Since I watched The Silence of the Lambs with Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins for my first top 100 movie review and loved it, I decided to watch a behind the scenes/the making of for this assignment. Just a slight background, it is a psychological thriller/horror film. In this film, Clarice Starling (Foster) is sent to a hospital for the criminally insane to toy with the diseased brain of Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Hopkins), a brilliant psychiatrist who becomes a cannibalistic serial killer. His knowledge could help track down Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine), another serial killer who kills and skins his heavier female victims. I’ve already seen this film quite a few times, and each time I watch it I notice something I didn’t notice the previous time. That made watching the behind the scenes really interesting.
I learned quite a bit about the production in watching the making of this film. First of all, both Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins were not the first choices for their roles. Michelle Pfeiffer was the sole target for Clarice Starling with Jodie Foster being the second choice. After Pfeiffer turned down the role, Foster was picked. But Halle Berry, Meg Ryan, and Nicole Kidman were also in pursuit of the role. For Dr. Hannibal Lecter, Sean Connelly was the first choice before Hopkins, and he turned down the role as well. Morgan Freeman was also considered for this role. In making this film, with it being quite realistic, there were many things the production team had to consider. One of the most prominent examples is the cage. A little over halfway through the film, Hannibal Lecter is taken from the Baltimore Hospital for the Criminally Insane to the Shelby County Courthouse in Memphis, Tennessee. He is placed in this massive cage in a very large room under police supervision. The bars on the cage are very far apart, as one will notice. The production team had to make the cage unrealistic in order for the interaction between Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling can be seen better. In reality, the bars on the cage would’ve been way closer together, as he is a psychopath.
From what I understood from the behind the scenes, the biggest hardship that the cast had to endure was breaking character. Hannibal Lecter is a serial killer, but he also is a psychiatrist. He knows how to get into one’s head and toy with it, especially with Clarice. He had to be really hard and intense. Clarice had a very heavy West Virginian accent, an accent which Foster does not have in real life. Ted Levine had to dress up like a woman and dance around in front of a camera naked with his penis tucked in between his legs, and he had to be all around nutty. Breaking character was exceptionally easy, but somehow, they managed to overcome it with intense focus.
In terms of script to screen, the words being said were obviously different from the script. And what I mean by that is the fact that the script is just words on paper. It’s really up to the actor to take the words and bring it to life with their character. For example, the liver, fava beans, and chianti line. Those words would look really look icky and weird on paper. But Anthony Hopkins took the line, and stared straight into the camera and said it slow and creepy. And then he added the improvised hiss. See? The actor takes their lines and makes it their own. That’s what the actor’s job is. The actor also, obviously, has to memorize their lines before they’re actually filmed. They can’t be walking around holding their script.
If I were to work on a film set, I’d 100% want to be an actor. I’d want to have the experience of learning your role, and becoming that person. I think it’s a good experience for a person. It’s not easy, and I always want a challenge. As a matter of fact, I’ve always wanted to be in a horror film. I think they’re the most interesting to watch, and I wonder if it’s as interesting to be a part of.