#silence of the lambs

5 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

coarse bridge
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I just finished watching silence of the lambs. But I was wondering why it was so highly appraised. What makes this movie so special and highly valued?

fallow phoenix
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ok, #1, its a pseudo-horror movie that pierced into the mainstream. the mainstream ignores 99% of horror movies so when one pushes thru, it feels all new to them
#2, anthony hopkins was super good as Lecter and probably did deserve his oscar nom at least. without looking what other movies were from that year, i dont think the movie deserved to win 5 oscars. the oscars dont have perfect picks, but they do put the movies on millions of people's radar. if silence of the lambs seems wayyy talked about, its because it entered the mainstream and millions of people saw it (i personally remember my parents letting me watch it when i was like 7. thats how big it was). hopkins notably won best leading actor and he was hardly in the movie. thats how well he did hannibal lecter. (some people put his amount of screentime at 12 minutes, others say 16, some say 24 minutes. i dunno, but he is only in like 4 scenes the entire movie, and won an oscar for those 12+ minutes)
#3, the movie is good. its good up-front, but theres also a lot of subtext. the movie is very feminist. you can find youtube essays that explain it better than i could, but the movie is actually all about Clarice Starling navigating a man-dominated profession as woman. theres a lot of subtext. i recommend watching a video about it.
#4 people LOVE truecrime. people eat up every truecrime show on netflix. this movie is basically one of the very best crime thrillers still to this day; it definitely was 30 years ago. its a big movie.
overall? worth winning best picture, best actress, best actor, best director, and best writing? probably not. overhyped? yeah, but only because it hit the mainstream so everybody saw it (you could say 'Hello Clarice' to anyone over 30 and they'd know the reference). great movie? yeah, it is that good. its tense, satisfying, iconic, and also with all the subtext, it has something real to say.

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contrast it with The Sixth Sense. the next time a pseudo-horror movie hit the mainstream, 8 years later. a good movie but nowhere near as great as Silence of the Lambs. nominated for 6 oscars, but didnt win any. a satisfying movie at first (in 1999, dont know about now. my parents also showed this to me when i was child. scared the shit out of me.), but with no real meat on the bones to make it worth thinking about much afterwards.
i dont know the entire history of horror at the oscars, but The Exorcist is another huge one (imo, the biggest maybe best actual horror movie of all time). nominated for 10 oscars, won for writing and sound. its a big deal when anything horror pushes into the mainstream (tho maybe it will become normal soon).

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btw, hannibal lecter never blinks when he's on screen