The Silence of the Lambs - Observations

Producer and Director of the movie The Silence of the Lambs could never have imagined that the movie would earn them over 10 times of movie budget. Success of the movie goes to screenplay, background music, dialogues and Anthony Hopkins. If the role of cleric starling would have been played by a male character ( like in Red Dragon ) the movie might not achieve so much volume. Still, Jodie foster was great in the movie. My observations on the movie are :

• Anthony Hopkins made the character Dr. Hannibal immortal. His eyes , expressions and delivery of dialogues were so effective that audience can never forget. Even an ordinary words were spoken in a different fashion. For eg. " Good Evening Gentlemen " ... he told to police guards , seems to be ordinary but it contained a plan and smell of possible action by Dr. Lecter. The character of Dr. Hannibal was offered to Sean Connery , however it was given to Anthony after rejection by Sean. It happened for good. I would be delighted to see Sean in a Psycopath
• Role of Agent starling was not very extraordinary. But perhaps Jodie was made for that. It was her bad luck that she was not available for the same role in the sequel " Hannibal" so  kudos went in favour of Julianne Moore. Hannibal could talk as he was motivated to meet a lady , a sweet lady otherwise perhaps he would not be interested to meet anyone else. If we see Red Dragon , in the last scene, he was asked if he would meet a lady special agent and he showed his interest to meet her.
• The background music of the movie was very effective to maintain the interest of viewers in watching movie
• Directors did well to make scenes horrible. Specially, kidnaping a lady and putting her in a well, sex change by a man , his peculiar behaviour, chambers and rooms in the basement, corpses. .... all adding more psycho elements. Cutting the face of policeman and using the face by Hannibal is totally a new thing for modern cinema. Even a butcher may feel shame on such a heinous act. Blood on the mouth of Hannibal made him like a soft spoken ghost.
• After Hannibal , we are waiting for the sequel in which Hannibal will be seen with one hand...

Goodwill Hunting - Masterpiece !!

Goodwill Hunting is a master piece by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. It is the generosity of Ben Affleck that he let Matt to play the most important role in the movie and he himself played the role of a side hero. I was shocked to see that both the heroes are the writers of the movie. Both of them were too young to write such a wonderful screen play that earned over 250 million Dollars. Robin Williams was simply costlier in those days and he was not very easy to achieve but the film makers achieved to include him in the star cast. My observations on the movie are


1. Matt Damon was looked very sober in the movie , his dresses , hairstyles were not matching with the character he played in the movie. Matt with some more hair, funky style clothes could be more justified for his role


2. The female lead character was played by Minnie Driver who looked at least five years older than Matt. In those days, Winnona Ryder, Uma , Gwyneth Paltrow or other high school drama movies lady character could be better. Minnie has a full size face which did not match with Matt. The actinv of Minnie was very ordinary. The movie was a great hit .. all loved movie ... but Minnie was a bad choice.


3. Robin Williams - My god ... he was the character who justified the role. His character was rock solid. The smile of Robin was marvellous. His dress style, beard , his pain in his eyes and argument style with his friend maths professor were excellent. I mentioned , Matt and Ben were too young to write for a movie like Goodwill Hunting hence once you watch the movie ... one can see , dialogues of Robin Williams lacked much gravity. However, it was Robin's skill which did not let people think that his dialogues were very ordinary. The repetitive lines .. " IT WAS NOT YOUR FAULT" ... that was the icebreaker in the movie and made all the differences. It was the scene which defined the depth of he movie and broke the character " Will " into tears..


4. The movie also says that one who gets jobs in prestigious institutions are for show piece only. An award or working for a prestigious institution does not guarantee good education. Love and personal satisfaction are more important than high fi career and awards.


5. Matt's friends roles were good. Ben Affleck , was looking good and some of his dialogues with Matt were really good to see. Ben now a days .. is an accomplished character