Thriller film opening - Silence of the Lambs

Synopsis

Jodie Foster stars as Clarice Starling, a top student at the FBI's training academy. Jack Crawford wants Clarice to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), a brilliant psychiatrist who is also a violent psychopath, serving life behind bars for various acts of murder and cannibalism. Crawford believes that Lecter may have insight into a case and that Starling, as an attractive young woman, may be just the bait to draw him out.

Institutional information

Silence of the Lambs is a 1991 thriller film that is 118 minutes long. The film stars Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins and Lawrence A. Bonney, being directed by Jonathan Demme. Silence of the Lambs had a budget of $19,000,000, but took a total of $13,766,814 gross in profit. The thriller film was produced Strong Heart/Demme Productions, and scored an 8.6 out of 10 stars on the IMDB website. The film was nominated for various including the Golden Globe awards and British Academy Film Awards, the film won five academy awards including best director and picture. The target audience of the film is for males aged 18-35 because the film as been rated 18 by the BBFC as it contains scenes of a graphic nature which would be inappropriate for younger viewers.

Mise en scene

The first part of the opening scene is a tracking shot of a woman running through a gloomy forest, in what seems like an isolated place. Immediately this creates tension for the audience as being isolated signifies that if something happened then there would be no help for the character and as a result makes the audience feel on edge on behalf of the character. However this is soon corrected when it becomes clear that the woman is taking part in an assault course due the obstacles that she has to climb. The tension felt at the start is conventional to a thriller film. Similarly, the film fits with the repertoire of elements that are associated with the setting of a thriller (woods) and so is successful as presenting itself in this genre. The shot of a man telling the woman where to go when he is wearing an FBI hat represents that the film involves some kind of crime which also suits the genre. The opening defies the stereotypical conventional roles that women play, as an assault course is generally seen as being a masculine activity. The editing is fairly continuous with shots, which isn't conventional of thriller films as they tend to use jump cuts and canted angles to create suspense and disorientate the audience.

Editing/camera angles 

The opening scene of Silence of the Lambs begins with a close up tracking shot of the woman running through the woods, following her as she runs. By doing this it builds up tension because the audience don't know what the woman is running from which creates a sense of fear within the audience. The shot then changes to a tracking shot from behind, giving the impression that someone is chasing her; this meets the stereotypical convention of the genre thriller, therefore fulfils audience pleasure. The mood changes when a obstacle as part of a course appears in the distance, showing the audience that the woman isn't being chased but taking part in an obstacle course, so the suspense level is dropped. An extreme long shot of the woman is then shown, where she is running away from the camera and this presents a slight element of fear, almost as though she is running away from something or someone. A man then runs onto shot, explaining why the woman was running away, however we then learn that the woman was running in the wrong direction. Through confusing the audience, it creates a sense of suspense as the audience don't know why the woman is running away.