Fridge / The Silence of the Lambs

WARNING: The Fridge page is for post-viewing discussions and thus has unmarked spoilers. Tread carefully.

Fridge examples for The Silence of the Lambs.

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Fridge Brilliance

• While Hannibal tries to keep an air of class and superiority and claims he eats "rude people" and people he needs to kill to escape, he ate the face off a nurse who was trying to help him, right off her head, like a wild animal. This clashes with all of his characterization, but it explains how he can tell that Gumb's basic nature has nothing to do with killing and everything to do with coveting, because the truth is, his own first and principal thing he does is killing people. It apparently takes one to know one.
  • In 'defence' of Lecter's apparent hypocrisy in this instance, firstly he only stated that he preferred to eat the rude, and secondly we don't know what his relationship with that nurse was like outside of this instance; just because the nurse was doing the job at that moment didn't mean that she wasn't antagonistic towards Lecter on other occasions.
    • Considering that it occurred at Chilton's facility, it'd make sense that a lot of staff were just as equally rude (or may have kept a professional distance from their prisoners) as he was, with Barney being the only exception (this may be why Lector left Barney alone, because he treated Lecter not only with some respect but as a human being).
• When Hannibal is visited a second time by Clarice, he's being made to watch a gospel program by Chilton as a form of punishment for making Miggs kill himself; Hannibal Rising depicts a younger Hannibal as a vehement atheist, so of course this would be annoying to Hannibal.
• When Clarice finally confides in Hannibal the reason she's motivated to become an FBI agent, Hannibal is not simply pleased with having manipulated her. Look at his face and listen to his tone when he thanks her: he's going through an emotional process far more profound than that, namely a Heel–Face Turn or Love Redeems, culminating near the end of Hannibal, when he chopped off his own hand to avoid doing it to Clarice when he has no other means of escape. Clarice showed him what a profound urge for good looks like, which is what might have finally redeemed him.
  • This only applies for the films. In the novel, he settles down with Clarice instead, and it's never indicated whether or not he is ultimately redeemed. Instead, he just realizes she'd be a good ersatz-Mischa.
• Hannibal famously said of one victim that he "ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti." Liver, fava beans, and wine all contain a substance called tyramine, which can cause a severe reaction in any person taking an MAO inhibitor drug. MAO inhibitors, in turn, are one of the first antidepressants and were a regular part of the drug regimen given to people in insane asylums before safer antidepressants became available. Thus, anyone committed to an insane asylum—such as Hannibal Lecter himself—would have been forbidden from consuming liver, fava beans, or Chianti.
  • In the novel, the wine Lecter mentions is Amarone, which is a more appropriate pairing with liver in gourmet eating, and also contains a high level of tyramine.
• When Hannibal tells Senator Martin "Love your suit", he's not referring to what she's wearing. He's referring to her daughter, because he knows what Buffalo Bill is going to do to her.
• During their first meeting, Clarice asks Hannibal about one of his drawings and he replies that it's the Duomo, as seen from the Belvedere. We later discover that Jame Gumb lives in Belvedere, Ohio. He was dropping Clarice little hints from the beginning.
• Before escaping from the Tennessee jail, Lecter hands the Buffalo Bill case file back to Clarice. After Lecter escapes, Clarice finds a message written by Lecter on a map in the case file. Lecter escaped by using a piece of Dr. Chilton's pen to unlock his handcuffs, so he must have written the message on the map using that pen before being taken to Tennessee. If Clarice had read through the case file immediately after Lecter returned it to her, she could have discovered the written message, realized that Lecter had access to a pen, and notified the Tennessee authorities, possibly preventing Lecter's escape.

Fridge Horror

• Bill's "woman suit" would have broken down and decayed eventually. How many times and for how long would he have gone on his killing sprees in order to keep making new ones?
  • Clarice makes it clear she believe Bill will continue to kill, never stopping. "He's got a taste for it now."
  • The book closed that loophole: Bill tans his victims' skins, and has apparently learned, through trial and error, that the Native American belief that every animal has enough brain tissue to fully treat its hide is incorrect, thus he keeps a chest freezer full of beef brains.
• The autopsy of Buffalo Bill's latest victim, not just from the perspective of rookie FBI agent Clarice Starling but the two local men who assist the FBI investigators during the examination, Dr Akin and Lamar the mortician. Whilst both of them put on a decent show of dispassionate professionalism and clearly wouldn't be squeamish around corpses given their occupations - they notably abstain from smearing Vapo-Rub under their noses as the FBI agents do - they're nonetheless clearly disturbed by the nature of the victim they are examining. Lamar, upon opening the body bag, visibly grimaces at the sight (and presumably the smell) of the mutilated, decomposing girl, and Akin hangs around just long enough to establish that the cause of death was wrongful and leaves with a grim sigh of "Lord Almighty". It's not unreasonable to assume that this is the worst case of homicide either men would have encountered in a rural small town.
• The last we see of Doctor Lecter, he's walking after Chilton on the island of Bimini. This island, part of the Bahamas, is one of the closest islands to Miami, off the coast of Florida. Will Graham and his family live in Florida. Did Lector pay them a visit before he fled the country?!
  • Assuming that Graham still lives in Florida. It was years between the events of Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs in book form. And we do not know how long it was between the last time we see Will in the film and the ending scene (which could have taken place years later after Will and his family relocated due to Lector sending Dollarhye after them, them waiting for Will to make some of the recovery from his injuries when he received the letter).
  • Also assuming Graham didn't grab his family and run the second the FBI alerted him about Lecter's escape.
• After beating one of the policeman to death during his escape, Lecter turns his attention to the other one still alive and says "Ready when you are." He says this as the policemen said it to him when he was in custody, but also because he's going to cut off the other policeman's face and use it as a disguise. In essence, he's asking the policeman if he's ready to have his face cut off.

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