Great Scene: “The Silence of the Lambs”
Two flashbacks to Clarice as a young girl are critical to the narrative. Plus, the script for a third flashback which was never shot.
The 1991 movie The Silence of the Lambs won all 5 major Academy Awards: Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Picture. For good reason. It’s a tremendous movie.
IMDb plot summary: A young F.B.I. cadet must confide in an incarcerated and manipulative killer to receive his help on catching another serial killer who skins his victims.
There are two flashbacks which provide a deep insight into Clarice’s psyche. The first one is right after she has had her initial meeting with Lecter and had a disturbing experience with the prisoner in the next cell Miggs. As Clarice leaves the prison and heads toward her car, she revisits a moment in her past: Her father, dressed in his sheriff’s outfit, coming home from work, Clarice, then 11 years old, surprising him, then as he swoops her up into his arms, she asks, “Did you catch any bad guys today, Daddy?”
The second flashback occurs at a funeral parlor where the body of one of Buffalo Bill’s victims has been laid out for an autopsy. Here is the scene in the screenplay written by Ted Tally:
EXT. SIDEWALK OF THE FUNERAL HOME - POTTER, WEST VA.
- DAY SOUND of organ music, as Clarice, carrying her
fingerprint kit, mounts some steps to the sidewalk.
She stops, seeing - COUNTRY PEOPLE in their somber best, filing into the mortuary for a
service. The music - "Shall We Gather At The River?"
- is issuing from the open double doors. Several of
the mourners glance over at her curiously. ANGLE ON CLARICE staring back at the mourners, hearing the music, as a
sense memory is triggered in her... IN FLASHBACK - LOW ANGLE, MOVING as we approach, down the aisle of a country chapel,
an open wooden coffin. Sad country faces turn,
looking at us from the flanking pews. The b.g. organ
hymn is "Shall We Gather...?" THE SAD, 10 YEAR-OLD CLARICE in her best dress, is reluctantly approaching the
casket. Her hands are held by the plump hands of
unseen matrons. CHILD'S POV on the looming coffin... closer and closer... until
finally she can see, lying inside it... her dead
father, arms folded, his marshal's badge still pinned
to his lapel. CRAWFORD (V.O.)
Starling...? NEW ANGLE (PRESENT DAY) as the grownup Clarice turns towards the impatient
Crawford. Like her, he carries a large case. CRAWFORD
We're around back.
Here is the movie version of the scene:
This flashback reveals that her father died when Clarice was a young girl, but also demonstrates how Clarice’s issues about her father’s death lie close to the surface of her consciousness. It drives home a key point: She has never recovered from the loss of her father. His death dictated her choice of vocations (he was in law enforcement, she followed in his footsteps). His death has haunted her as she has subconsciously equated his ‘slaughter’ with the slaughter of the lambs in Montana she witnessed (with horror) as a child. His death made her a victim and fuels her identification with Buffalo Bill’s kidnap victim Catherine Martin. All of that melds together in this evocative flashback scene.
Interesting to note, the script called for a third flashback, but was scrapped. Here screenwriter Tally explains why:
I could see that if we were going to have flashbacks, they should culminate, there should be some climactic thing, and we should see the child Clarice encountering the slaughter of the lambs and trying to save one of them. Jonathan was willing to shoot them, it was going to be the last thing we shot as we had to wait for the lambing season in spring, and it was going to cost a million dollars to set up the whole thing. Then Jonathan shot the scene where Clarice tells Lecter about the killing of the lambs. He sent the dailies to me and said to watch them and give him a call. So I watched these performances, and they were extraordinarily powerful, and Jonathan, said, “How can I cut away from these performances to a flashback? It’s all there: she’s [Jodi as Clarice] telling us the entire story in her face, in her words, we don’t need to see it as well.” He said it’s just primary rule of filmmaking that if you can show it instead of telling it, you show it, but don’t show it and tell it. He was right, but it was scary to me.”
Here is that scene. Foster’s performance is so incredible, it’s easy to see why they chose NOT to film that third flashback:
Compare to the third flashback from Tally’s script:
IN FLASHBACK The 10-year old Clarice sits up abruptly in her bed,
frightened. She is in a Montana ranch house; it
almost dawn. Strange, fearful shadows on her ceiling
and walls... a window, partly fogged by the cold;
eerie brightness outside. CLARICE (V.O.)
I heard a strange sound... DR. LECTER (V.O.)
What was it? THE CHILD RISES crosses to the window in her nightgown, rubs the
glass. CLARICE (V.O.)
I didn't know. I went to look... HIGH ANGLES (2ND STORY) - THE CHILD'S POV Shadowy men, ranch hands, are moving in and out of a
nearby barn, carrying mysterious bundles. The mens'
breath is steaming... A refrigerated truck idles
nearby, its engine adding more steam. A strange,
almost surrealistic scene... CLARICE (V.O.)
Screaming! Some kind of - screaming.
Like a child's voice... THE LITTLE GIRL is terrified; she covers her ears. DR. LECTER (V.O.)
What did you do? CLARICE (V.O.)
Got dressed without turning on the
light. I went downstairs... outside... THE LITTLE GIRL in her winter coat, slips noiselessly towards the
open barn door. She ducks into the shadows to avoid a
ranch hand, who passes her with a squirming bundle of
some kind. He goes into the barn, and she edges after
him reluctantly. CLARICE (V.O.)
I crept up to the barn... I was so
scared to look inside - but I had
to... THE LITTLE GIRL'S POV as the open doorway LOOMS CLOSER... Bright lights
inside, straw bales, the edges of stalls, then moving
figures... DR. LECTER (V.O.)
And what did you see, Clarice? A SQUIRMING LAMB is held down on a table by two ranch hands. CLARICE (V.O.)
Lambs. The lambs were screaming... A third cowboy stretches out the lamb's neck, raises
a bloody knife. Just as he's about to slice its
throat - BACK TO THE ADULT CLARICE staring into the distance, shaken, still trembling
from the child's shock. We see Dr. Lecter, over her
shoulder, studying her intently. DR. LECTER
They were slaughtering the spring
lambs? CLARICE
Yes...! They were screaming.
I think the filmmakers’ choice was the right one: Stay on Clarice. A rare case where ‘say it’ trumps ‘show it’… because Jodi Foster’s acting job was so superb, she ‘showed’ everything you need to see on her face.
To read more on Ted Tally and his experiences adapting the Thomas Harris novel “The Silence of the Lambs,” go here.
For more articles in the Great Scene series, go here.
