Few directors have been as influential in the winning of an acting Oscar as Jonathan Demme is for Anthony Hopkins Academy Award for Best Actor in The Silence of the Lambs. In fact, so essential is Demme’s direction that it can be argued he deserves half of that little gold statuette. Anyone who wants to argue this point need only compare the number of awards for which Hopkins was nominated for playing Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs with the number of awards for which he was nominated for playing the exact same character in two subsequent films. Unless one wants to seriously compare the Oscars, the Golden Globes, BAFTA, the Boston Society of Film Critics, the Chicago Film Critics Association, the London Critics Circle Awards and the New York Film Critics Circle Awards with the Fangoria Chainsaw Award, the case is closed.
So if Hopkins is playing the same character and delivering pretty much the same kind of high-intensity chilling performance in three films, but only one earns him near universal acclaim while the other two are all but ignored, what is the common denominator? Again, one need only look at the films. It is really less a matter of acting than directing.
Lest anyone doubt the significance of the influence Demme wields over the performance of Hopkins, just watch the film again with an eye toward how much of the creepiness Hannibal Lecter projects is determined not so much by what Hopkins is doing, but by how he is framed. In the directorial decisions related to set design, lighting and camera placement, half the work of Hopkins was already done by the time Demme said “Action.” Even before Lecter ever appears on camera, Demme has created an atmosphere of expectation that leads the audience to already be on edge. By the time Clarice lays eyes on Lecter for the first time, he is already half-way to mythic. And then the magic of Demme’s direction: Lecter standing almost formally inside what looks like a medieval dungeon. From that point forward, The Silence of the Lambs becomes a textbook example of an actor and director working in tandem almost like a dance team; both on the same wavelength and both operating at the top of their respective and considerably impressive games.
Demme takes advantage of Hopkins’ self-awareness that his large eyes are one of his essential acting tools. Hannibal Lecter is show in an extreme close-up far more often than is usual in films since the 1960’s. The reliance on close-ups was a convention of the studio system that has fallen by the wayside ever since. Stars still demand close-ups, of course, but the extent to which Demme composes the entire frame with Lecter’s face is quite unusual and for a very distinct purpose. As a director, he is also keenly aware of the power of Hopkins’ eyes: they can move from cool and emotionless to crazy in the literal blink of an eye. In a psychological game of “who’s telling the truth” the eyes are always key and, of course, Hannibal Lecter knows how to lie with his eyes. It is a gamble to put that much weight onto an actor’s facial expressiveness because so much acting is done with the body.
The irony is that when Demme does frame Lecter in a full body shot, he is still restraining Hopkins. Think of that first shot of him standing eerily still. In his conversation with Clarice, Lecter hardly moves not least because, well, he has no room to move. But even when outside his dungeon, Demme quite literally takes the restraint of Hannibal Lecter to whole other level. Take note of his initial scenes outside the prison: he is not just wearing a straitjacket and he is not just strapped down so he couldn’t move his arms even if they weren’t constricted by the jacket. He is also wearing that creepy mask. And what is the only part of his entire body which Demme has allowed Hopkins to use for the purpose of acting? Those enormous and enormously expressive eyes.
Demme takes full advantage of the power of the close-up and the power of limiting the range of motion to wield influence over the portrayal of Hannibal. He also uses the power of frame composition and lighting to further underline the creep qualities of the cannibal. Even camera movement is exploited by Demme to force the performance out of Hopkins that he desires. As the scene in which Clarice tells the now-caged Lecter her story about the screaming of the lambs, the camera is moving and Clarice is moving, but Hannibal stays seated throughout. The most that is seen of him is a shot in the chair from the waist up and the only parts of his body that move at all—and not much—are literally his pinky fingers. With each successive cut back to Lecter, less and less of his body is shown until by the riveting climax of the scene he is, once again, nothing but face.
The wholesale effect is that Demme placed a tremendous amount of pressure on Anthony Hopkins to act without using most of the “instrument” that an actor relies upon. Even when showing Lecter’s entire body, most of the shots restrict Hopkins’ ability to perform. It is a directorial decision that would likely drive most actors crazy, akin to asking a pianist to play a composition using only the black keys. That Hopkins was operating on the same creative plane as Demme and willing to trust his directorial vision is apparent from the intensity with which he delivered exactly what Demme wanted. It is thus far the only performance by Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter which was not just showered with praise, but which actually deserved that praise, although it should be shared with his director.
