An examination of the role of classical Hollywood techniques in developing the relationship between Clarice Starling and Dr. Hannibal Lecter in the film "The Silence of the Lambs".
Abstract This paper examines how classical Hollywood cinema techniques such as narration, camera angles and lighting aid in the development of the relationship between the protagonists Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lecter in the film "The Silence of the Lambs". It evaluates how classical narration develops the relationship which changes from an impersonal to a more personal one, as Clarice Starling, an FBI agent, struggles to solve a problem to which Dr. Hannibal Lecter provides the answer. It also looks at how in all four of their encounters, the camera shots move from low and high-angle shots to those of eye-level shots signifying how the relationship changes from one of superiority to one of equality.
From the Paper "In The Silence of the Lambs camera angles are another classical Hollywood technique that helps in developing the relationship between Starling and Dr. Lecter. In their first of four encounters, low-angle shots and high-angle shots were used. "With low-angle shots, in which the camera looks up at the action or person, the audience assumes that the person looking up is inferior to what they are looking at" (Belton 45). In the first encounter the low-angle shot was used subtly, not to the extreme as in other movies. An example of a low-angle shot is when Starling is talking and the camera breaks to Dr. Lecter, showing him slightly higher. High-angle shots are used as well."
Abstract This paper examines how when Thomas Harris' 1988 novel "The Silence of the Lambs" was to be converted into film by director Jonathan Demme, there was an apparent theme of character identities and relationships as determined by gender which he interpreted from imaginative literature to visual cinema. It looks at how these characters, which were each inevitably altered in their own different ways by the artistic rendition of the novel, are therefore presented differently. The protagonist, a young female FBI trainee from rural West Virginia named Clarice Starling, is sent to interview the imprisoned serial killer psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter in order to better understand the mind of a mad man. But she instead finds herself in a race against time to save a young innocent girl and capture the fledgling serial killer known as Buffalo Bill. It looks at how though the story seems simple enough, the complexities of identity among these characters presents mysterious subtleties, as they try to stretch the boundaries of what defines their gender's role in society.
From the Paper "Buffalo Bill, though a small character in both the novel and the film, is an excellent tool for understanding Clarice, as he parallel's her own confusion of identity of gender. Both Clarice and Bill, in the novel and film, dislike their past identities and are trying to construct new one. Clarice strains to hide her pure West Virginian accent and the fact that people would consider her, if they knew her true identity, a "rube". Buffalo Bills confusion about his identity stems from the fact, as Hannibal explains to Clarice, that he was abused as a child, and because of that never formed an actual realization of who he was, or even what gender meant to him. "
Abstract This paper examines the concepts of gender and sexuality in Clarice Lispector's novel, "The Passion According to G.H." The paper discusses how the book focuses almost exclusively on language and the interior discourse of a woman who, in the process of her monologue, comes to a new sense or realization of herself. The paper discusses Lispector's style and her portrayal of the identity of G.H.
From the Paper "Thus, Lispector's text relates in many ways with Irigaray's and Butler's feminist theories. First of all, G. H.'s identity at first is described as an identical copy of her life circumstances. She is a seemingly independent woman, well-to-do and unmarried and she is not tied down by great responsibilities. Nevertheless, she is obviously not free, as she lives in a kind of numbing conventional routine, performing every act in accordance with the requirements of society and history. In the maid-room, she first encounters otherness and she significantly attempts a communion with the space itself and with the cockroach as well. After this experience, she begins a long and direct dialog with her self, and it is through performing the discourse that she begins to locate her own identity. Moreover, she attempts to bare herself of all the accumulated stereotypes and conventions, thus creating an interior space of her own. It is very significant that she creates her own interior space in the space that used to be inhabited by another. Thus, the text prefigures the way in which gender identity has to bared of conventions before the feminine discourse becomes genuine."
From the Paper "Clarice Lispector's novel The Hour of the Star tells the story of a man who writes a novel and the story of the woman about whom he writes. The writer, who is given the name Rodrigo S. M., explains his feelings and motivations about writing the story, which he clearly identifies as fiction, of a poor, uneducated, sickly immigrant from Brazil's impoverished Northeastern region who goes to Rio de Janeiro. Her life is as nearly empty of events, relationships, and even ordinary needs as a human life can be. Yet, in the course, of the novel, the character, Macab"a, arrives at some degree of understanding--of the universe, of her existence, of god--that surpasses what her frustrated creator can achieve. While Macab"a's story is completely engrossing, it fights for space with the struggles of her intrusive narrator-creator. Both characters function as part..."
An analysis of the narrator's relationship with Macabea and what this says about the relationship between the author, characters, and the process of creation.
Abstract This paper shows how "The Hour of the Star" is an extreme novel, not because it has descriptions or representations that could be considered shockingly excessive or violent, but because it encounters issues and problems, which simply cannot be resolved, such as the role of class and gender in the artistic creation. Moreover, it explains how "The Hour of the Star" is an anti-novel that shows the limitations of the realist novel because much of the novel is about the process of writing and the relationship between the narrator and the story he creates.
From the Paper "In 'The Hour of the Star', the question of perspective is of great importance because Clarice Lispector, the author, creates a man, a writer, who himself engages in the writing of a story and creates yet another character, a young woman from Northeast. The ontological speculations of the narrator who is self presented as the author and the utilization of a self-conscious narrator who is himself involved in the writing of a book contributes to give this work its peculiar structure, which is open to diverse interpretations. There are several layers of meaning, because the story is about a poor and underdeveloped girl, a fictional author who struggles to tell her story, Lispector's questionings about fictional representation or as the critic Fitz argues, a story about how the middle class views the poor. The narrator's misogynistic point of view shows the difficulty to write for the other, the story of Mac"bea is also about how the middle class views the poor, and thus, Mac"bea is a symbol for the underdeveloped Brazil. Finally, an important aspect of the novel is the fact that Mac?bea is an anti-heroine and The Hour of the Star is an anti-novel because it fells outside the reaflist conventions."
