art and sees within his mind what he may do with the things before him; thou gavest him his bodily sense by which, as if he had an interpreter, he may communicate from mind to matter what he proposes to do and report back to his mind what has been done, that the mind may consult with the Truth which presideth over it as to whether what is done is well done."
In accordance with the above passage, Gumb, in his attempted act of creation, is unlike God: Gumb is fashioning body from body, and he is working with something already existing (the women's skins). Therefore, going by Augustine, Gumb is not creating.
Above left: Gumb's bungling attempt at creation is depicted in this scene in which he is sewing a piece of a woman's skin. Above right: Gumb believes that if he collects and stitches together patches of skin from various women's bodies, and then wears a skin 'suit' composed by this method, he will effectively have the body of a woman; thus, going by Augustine in the above, Gumb is "a human worker fashioning body from body."
Contrapasso is the process whereby souls serve penance in Dante's Inferno (Hell) according to the nature of their sins in life. A literal translation of the word 'contrapasso' would be "counter-suffering." It is the ironic theological law, ensuring that "the punishment fits the crime." The fate suffered by each of Gumb's victims is a kind of contrapasso: in life, each of them was a glutton: recall that Clarice confirms Lecter's guess that they are all 'big' girls, which if carried to the furthest extreme, would (theoretically) result in them 'bursting through' their skins; and it is, in fact, their fate that their skins are removed from them after they have been killed.
Like Gumb's other female victims, Catherine Martin is physically large, indicating that she is a glutton.
A copy of The National Inquisitor posted on a bulletin board in Jack Crawford's office says, "Bill Skins Fifth."
The FBI map showing Buffalo Bill's (i.e., Jame Gumb's) victims: The blue dots denote the locations from which the girls were abducted, and the red arrows show where their dead bodies were found.
Near the beginning of the movie, when Clarice Starling first walks into Jack Crawford's office, she sees some news clippings and photos on a bulletin board (as shown in the top screencap above). The headline on the posted copy of The National Inquisitor says "Bill Skins Fifth." Later, during Starling's first visit to the institution in which Lecter is kept, Lecter at one point asks her why the authorities call the killer 'Buffalo Bill' - he didn't know Bill skins the girls. This implies that Lecter has not yet seen the aforementioned news article, so at this point he doesn't know there has been a fifth victim, or that all the victims were skinned. The press, operating under directions from the authorities, must have held off on reporting (until this fifth victim was found) that Bill's victims had been skinned, to avoid panicking the public.
Still later, while Starling is flying with Jack Crawford to West Virginia to do an autopsy on a sixth body which has been found, we get a view of a map Crawford is holding (lower screencap above), which shows where each victim was abducted (shown by blue dots), and also where each of their bodies was found (denoted by red arrows). One thing Crawford tells Starling while showing her the map, is that the new victim (the aforementioned sixth victim) washed up today in the Elk River (in West Virginia), and that this victim is not marked on the map. Jack also states that Buffalo Bill keeps his victims alive for three days, then shoots them, skins them, and dumps them, each in a separate river. Crawford also tells Starling that Frederica Bimmel was the first girl murdered, but only the third girl found, because Bill weighted her body down.
Moving on to Starling's third visit to Lecter, we find that Hannibal now has knowledge of the West Virginia victim, a fact which is evident when he begins to ask Starling questions about this victim during this meeting, without being prompted by Starling. At this point, Lecter realizes that Catherine Martin is the intended seventh victim. Lecter asks if the West Virginia girl was a large girl, and Starling responds "yes", that all the girls were large. Starling tells Lecter that an object had been found inserted in the sixth victim's throat. When Lecter asks if the inserted object was a butterfly, Starling responds, "Yes, a moth." She tells Lecter that the insertion of the object has not been made public yet, and that it is just like the moth found in Benjamin Raspail's head "an hour ago." Lecter says that "the significance of the moth is change - caterpillar into chrysalis, or pupa, and thence into beauty." (Since it is butterflies, not moths, whose pupae are called chrysalis's, Lecter is here correcting himself when he says, "or pupa"). In this meeting, Starling sells Lecter the (phony) offer from Senator Martin.
What's actually the case is that Lecter was expecting Bill to use butterflies; when Lecter finds out moths are being used instead, he knows something is not going as he had expected it to go. Then sometime after Starling's third visit, when he studies the map and the rest of the Buffalo Bill case file given to him by Starling, and finds out that Frederica Bimmel's body had been weighted down, he realizes that Gumb is trying to trick him on the true number of victims: Gumb weighted Bimmel down thinking she'd never be found, so Lecter wasn't supposed to find out about her. (If Lecter hadn't found out about Bimmel, he would have thought Catherine Martin was to be only the sixth victim).
Gumb must have met Frederica while he was living in Calumet City, Illinois, which is just outside of Chicago - recall that Frederica's father tells Starling that she had gone to Chicago for a job interview two years earlier. Once Gumb got to know Bimmel and discovered that she was a a tailor, he realized that he could take advantage of this situation by having her teach him this trade, and then murdering her and setting himself up in Mrs. Lippman's house in Belvedere, Ohio (recall that Bimmel did occasional work for Mrs. Lippman). After Gumb killed Bimmel, he skinned her, and then began assembling his 'suit' earlier than had originally been planned.
Recall that while Gumb has Catherine in his basement well, his suit needs two more patches of skin for its completion. Gumb plans for Martin to provide the seventh patch of skin for the suit (the creation of which, as we've said, represents the creation by certain parties of an 'evil kingdom'/modern-day 'utopia'); and, Gumb also wants to eliminate the possibility of Lecter's resurrection becoming an eighth day of creation, by killing and skinning an eighth girl, i.e., Gumb wants to 'pre-empt' Lecter's planned resurrection. Lecter's intention is that when Starling shows up at Gumb's doorstep, Gumb is to think that he can use Starling's thigh as the eighth and final piece for the suit. It's true that Starling is too small to provide this piece, but Lecter 'sends' her to Gumb with this in mind: Gumb is botching his attempt at creation, and is a sloppy thinker, so he would consider killing Clarice for her thigh. (Lecter knows Gumb is sloppy, because of his ineffective weighting down of Bimmel's body).
In the dorm room scene, Clarice and Ardelia are shown looking at the case file map (the same map that Crawford showed Starling on the flight to West Virginia), and it shows Lecter's writing and a large black mark made by him in West Virginia (click on image to enlarge). Ostensibly, this mark was made to denote the discovery of Gumb's sixth victim, but keeping in mind that Starling herself is from West Virginia, it was also a subtle suggestion to her, to help guide her to Gumb. Once Lecter figured out Gumb was trying to trick him, he timed the sending of Starling to Gumb, and his immediately subsequent escape and attempt at resurrection, so that he would be resurrected prior to Gumb having enough opportunity to complete the formation of the suit and pre-empt his resurrection. Since Gumb represents evil Freemasons, the fact that he is trying to cheat Lecter symbolizes that these Freemasons are attempting to cheat the evil hermaphroditic Jews (as represented by Lecter), out of their position as the leaders of the aforementioned modern-day utopia that these two (and other) evil parties are seeking to establish (this utopia being planned to be located in the United States, in southern Indiana).
[If you are only interested in viewing the explanation of the film's hidden plot, continue on to part 75 of the analysis. Otherwise, use the buttons below to navigate the analysis.]
Above left: A group of FBI trainees (shown) watches Senator Martin (Catherine Martin's mother) on television. Ardelia Mapp is standing on Clarice's left. Above right: We see Clarice's face and hear what are ostensibly her thoughts, while her lips are not moving.
In the scene in which some FBI trainees are clustered together watching Senator Martin on TV, we are at one point shown a close-up of Starling's face, and while the camera is focused on her we hear a female voice say, "Boy, that's smart; Jesus, that's really smart." (This voiceover statement is a comment on Senator Martin's television appearance, in which the Senator speaks about her daughter Catherine's childhood to evoke sympathy for Catherine within Jame Gumb, who is holding her captive in his basement.) Then just after this voiceover, we see Clarice's lips moving as she begins speaking aloud. Since Starling's lips do not move while we hear the voiceover, we are supposed to realize that the words it contains could be Clarice's own thoughts, or they could be words Ardelia is speaking; what's being suggested is that Ardelia is inside Starling's head - this is what is being represented in this part of this scene. In her capacity as 'working for' evil forces (Jame Gumb, representing evil Freemasons), part of Ardelia's function is to act as a psychopomp for Starling, that is, as a mediator between her unconscious and her conscious mind. In performing this function, she influences Starling's thinking.
We can see the above-mentioned influence at work in the dormitory scene where, in commenting on the map of Gumb's victims that Clarice shows her, Ardelia makes some statements that are actually subtle suggestions to Clarice's unconscious, to effectively guide her toward reaching a certain conclusion: that Gumb personally knew Frederica Bimmel prior to killing her. This is, in turned, designed to guide Clarice to Bimmel's home, and ultimately, to the house that Jame Gumb himself is occupying.
[If you are only interested in viewing the explanation of the film's hidden plot, continue on to part 71 of this analysis. Otherwise, use the buttons below to navigate the analysis.]
Disclaimers 1) In certain instances it has been determined that the creators of some of the productions analyzed on this blog, and/or the creators of source material(s) used in the making of these productions, may be making negative statements about certain segments of society in their productions. These statements should be taken as expressing the opinions of no one other than the creators.
2) This blog is not associated with any of the studios, creators, authors, publishers, directors, actors, musicians, writers, editors, crew, staff, agents, or any other persons or entities involved at any stage in the making of any of the media productions or source materials that are analyzed, mentioned, or referenced herein.
3) In keeping with the policies of the filmmakers, authors, studios, writers, publishers, and musicians, that have created the productions (and their source materials) that are analyzed, mentioned, or referenced on this blog, any similarity of the characters in these films or source materials to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Saint Augustine's Confessions andCity of God from Wikisource (except where otherwise noted); portions from Wikisource used on this blog are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.
Saint Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica from the 'Logos Virtual Library' website (except where otherwise noted), compiled and edited by Darren L. Slider; believed to be in public domain.
The upper right corner of a photograph in Starling's work area. The two sets of three digits each, ostensibly part of an FBI file or evidence item number, are actually biblical references: '189' is a reference to Genesis (the first book of the bible, thus the '1'), chapter 8, verse 9, which is associated with Barney's actions above, in that the dead bird Barney handles represents a dove: "But the dove could find nowhere to perch because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark."[New International Version] The '253' reference will be discussed later in the analysis.
