Popular Culture Review Vol. 2, No. 2, July 1991 | Page 49

A Sheep in Wolfs Clothing

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which our eye initially seeks out information. The right indicates
weakness, passivity. On the right, you are the last thing to be
noticed. The focus also questions her authority. Often when Clarise
is shown in tight close-ups, she is held in soft focus while Crawford or
Lector are held in crisp focus. The use of this soft-focus technique in a
film about a young FBI recruit cannot by written off to the aesthetics
of glamour. The aggravating manner in which Clarise slips in and out
of focus begs many questions: Is this done to show that women see men
clearly and that men see women indistinctly? Or, rather, does this
imply that the men in this film possess the true vision and it is
Clarise who is clouded?
Dr. Lector, whom I have mentioned as embodying the spirit of
the film, possesses a "clarity" of mind which is truly compelling.
Amid all the amateurish mind games being played out by all the
characters involved in the film, he, oddly enough, is the one
character most helpful to Clarise. If Dr. Lector had been a character
from a 19th century novel, he would have been described as having
"gone native". Although his travels did not take him to darkest
Africa to encounter the cruelty of Western Progress visited upon
unsuspecting natives, they did take him into the darkest heart of the
troubled, repressed souls of 20th century America. Lector has seen
clearly the horrors both trivial and mammoth which have plagued
his patients and he has decided that they deserve them.
Despite his grisly crimes, he is a seductive character. Clarise
is just as riveted by his grace and taste as is the camera. When
questioned by Clarise about his drawings, Lector explains that he has
memories instead of a view. He wheels around, turning away from
Clarise. The camera follows him, rising above him. His powers of
description, of discernment, of suggestion are made visible by
Demme’s camera. With the light pouring down upon his face, his
eyes gazing up into the camera, we can almost believe that the light
is from the sun and that we are looking at him through that window
he craves so deeply, the view he has created.
That the balance of control is in favor of Lector is shown during
the first "quid pro quo" sequence, when Clarise is shot from a high
angle and Lector from low, but more striking are the shots of Lector's
face when he has turned away from Clarise. We do not see Lector
from her point-of-view. We simply see Lector. He is so much
stronger, so fully realized that he steals the camera away from her.