Jonathan Demme’s first foray into the thriller is considered by most to be a mould-breaker: here we’re presented with a strong female protagonist’s role, traditionally tailored for a male. Archetypal, it is her journey to walk into the lion’s den and rescue the princess. Because she is a woman—a role so easily made to fit the victim, not the victor—her fish out of water presence in this oppressively dark and violent world does with ease what a male protagonist must almost overdo to make his journey compelling: make the threat to them palpable. When I view an older film, one of the thoughts involved is always “does it stand the test of time?” There have been a number of special editions for the film over the years, from both MGM and Criterion, and with their new edition here Criterion does manage to carry most of them over, though somewhat sadly not all, with a number of features from their own DVD edition not making it. Criterion spreads the features over the two discs.

Beyond the well defined trio of central characters, the film just works as a pure thriller including a tense finale that, even though I’ve seen it a few times now, still is absolutely gripping and ultimately satisfying. Credit goes to the source material by Thomas Harris, fittingly adapted by Ted Tally and helmed by Jonathan Demme, both taking home Oscars, as did the film itself.And the film? As noted, a magnificent production. Not without Very minor faults, but things that will never be noticed by even the most attentive audience member. The narrative concerns the F.B.I.’s quest to find a killer of young, plus-sized women who’re found floating in rivers, partially skinned. Demme rhymes the violence inflicted on the victims with the aggression that F.B.I. trainee Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) weathers in the corridors of government offices and other realms that she investigates while searching for the killer. Throughout the film, Demme contrasts the diminutive Clarice with her tall and burly male colleagues, revealing her existence to be casually rife with battles for respect that many men take for granted as a birthright. Scenes are often shot from Clarice’s point of view, framing men’s faces so that they’re talking directly to the camera, forcing the audience to confront Clarice’s sense of being under siege as she’s sexually harassed, brushed aside, or endlessly condescended to. Jonathan Demme may not be remembered for much before or since (notwithstanding the valiant effort put into the Denzel Washington remake of The Manchurian Candidate, or the underrated Rachel Getting Married, featuring one of Anne Hathaway's best performances) but the early nineties saw two of his features attracting Oscar attention, with his most memorable moment coming in '91, where he crafted a tense but often formal mainstream depiction of serial killer profiling and hunting which would be something of a progenitor for all the similarly-toned thrillers since, up to and including David Fincher's recent Mindhunter TV series. I felt that the movie was around 1 to 2 db low, so I raised it a little. It sounded great after that. Dialog is mixed at a perfect volume, and recorded well for it's age.

Deleted Scenes - presented here is a large collection of deleted scenes that were cut from The Silence of the Lambs. The footage is sourced from the best available materials. In English, not subtitled. (36 min).The trailer for Old certainly had me intrigued, but you know me by now. How's the picture quality? Let's see. The text below was initially used for our review of Criterion's Blu-ray release of The Silence of the Lambs from 2018, which can be accessed here. I viewed Criterion's new 4K restoration of The Silence of the Lambs last night and I would like to mention a few of the things that made an impression on me after all these years. I don't think that they will surprise folks that love the film, but I'd rather do this than try to 'explain' like so many other writers have done over the years why it is one of the definitive '90s films. That’s the case with Johnathan Demme’s thirty year-old police procedural thriller, The Silence of the Lambs.