The silence of the lambs.

The silence of the lambs.

My analysis is of the scene where agent Starling meets Hannibal Lector for the first time. The first impression we get is that agent Starling is scared and/or uncomfortable, you can tell this not only from the dialogue and acting but from the low key lighting and the small, compact area that the scene is set in. the camera mainly focuses only on the actors and blurs out the background this to me makes everything else in the shot seem insignificant  and makes the characters conversation more personal making the background blurred when to begin with is so small creates an illusion that the area is even smaller this could make the characters seem trapped which is a good technique to use because the setting is based within a maximum security prison.

There are a lot of close ups in this scene making the actors emotions more known, I think that this technique also bought the characters closer because the camera mirrors each actor, if one actor has a close up the o her character has a close up, you also get a better understanding of the characters because you can see more emotions and how the characters react to things as the scene progresses.

I think that the most intense part of the scene is when Hannibal Lector gives his analogy/ perception of agent Starling, I think that this is because what he is saying is very personal and the way he says it is very quick paced, another thing that makes it more intense is that as the scene progresses the camera zooms in more on Hannibal, this makes the scene even more suspenseful because the mane focal point Is Hannibal, there isn’t anything else to focus on making Hannibal appear creepier. The non-diegetic music also adds to the suspense, the repetition of the low notes make the scene just a little bit creepier.

Another thing that is quite scary is that the actor that plays Hannibal Lector doesn’t blink very often, because his blinks are so rare it become obvious that he isn’t blinking often and people can up on it, I think that the actor has done this because it’s very unnatural which makes watching the actor upsetting or strange, the fact that he doesn’t blink often may have more than one meaning, for example Hannibal Lector hasn’t seen a woman in eight years this may be why he isn’t blinking he could find he attractive or maybe he hasn’t blinked that much because as a psychologist he may want to analyse every emotion that Starling shows as he speaks to her, he especially doesn’t blink when he talks about personal things so this may well be the reason, I think that this really adds to the whole feel of the scene and again makes the scene even scarier to watch.

I think that the scene worked really well. The mis-on-scene, camera movement and sound worked really well together and all together made the scene scary and suspenseful and made me as the audience feel very edgy, the acting was also well done and to me I think bought everything together and made the scene flow.

By Molly Ryan.