© 2008 William Ahearn
No book or film has done as much to popularize the notion of a serial killer “profiler” than Thomas Harris’ book The Silence of the Lambs and Jonathan Demme’s 1991 movie based on it. In the last 15 or so years, the profiler has gone from FBI administrative investigator to a new form of crime solver who packs a gun, a pocket-sized edition of the DSM-IV and sometimes quotes Dante, Spinoza or Emily Dickerson.
In the real world, it doesn’t usually go that way. For example, Gary Leon Ridgeway, the Green River serial killer had a killing span of over twenty years. He was captured due to conventional police work and DNA – that hadn’t been available when the killing started. Dennis Rader, the Bind, Torture, Kill (BTK) serial killer had a psychological profile (go here), yet Rader himself created the circumstances of his capture by taunting the police. The Zodiac killer also taunted the police and had been profiled and yet has never been caught.
(Information on the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit is here. For a look at what profilers actually do, go here.)
Even in “The Silence of the Lambs,” Jame Gumb – the Buffalo Bill serial killer – is captured as a result of a criminal informant – Hannibal Lecter, a bizarre source who is also a serial killer – and old-fashioned investigatory legwork.
That’s the world of entertainment and “The Silence of the Lambs” is an excellent example of Hollywood turning out an exciting and riveting film. Somewhere in the creation of conflict and drama, an odd dynamic emerges: Hannibal Lecter becomes the first sympathetic serial killer. Buffalo Bill is a sick and pathetic killer who lives in a rambling unkempt house – raising Death-head Moths that flutter by – and is creating a costume out of the skin of real women he has murdered. The MacGuffin of the film, as it were, is the kidnapped senator’s daughter who is being starved to make her easier to skin.
Lecter, on the other severed hand, is educated, erudite and paints pictures of a beloved Italy to decorate his cell. He has hypersensitivity to smell and texture and befriends and assists the heroine – Clarice Starling, the student FBI agent – in her investigation of Buffalo Bill and her future in the FBI. There is a bonding between the source and the investigator, and Lecter – if only by association – becomes the good serial killer helping to capture the bad serial killer.
This notion of a sympathetic serial killer will show up in “The Minus Man” and “Felicia’s Journey” (both 1999) and the TV show “Dexter.”)
Demme has made some wonderful films (“Stop Making Sense” and “Melvin and Howard,” for two) and “Silence of the Lambs” won a ton of awards and did great box office and it’s a film I’ve seen often. However unintentional it may have been, the film did manage to turn the gruesome serial killer into a well-drawn cartoon with redeeming personality traits and a sense of moral purpose (if only to subvert the process to his own ends). Whatever subtlety Hannibal Lecter did possess, would soon be lost on the numerous serial killer films that followed.
There was a dreadful sequel to “The Silence of the Lambs” titled “Hannibal” and a prequel titled “Red Dragon.”
The best film to see in the Hannibal Lecter series is the original Michael Mann’s 1986 “Manhunter” (based on the Harris novel, Red Dragon) with William Peterson and Brian Cox (as Hannibal Lecter). A well-done small film about a serial killer that is really scary.