An ambitious FBI agent enlists the aid of a criminally insane ex-psychiatrist to help track down a vicious serial killer. Clarice Starling, a young FBI agent, is assigned to help find a missing woman, and save her from a psychopathic killer with the help of another killer.
Hannibal Lecter: First principles, Clarice. Read Marcus Aurelius. Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature? What does he do, this man you seek?
Clarice Starling: He kills women...
Hannibal Lecter: No! That is incidental. What is the first and principal thing he does, what need does he serve by killing?
Clarice Starling: Anger, social resentment, sexual frustration...
Hannibal Lecter: No, he covets. That's his nature. And how do we begin to covet, Clarice? Do we seek out things to covet? Make an effort to answer.
Clarice Starling: No. We just...
Hannibal Lecter: No. Precisely. We begin by coveting what we see every day. Don't you feel eyes moving over your body, Clarice? And don't your eyes move over the things you want?
There have been a lot of mystery movies over the years, but none so grim and calculated as "The Silence Of The Lambs." This is one of the most suspenseful films I've ever seen, as we are placed into the investigators' shoes and try to put the pieces together. The film also adds a strange, but powerful element of taking us inside the mind of one psychopath to study another. The fact such difficult storytelling devices are used as well as they are here is a sign of genius.
