Tools of Characterization

Characterization in The Silence of the Lambs

Direct Characterization

At the beginning of The Silence of the Lambs we learn everything through blatant exposition. Starling reads newspaper articles about Buffalo Bill and Hannibal Lecter. She says the phrase, "Hannibal the Cannibal," which lets us know that Hannibal is, in fact, a cannibal. Dr. Chilton speaks of the nurse whose tongue was eaten by Lecter, and Lecter talks of the census taker and eating the man's liver "with some fava beans and a nice Chianti." Lecter also interviews Starling about her past in a game of quid pro quo. We learn almost everyone about our characters by what they choose to reveal.

Clothing

Clarice Starling is an FBI trainee. We know that because in the first scene she wears a sweatshirt that says "FBI Academy." When she gets called on her first real job, interviewing Hannibal Lecter, she dresses up a bit, does her hair, puts on a nice suit, carries a handbag.

Lecter sees through it instantly. "You know what you look like to me, with your good bag and your cheap shoes? You look like a rube." He wants to intimidate her, and he does it by giving her a figurative dressing-down over the way she's dressed up.

Starling's nemesis, Buffalo Bill, is also a man defined by his clothing. Except in his case, he's not carrying a leather handbag or wearing alligator-skin boots; he's wearing a human-skin suit. Bill wants to dress up and change his identity. His clothes just happen to be made from the skin of others. Ew.

Finally, Hannibal Lecter doesn't escape our version of serial-killer fashion police. His clothing options are limited, being in maximum security and all. But we must mention that Anthony Hopkins allegedly came up with the idea to have Lecter dress all in white. (We hope they filmed this movie before Labor Day.) According to Hopkins the white clothes remind people of doctors and dentists, already subjects of fear. (The only problem is how hard it is to get the blood of your victims out of a white suit.)

Lecter gets to show his true fashion sense after he escapes. In the last scene we see him in a natty summer suit and fedora, blending in perfectly with the fashionable tropical crowd as he follows Dr. Chilton. He's very much at ease in this get-up; you can tell he's someone who's worn fancy clothes before. We can't imagine Buffalo Bill in Armani.

Location

Hannibal Lecter is being punished. His creepy basement cell doesn't have a window. Like E. M. Forster, Lecter wants a room with a view. Clarice's biggest bargaining tool is a (fake) offer to transfer him to a cell with a window, and that's one of the main reasons he agrees to help her.

Until he gets his window, Lecter decorates his cell with drawings, showing us both his talented artistry and that he's a worldly man, having lived in Europe as well as Baltimore. (No one except John Waters would hang up a drawing of Baltimore.)

When trying to find Bill, Clarice offers up this assessment of what his location looks like: "He's got his own house somewhere, not an apartment. […] What he does with them takes privacy." She's right. Bill has killed a woman, taken over her house, and turned it into a dungeon with a creepy hole in the basement. Basically, never go into a basement. In Silence of the Lambs, the basement is just that much closer to hell itself.

Physical Appearances

What makes Hannibal Lecter so scary isn't the facemask or the comb-over. It's the fact that he is also so insanely poised and calm, even when he's beating a guard to death with the guard's own nightstick. It's like his blood pressure never raises a beat, and it doesn't, if we're to believe Dr. Chilton who says, "His pulse never got above 85, even when he ate her tongue," after Hannibal attacks a nurse.

Lecter's calm even during a storm stands in direct contrast to Buffalo Bill, who skitters and jitters around as if he's uncomfortable in his own skin, pardon the pun. Bill's uncertainty of his own identity shows in his erratic movements.