Kill your idols: Silence of the Lambs

So I rewatched this during the Halloween season and thought to myself that I don't think I've ever sat down and watched this from beginning to end with no interruptions, at least not since the first time I saw it 15 years ago. With that I have two major thoughts/opinions. The acting is great on all fronts however I do have some issues:

1) There isn't a whole lot of chemistry between Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling. They're in what, 3 or 4 scenes together total? Two of which are Lecter just prodding Starling and talking about nothing terribly important. So what makes her so interesting to him? Because she's young and a woman? Their exchanges are pretty surface level, they don't really reach any depth until their final encounter which is only a few minutes. And none of Lecter's information he divulges really breaks the case, they would have eventually found Buffalo Bill anyways. And Starling somehow associates a lamb she tried to save to a kidnapped girl she's never even met on a case that she isn't even really assigned to? I don't know, it all seemed very thin.

2) So in the courthouse where Lecter is being held, there's an entire SWAT team on the bottom floor, fully armed and ready to go. On the floor where Lecter is being held are two 50-something guards, no cameras, backup, no surveillance, nothing. What the hell? What a terrible security job.
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They had great chemistry.
Hard to pull off with Hopkins only getting 15 mins screen time.
Going in, Demme was worried about Foster.
The studio was uneasy with Hopkins.
Foster had concerns about Demme, who had cut his teeth making goofy pictures.
And they all came up clutch in a work of conspicuous brilliance.

 

It's the greatest "scary/horror" film ever made.

 

Maybe I've missed the scene, but one part that always seems a little abrupt to me is when Starling calls her boss after finding the dress with the diamond patterns in the closet of the girl who was first killed, and the boss telling her "We know where he is." And then the FBI breaks down the door, and they don't find him.

Makes you wonder where the FBI got their info, and how they managed to fuck that up.

 

Bit of movie magic in the way those two scenes, one meant to run misdirection, were shot and stitched together seamlessly.
Mechanically - even just in terms of lensing - the movie is a marvel.

 

Thought Brian Cox was a more interesting and less campy Lecter in Manhunter. It did seem a bit odd that a criminal as notorious as Lecter was being secured more like a prized insect or zoo attraction than someone who was extremely dangerous.
It was incredibly shot, which is why I think it was viewed as a more serious film than it might have been in lesser hands. It took about eight years of Monk before I was able to "trust" Ted Levine again.