The Silence of the Lambs
Released in 1990, The Silence of the Lambs is one of the defining films of late twentieth century American cinema. Adapted from the Thomas Harris novel and directed by the late Jonathan Demme, its central characters are now iconic. Jodie Foster is Clarice Starling, an FBI trainee investigating 'Buffalo Bill', a serial killer who flays his victims. Anthony Hopkins plays Hannibal Lecter, a serial killer and former psychiatrist who assists Starling in exchange for personal details.

With its pairing of a perverse, invasive anti-hero and a questing, proto-action heroine, The Silence of the Lambs unfolds as a layered narrative of pursuit. In this study, Yvonne Tasker explores the film's weaving together of gothic, horror and thriller elements in its portrayal of insanity and crime, drawing out the centrality of ideas about gender to the storytelling. She identifies the film as a key genre reference point for tracking late twentieth century interests in police procedural, profiling and serial murder, analysing its key themes of reason and madness, identity and belonging, aspiration and transformation.

A new afterword explores the legacies of The Silence of the Lambs and its figuring of crime and investigation in terms of gender disruption and spectacular violence.

1101968421
The Silence of the Lambs
Released in 1990, The Silence of the Lambs is one of the defining films of late twentieth century American cinema. Adapted from the Thomas Harris novel and directed by the late Jonathan Demme, its central characters are now iconic. Jodie Foster is Clarice Starling, an FBI trainee investigating 'Buffalo Bill', a serial killer who flays his victims. Anthony Hopkins plays Hannibal Lecter, a serial killer and former psychiatrist who assists Starling in exchange for personal details.

With its pairing of a perverse, invasive anti-hero and a questing, proto-action heroine, The Silence of the Lambs unfolds as a layered narrative of pursuit. In this study, Yvonne Tasker explores the film's weaving together of gothic, horror and thriller elements in its portrayal of insanity and crime, drawing out the centrality of ideas about gender to the storytelling. She identifies the film as a key genre reference point for tracking late twentieth century interests in police procedural, profiling and serial murder, analysing its key themes of reason and madness, identity and belonging, aspiration and transformation.

A new afterword explores the legacies of The Silence of the Lambs and its figuring of crime and investigation in terms of gender disruption and spectacular violence.

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The Silence of the Lambs

The Silence of the Lambs

by Yvonne Tasker
The Silence of the Lambs

The Silence of the Lambs

by Yvonne Tasker

Paperback(2nd ed.)

$15.95 
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Overview

Released in 1990, The Silence of the Lambs is one of the defining films of late twentieth century American cinema. Adapted from the Thomas Harris novel and directed by the late Jonathan Demme, its central characters are now iconic. Jodie Foster is Clarice Starling, an FBI trainee investigating 'Buffalo Bill', a serial killer who flays his victims. Anthony Hopkins plays Hannibal Lecter, a serial killer and former psychiatrist who assists Starling in exchange for personal details.

With its pairing of a perverse, invasive anti-hero and a questing, proto-action heroine, The Silence of the Lambs unfolds as a layered narrative of pursuit. In this study, Yvonne Tasker explores the film's weaving together of gothic, horror and thriller elements in its portrayal of insanity and crime, drawing out the centrality of ideas about gender to the storytelling. She identifies the film as a key genre reference point for tracking late twentieth century interests in police procedural, profiling and serial murder, analysing its key themes of reason and madness, identity and belonging, aspiration and transformation.

A new afterword explores the legacies of The Silence of the Lambs and its figuring of crime and investigation in terms of gender disruption and spectacular violence.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781839023675
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date: 11/30/2021
Series: BFI Film Classics
Edition description: 2nd ed.
Pages: 104
Product dimensions: 6.26(w) x 8.05(h) x 0.25(d)

About the Author

Yvonne Tasker is Professor of Media and Communication at the University of Leeds. She has written extensively on gender in popular cinema and television. Her most recent publications are Action Cinema Since 2000, co-edited with Chris Holmlund and Lisa Purse (BFI, 2024) and Jill Craigie: Film and Feminism in Postwar Britain, co-authored with Sadie Wearing (2025).

Table of Contents

Dedication
Acknowledgments
1. Birds, Lambs and Butterflies
2. The Sum and the Parts: Horror, Crime and the Woman's Picture
3. Detection and Deduction
4. The Female Gothic
5. Under the Skin
6. Afterword to the 2021 Edition
Credits

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