History Literature / TheSilenceOfTheLambs

** In the film, Clarice uses her own investigative skills and methods of deduction to figure out why Buffalo Bill needs his victims' skins, while in the book it is Lecter who reveals it to her during one of their conversations
** Benjamin Raspail in the book enters a relationship with Gumb even after he murders his boyfriend, citing a male version of AllGirlsWantBadBoys; in the film, however, he's understandably freaked out when Gumb murders a transient and it appears that this is why Gumb ultimately ended up killing him.

* AdaptedOut : Many of the minor characters and short scenes from the book are missing from the film, due to time constraints. One notably missing is the Johns Hopkins surgeon, whose scene with Crawford might have covered some of the more problematic representation of transgender people (although not entirely, as the views shown were somewhat out of date). As it is, an argument that Bill isn't transsexual and a line that "transsexuals are very passive" handwaves this in the film.

The book was [[TheFilmOfTheBook adapted]] into a 1991 film directed by Creator/JonathanDemme, starring Creator/JodieFoster as Clarice and Creator/AnthonyHopkins as Lecter, followed by a sequel ''Literature/{{Hannibal}}'' (1999) and a prequel ''Literature/HannibalRising'' (2006). Like the book, the film adaptation of ''The Silence of the Lambs'' is self-contained, and features even ''less'' references to both ''Red Dragon'' and its 1986 film adaptation, ''Film/{{Manhunter}}'' (though a number of visual motifs from that movie carry over here), to say nothing of this movie recasting every role that had previously appeared in its predecessor (in part because Creator/BrianCox wasn't available to return as Lecter, with the rest of the ''Manhunter'' cast never being approached afterwards). A {{sequel series}} to the film, titled ''Series/{{Clarice}}'', is set to premiere in February on Creator/{{CBS}}.

The book was [[TheFilmOfTheBook adapted]] into a 1991 film directed by Creator/JonathanDemme, starring Creator/JodieFoster as Clarice and Creator/AnthonyHopkins as Lecter, followed by a sequel ''Literature/{{Hannibal}}'' (1999) and a prequel ''Literature/HannibalRising'' (2006). Like the book, the film adaptation of ''The Silence of the Lambs'' is self-contained, and features even ''less'' references to both ''Red Dragon'' and its 1986 film adaptation, ''Film/{{Manhunter}}'' (though a number of visual motifs from that movie carry over here), to say nothing of this movie recasting every role that had previously appeared in its predecessor (in part because Creator/BrianCox wasn't available to return as Lecter, with the rest of the ''Manhunter'' cast never being approached afterwards). In January 2020, it was announced that a {{sequel series}} to the film, titled ''Clarice'', was in development at Creator/{{CBS}}.

* AdaptedOut : Many of the minor characters and short scenes from the book are missing from the film, due to time constraints. One notably missing is the Johns Hopkins surgeon, whose scene with Crawford might have covered some of the more problematic representation of transgender people (although not entirely, as the views shown were [[ValuesDissonance somewhat out of date]]). As it is, an argument that Bill isn't transsexual and a line that "transsexuals are very passive" handwaves this in the film.

* AluminumChristmasTrees: There really are a couple of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death%27s-head_hawkmoth types of moths]] that have skull shaped patterns on them.
* AmbiguousSyntax: "I do wish we could chat longer, but I'm having an old friend for dinner."

* CreepyCrossdresser: Buffalo Bill, though it's not a straight example. Both the novel and movie go out of their way to tell the audience that being a transsexual, in and of itself, is not connected to violence--specifically, Clarice says (and Lecter agrees) that Bill ''cannot'' be a transexual because [[NoTrueScotsman transsexuals are not violent]]. According to Lecter, Bill only ''thinks'' he's a transsexual due to his "hatred of his own identity." This reflects the FairForItsDay but [[ScienceMarchesOn out-of-date psychology]] that the book and film relied on. Transsexuality was conflated with transvestism (crossdressing) and was at the time thought to be a mental disorder, albeit a benign one. Which is kind of the point here: no records or proven cases indicated that transsexuality predisposed a person to violence, and so Bill is dismissed as not being a "true" transsexual. Nowadays a distinction is drawn between transvestism (crossdressing) and being {{transgender}} (having a gender identity which doesn't align with the one assigned at birth), and "transexual" (having had a sex change operation) is considered a transmisic term that reinforces the erroneous belief that gender identity and biological sex are synonymous. None of these, in and of themselves, can affect whether or not someone becomes a homicidal maniac.

The book was [[TheFilmOfTheBook adapted]] into a 1991 film directed by Creator/JonathanDemme, starring Creator/JodieFoster as Clarice and Creator/AnthonyHopkins as Lecter, followed by a sequel ''Literature/{{Hannibal}}'' (1999) and a prequel ''Literature/HannibalRising'' (2006). Like the book, the film adaptation of ''The Silence of the Lambs'' is self-contained, and features even ''less'' references to both ''Red Dragon'' and is 1986 film adaptation, ''Film/{{Manhunter}}'' (though a number of visual motifs from that movie carry over here), to say nothing of this movie recasting every role that had previously appeared in its predecessor. In January 2020, it was announced that a {{sequel series}} to the film, titled ''Clarice'', was in development at Creator/{{CBS}}.

** This is a red herring, but it also provides some motivation for Starling - not only does it keep Catherine humanized and real to Starling (she makes a big deal of feeling out the victims as actual people, rather than getting waylaid thinking of the crimes), but her mother the Senator accuses Starling of being a thief by taking the photos, which burns Clarice up inside, and adds to her grit and determination. It's also fairly realistic: the LSD is referred to again very late in the novel with the DEA running a check on the batch, in an example of needless bureacracy when the story is almost over.

* CreepyCrossdresser: Buffalo Bill, though it's not a straight example. Both the novel and movie go out of their way to tell the audience that being a transsexual, in and of itself, is not connected to violence--specifically, Clarice says (and Lecter agrees) that Bill ''cannot'' be a transexual because [[NoTrueScotsman transsexuals are not violent]]. According to Lecter, Bill only ''thinks'' he's a transsexual due to his "hatred of his own identity." This reflects the FairForItsDay but [[ScienceMarchesOn out-of-date psychology]] that the book and film relied on. Transsexuality was conflated with transvestism (crossdressing) and was at the time thought to be a mental disorder, albeit a benign one. Which is kind of the point here: no records or proven cases indicated that transsexuality predisposed a person to violence, and so Bill is dismissed as not being a "true" transsexual. Nowadays a distinction is drawn between transvestism (crossdressing) and being {{transgender}} (having a gender identity which doesn't align with the one assigned at birth). Neither of these, in and of themselves, can cause (or prevent) someone to become a homicidal maniac.

* DoubleMeaning: One of the most famous lines in the movie has a second meaning that [[GeniusBonus most people miss]]. Hannibal Lecter tells Clarice, "A census taker tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. (Slurp sound effect.)" Now, Clarice – and most of the audience – believe Lecter is merely confessing to one of his crimes. What most people would not know is that a common treatment for Lecter's "brand of crazy" is to use drugs of a class known as [=MAOIs=] (monoamine oxidase inhibitors). There are several things one must not eat when taking [=MAOIs=], as they can case fatally low blood pressure, and as a physician and psychiatrist himself, Dr. Lecter would be well aware of this. These things include liver, fava beans, and red wine. In short, Lecter was telling Clarice that ''he was off his medication''. Not surprising, but very subtly done.

* BlackBestFriend: Both Hannibal '''and''' Clarice have one. Barney is a combination of BlackBestFriend, WorthyOpponent, and FriendlyEnemy to Hannibal.

** At the FBI graduation party, when we see a shot of them slicing the cake shaped like the FBI logo, it's a good moment to shout out: "Justice is served!"/"Justice for all!"

** The prisoners at Crawford's penitentiary call Miggs a "stupid fuck" and a "freak" after he tosses a wad of his semen at Clarice.

* BlackBestFriend: Both Hannibal '''and''' Clarice have one. Hannibal's is a combination of BlackBestFriend, WorthyOpponent, and FriendlyEnemy.

* CallBack: In ''Literature/RedDragon'', the very first line we hear from Hannibal Lecter's mouth is him lamenting that Will Graham's wearing the same "atrocious" brand of aftershave from three years ago, having offhandedly caught the smell when Will arrived, and alluding to the brand by mocking its logo. Here, one of the first things he does with Clarice is smell her skin cream and the perfume she wore the other day through the tiny holes in his cell, deducing the exact brand of both on the spot. Both times set up the fact that Lecter's not quite human on a neurological level, and here it establishes that he's just as dangerous as he was in ''Red Dragon'', if not more so, and is just as willing to use the same mind tricks on Clarice as he did on Will.
* TheCameo: In the film Creator/RogerCorman appears as FBI Director Hayden Burke and Chris Isaak as a SWAT commander

* CombatPragmatist: Lecter, when he [[spoiler:bites a guard on the face, then pepper sprays him, then bludgeons the guard's friend to death with a truncheon--a friend who is unarmed, and has his hands handcuffed to the cage bars.]] Then he listens to a piece of classical music[[note]] Johann Sebastian Bach's ''The Goldberg Variations'', recorded by Glenn Gould in 1955[[/note]] that makes the cell kind of like a high-end restaurant. The scene also acts as a ghastly sort of BrickJoke. Lecter's face is serene, a callback to Chilton's line that Lecter's pulse "never got above 85," when attacking the nurse.

** In the film, Benjamin Raspail, a flutist in the Baltimore Philharmonic Orchestra and a patient of Lecter's who was romantically involved with Jame Gumb, with Klaus, one of Buffalo Bill's victims and whose head is discovered by Clarice. The new film character has Raspail's name and history as a lover of Gumb, but the fate of Klaus of being killed by Gumb.

* ContrastingSequelAntagonist: Buffalo Bill is as much the direct opposite of Francis "the Tooth Fairy" Dolarhyde from [[Literature/RedDragon the previous book]] as he is his parallel. While both killers seek to transform themselves through their killing, Dolarhyde's goal is to [[spoiler:transform himself in spirit and become the culmination of his present state by empowering his "Great Red Dragon" alter]], while Bill's goal is to [[spoiler:transform himself in body and become the antithesis of his present state by fashioning a GenuineHumanHide suit that would, in his eyes, enable him to become a completely different person]].

* ContrastingSequelProtagonists: Aside from the obvious difference in gender, Clarice Starling is a world away from Will Graham. Will is a veteran FBI agent by the time the plot of ''Literature/RedDragon'' kicks into gear, and has a personal history with Hannibal Lecter that goes back at least several years; Lecter is also the main source of his personal trauma, which occurred quite recently into his life. Clarice, meanwhile, is still in training during the events of this book, and prior to the events of the main plot only knows about Lecter from news stories regarding him. While she herself also has personal trauma, it stretches much further back than Will's, going all the way back to her childhood. Lecter actually uses this to his advantage, managing to interact with and manipulate Clarice in ways he wouldn't have been able to have achieved with the more experienced and personally acquainted Will.

There's a serial killer on the loose, "Buffalo Bill," who abducts women, kills and skins them, and shoves [[MacabreMothMotif chrysalitic moths]] down their throats. Behavioral Sciences, the section of the FBI that deals with violent crime, is stuck; section chief Jack Crawford has no idea how to stop this guy. The game-changer comes in the form of ambitious young trainee Clarice Starling. Pulled into the investigation almost by accident, she is sent to interview another serial killer, incarcerated psychiatrist, Hannibal Lecter-- "Hannibal the Cannibal"-- for insight into Buffalo Bill's psychosis. Having previously aided longtime adversary Will Graham in hunting down serial killer Francis Dollarhyde, Lecter agrees to fulfill a similar purpose for Clarice in exchange for her most traumatic memories, and the two develop a strange symbiotic relationship. And the clock is ticking, because Buffalo Bill's latest victim is the daughter of a US Senator, and if they can't get him now, all hell will break loose...

* CallBack: In ''Literature/RedDragon'', the very first line we hear from Hannibal Lecter's mouth is him lamenting that Will Graham's wearing the same "atrocious" brand of aftershave from three years ago, having offhandedly caught the smell when Will arrived. Here, one of the first things he does with Clarice is smell her skin cream and the perfume she wore the other day. Both times set up the fact that Lecter's not quite human on a neurological level, and here it establishes that he's just as dangerous as he was in ''Red Dragon'', if not more so, and is just as willing to use the same mind tricks on Clarice as he did on Will.

* FromACertainPointOfView: In the novel of ''Silence'', Starling tells Lecter that her father was a marshal. Later on, when she is recounting to him how he died, Lecter catches enough clues to deduce that the man had actually been a night watchman. Starling's defense is that the official job description had read "[[ExactWords night marshal]]". (Lecter doesn't press the point.)

%% * PsychopathicManchild: Jame Gumb.

* ShoutOut: Silence'' closes with a ToBeContinued. After the Copyright notice and MPAA logo, a logo appears with the text "A Luta Continua"--Portuguese for "The Struggle Continues" ("To be continued"). Which three other Creator/JonathanDemme films also have.
* SignificantAnagram: Lampshaded by Clarice, who solves two of Lecter's: [[spoiler: Hester Mofet - ''The Rest Of Me'', and Louis Friend - ''Iron Sulfide'' ([[AllThatGlitters Fool's Gold]])]].
* SlidingScaleOfAdaptationModification: The film adaptation is a Type 4 (Near Identical Adaptation) and sticks close to the content of the book.

** In the novel, Lecter falsely identifies a man named Billy Rubin as Buffalo Bill. A search of Lecter's cell [[spoiler:after he escapes]] reveals a note floating in his toilet with Chilton's name on it with numbers after some of the letters. FBI lab technicians figure out it's the formula for a pigment called bilirubin, which is a chief coloring agent in feces – and is more or less the same color as Dr. Chilton's hair. Yes, Lecter basically called Chilton a shithead.

** Some of the book's blurbs revel in this, including "a killer who knows beauty is only skin-deep", "a trainee trying to save her own hide" and- stealthiest of all- "Hannibal's willing to put on a brave face- if it will help him escape."

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Catherine, who lives in an apartment, is shown in the film to have a cat she didn’t have time to feed when she was abducted. It’s never made clear whether anyone else fed the cat instead of her.

-->'''Chilton:''' [to Clarice Starling] Oh, he's a monster. Pure psychopath. So rare to capture one alive. From a research point of view, Lecter is our most prized asset.

The book was [[TheFilmOfTheBook adapted]] into a 1991 film directed by Creator/JonathanDemme, starring Creator/JodieFoster as Clarice and Creator/AnthonyHopkins as Lecter, followed by a sequel ''Literature/{{Hannibal}}'' (1999) and a prequel ''Literature/HannibalRising'' (2006). Like the book, the film adaptation of ''The Silence of the Lambs'' is self-contained, and features even ''less'' references to both ''Red Dragon'' and [[Film/{{Manhunter}} its 1986 film adaptation]] (though a number of visual motifs from that movie carry over here). In January 2020, it was announced that a {{sequel series}} to the film, titled ''Clarice'', was in development at Creator/{{CBS}}.

* CallBack: In ''Literature/RedDragon'', the very first line we hear from Hannibal Lecter's mouth is him lamenting that Will Graham's wearing the same "atrocious" brand of aftershave from three years ago. Here, one of the first things he does with Clarice is smell her skin cream and the perfume she wore the other day. Both times set up the fact that Lecter's not quite human on a neurological level, and here it establishes that he's just as dangerous as he was in ''Red Dragon'', if not more so, and is just as willing to use the same mind tricks on Clarice as he did on Will.

The book was [[TheFilmOfTheBook adapted]] into a 1991 film directed by Creator/JonathanDemme, starring Creator/JodieFoster as Clarice and Creator/AnthonyHopkins as Lecter, followed by a sequel ''Literature/{{Hannibal}}'' (1999) and a prequel ''Literature/HannibalRising'' (2006). Like the book, the film adaptation of ''The Silence of the Lambs'' is self-contained, and features even ''less'' references to both ''Red Dragon'' and [[Film/{{Manhunter}} its 1986 film adaptation]]. In January 2020, it was announced that a {{sequel series}} to the film, titled ''Clarice'', was in development at Creator/{{CBS}}.

* CreepyCrossdresser: Buffalo Bill, though it's not a straight example. Both the novel and movie go out of their way to tell the audience that being a transsexual, in and of itself, is not connected to violence--specifically, Clarice says (and Lecter agrees) that Bill ''cannot'' be a transexual because [[NoTrueScotsman transexuals are not violent]]. According to Lecter, Bill only ''thinks'' he's a transsexual due to his "hatred of his own identity." This reflects the FairForItsDay but [[ScienceMarchesOn out-of-date psychology]] that the book and film relied on. Transsexuality was conflated with transvestism (crossdressing) and was at the time thought to be a mental disorder, albeit a benign one. Which is kind of the point here: no records or proven cases indicated that transsexuality predisposed a person to violence, and so Bill is dismissed as not being a "true" transsexual. Nowadays a distinction is drawn between transvestism (crossdressing) and being {{transgender}} (having a gender identity which doesn't align with the one assigned at birth). Neither of these, in and of themselves, can cause (or prevent) someone to become a homicidal maniac.

* NamedAfterSomeoneFamous: Hannibal Lecter takes his first name from Carthagian general Hannibal Barca. Buffalo Bill is nicknamed after Creator/BuffaloBill.

** The way Bill spreads his wrap [[spoiler:during his dance]] is eerily reminiscent of the Great Red Dragon and Dolarhyde in Film/{{Manhunter}}.

* {{Transgender}}: 'Buffalo Bill' thinks he is a trans woman, though if you trust Lecter, he's not. He doesn't want to be ''a'' woman: he wants to be ''his mother''.

''The Silence of the Lambs'' is a 1988 novel by Thomas Harris (''Literature/BlackSunday''), and the second after ''Literature/RedDragon'' to star Franchise/HannibalLecter.

There's a serial killer on the loose, "Buffalo Bill," who abducts women, kills and skins them, and shoves [[MacabreMothMotif chrysalitic moths]] down their throats. Behavioral Sciences, the section of the FBI that deals with violent crime, is stuck; section chief Jack Crawford has no idea how to stop this guy. The game-changer comes in the form of ambitious young trainee Clarice Starling. Pulled into the investigation almost by accident, she is sent to interview another serial killer, incarcerated psychiatrist, Hannibal Lecter--"Hannibal the Cannibal"--for insight into Buffalo Bill's psychosis. Lecter agrees to help in exchange for Clarice's most traumatic memories, and the two develop a strange symbiotic relationship. And the clock is ticking, because Buffalo Bill's latest victim is the daughter of a US Senator, and if they can't get him now, all hell will break loose...

The book was [[TheFilmOfTheBook adapted]] into a 1991 film directed by Creator/JonathanDemme, starring Creator/JodieFoster as Clarice and Creator/AnthonyHopkins as Lecter, followed by a sequel ''Literature/{{Hannibal}}'' (1999) and a prequel ''Literature/HannibalRising'' (2006). In January 2020, it was announced that a {{sequel series}} to the film, titled ''Clarice'', was in development at Creator/{{CBS}}.

* AdaptationSpeciesChange: The cocoons Buffalo Bill used were from black witch moths in the book but the film understandably went with the more iconic death's head.

* ChekhovsSkill : In the book but not the film, Clarice's hand strength and firing speed are tested on the FBI range. It comes in handy later.

** In his first scene, Lecter says that his drawing is the "Duomo, seen from the Belvedere." [[spoiler:Buffalo Bill is in Belvedere, Ohio]]. Makes you wonder just how much Lecter was aware of before Clarice showed up.