The Silence of the Lambs (1991): adapted by Ted Tally from the novel by Thomas Harris; directed by Jonathan Demme; starring Jodie Foster (Clarice Starling), Anthony Hopkins (Dr. Hannibal Lecter), Anthony Heald (Dr. Chilton), Scott Glenn (Jack Crawford), Brooke Smith (Catherine Martin), and Ted Levine (Jame Gumb): More than 25 years later, The Silence of the Lambs still sings with the force and presence of Jodie Foster as FBI trainee Clarice Foster. And the plot sings too -- or at least hums from beginning to end with urgency and horror and sympathy and dread.
Overall, I think Michael Mann's adaptation of Thomas Harris' first novel featuring Hannibal Lecter, Manhunter (adapting the novel Red Dragon) is the superior work. Why? Mann is a better visual director than Jonathan Demme, and he makes more interesting choices in terms of set design and terrifying set-pieces with unusual musical accompaniment. Demme goes for the obvious by making both Lecter's part of the mental asylum and the basement of serial killer Jame Gumb into dripping medieval prisons. And his Jame Gumb never comes into focus as a sinister character -- he remains a scary freak right to the end, unlike Tom Noonan's partially humanized monster in Manhunter.
Still, Jodie Foster deserved her Best Actress Oscar. It's harder to judge Anthony Hopkins' Lecter now, overlaid as he is by another 25 years of improbable, omniscient, omnipotent serial killers.
The movie is relentlessly feminist in a strangely satisfying way for a thriller: even the best of men ignore women when they're not either hitting on them or using them as bait. Or murdering and skinning them. These 'bad man' moments are almost all peculiar to the movie, as screenwriter Ted Tally either omits or rewrites certain male characters to highlight Clarice Starling's embattled solitude in a Man's World. Jesus, though, Jame Gumb has the world's most anomalously large basement. Highly recommended.
The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane: adapted by Laird Koenig from his own novel; directed by Nicholas Gessner; starring Jodie Foster (Rynn), Martin Sheen (Frank Hallet), Alexis Smith (Mrs. Hallet), Mort Shuman (Miglioriti) and Scott Jacoby (Mario) (1976): Oddball 1970's movie that's part horror movie, part distaff Catcher in the Rye.
Jodie Foster, fresh off Taxi Driver, plays main character Rynn, a 13-year-old girl who rents a secluded house in a small town with her reclusive poet father. She's befriended by town cop Miglioriti and his amateur magician nephew Mario, and befiended by the owner of her house and the owner's pedophiliac son, played by a young and intensely creepy Martin Sheen.
Apparently, Foster hated making this movie and has implied that she mailed in her performance. It doesn't show -- Rynn has been written as an emotionally distant character, and Foster's enunciation, facila expressions, and body language convey this quite smartly. As noted, Sheen is creepy, and the other actors are also effective in their roles. Mostly low-key but weirdly affecting and even haunting. Recommended.
