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| Jodie
Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine, Kasi Lemmons |
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Anamorphic
widescreen |
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Dolby Digital
5.1 |
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DTS |
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Trailer(s) |
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Featurette(s) |
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Documentary |
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Audio commentary
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Deleted scenes
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Concept art
/ storyboards |
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Multi-angle
feature |
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Dr.
Hannibal Lecter:
A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava
beans and a nice chianti. [hisses]
An
FBI trainee is sent to gather the insights of a captive homicidal psychiatrist
about a serial murder on the loose.
 Close
to ten years after its first release, The Silence of the Lambs
has been imitated innumerable times, but not once has its skillful technique
or its amazing grasp of the material even been approximated. Both its
use of a strong but very human heroine and the already legendary figure
of Hannibal Lecter as portrayed by Anthony Hopkins give this film a
core relationship that is as balanced as it is unnerving. Through its
remarkable use of subjective camera, the audience is placed right in
the shoes of Clarice Starling and goes with her on a journey that is
both frightening and rewarding.
The audience is made to share her fascination for Lecter as well as
the trepidation she feels around him, while the way she is dismissed
as an inferior female trainee from Oklahoma is made clear subtly but
surely in her encounters with other characters in the almost completely
male-dominated world of the FBI and the police. The only elements that
sometimes seem a little out of place are her flashbacks to her childhood,
as they tend to over-explain her character unnecessarily and divert
attention from the more immediate tension of the main narrative. But
this represents only a very minor flaw in what can now safely be called
a masterpiece. |
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The
Silence of the Lambs was available as a Region 1 movie-only version
from Image Entertainment and a Region 0 edition from The Criterion Collection
[see separate review], but
both have gone out of print. MGM/UA has produced a new Special Edition
DVD, scheduled for R1 release on August 21, 2001 in separate widescreen
and pan&scan editions. The widescreen version is now available as
a 2-disc edition for R2, which served as a basis for this review.
The
anamorphic widescreen image is framed at approx. 1.85:1. This new transfer
is an improvement over the earlier non-anamorphic DVD versions, though
the difference isn't astronomical. Image clarity has improved, and the
image is overall very solid, but some darker scenes still suffer from
low contrast levels and grain, resulting in a sometimes muddy look.
The new Dolby Digital 5.1 sound mix marks the most notable improvement
in this release, giving Howard Shore's haunting score the expansive
soundstage it deserves, and providing the memorable sound design with
a much stronger level of impact. Key scenes now feature a deep, immersive
surround field; the sequences in Buffalo Bill's basement for instance
now feature great directional effects that make the experience all the
more chilling.
MGM/UA
has clearly done an outstanding job of bringing this classic horror
film to DVD, not only by significant improvements to video and audio
quality, but also in
the careful production of some substantial extras. It's a pity that
there was no way to include the audio commentary track from the out-of-print
Criterion Collection edition, as this was simply one of the finest commentary
tracks ever produced, and is now unavailable to all but the luckiest
collectors (or those willing to shell out a substantial amount of money
for this collector's item).
The main attraction in the Special Features section (featured on a second
disc on the Region 2 release, but available on a single disc for Region
1) is the new 63-minute documentary 'Inside the Labyrinth'. It
covers all the bases, from the publication of the novel through preproduction
and shooting all the way to the Oscar ceremony, and includes substantial
new interview footage from most major participants (with only director
Jonathan Demme conspicuously absent). The original eight-minute featurette
is also included, and is - surprisingly - a whole lot better than most
promotional efforts of its kind. It includes the usual amount of titillating
footage from the film, and unusually insightful comments from Hopkins,
Foster and Demme. An impressive number of deleted scenes has
been included in a separate section, with 21 snippets of scenes that
ended up on the cutting room floor available one by one from the menu
(unfortunately, there is no 'play all' option). Most are very brief
(the total length for all these scenes is just over 20 minutes), and
present bits and pieces of scenes that were shaved off to pick up the
movie's pace a bit. None of them are documented or explained in any
way, making them seem a bit random.
An image gallery presents close to 120 still images (promotional
stills and on-set photography), accompanied by appropriately atmospheric
music cues from the film. On a more humorous note, an outtakes
section holds just under a minute and a half of mistakes and jokes on
the set, including Hopkins doing a hilarious Sylvester Stallone impression
during his blood-soaked stroll towards officer Pembry. Lecter fans also
have the option to adopt his voice mail message for their answering
machine or phone service. The trailers section includes the memorable
original theatrical trailer, a teaser trailer, two TV spots and the
trailer for Hannibal.
All in all, an excellent release that marks some significant improvements
over the previously available Criterion edition, but that doesn't dig
as deep beneath the skin of the movie. If you're lucky enough to own
a copy of the Criterion release, this new edition will make for a nice
companion thanks to its documentary, improved audio and video quality,
and other extras like the trailers etc. And for all those people without
the Criterion version, this release is certainly a worthy presentation
of one of the all-time great horror films, and will definitely not disappoint. The
animated menu screens start off with a language selection screen - as
is the case with all MGM/UA R2 releases - leading into a shot moving slowly
around Lecter's cell, with his superimposed face slowly fading in and
out of the foreground. Disc 2 has a similar introduction screen for language
selection, followed by static screens with animated transitions. A minor
annoyance with the R2 edition is that the captions indicating locations
throughout the film are language-specific player-generated text instead
of the original optically printed text.
Dan Hassler-Forest
Reviewed: 2001
Click
here for IMDB info on The
Silence of the Lambs.
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