Essay Questions

The film shows a clear difference between categorizing criminals and profiling them. What is the difference and why is this important?

Both Hannibal Lecter and Buffalo Bill are serial killers. They are also both psychopaths. To the media and the general public, these classifications are the same. Psychopaths kill people. Serial killers kill alot of people. Therefore, the two terms are interchangeable. For the law enforcement community this is largely true. A murderer is considered to be someone who kills more than two people. Although psychopathy is diagnosed using a complex set of mental health tests and criteria, not all psychopaths are serial killers. Many serial killers are not psychopaths but sociopaths, a slight difference, admittedly, but a difference nonetheless. These are the terms used by mental health professionals and law enforcement professionals to categorize, prioritize and classify the person they are looking for.

There is, though, a difference between classifying a person as a serial killer and profiling them, the latter being the task of Jack Crawford and Clarice Starling. Profiling is more about the individual. It looks for what is motivating the killings; when does the serial killer mostly murder? Where does he draw his victims from? What is common amongst the victims? All of these questions are specific, and help build a picture of a person, rather than of a clinical diagnosis. The difference is also summed up by the way in which Crawford and Starlng view Lecter, and the way in which Chilton does. To Chilton all of his prisoners are essentially the same, which means that he does not take time to really profile, or study, Lecter. This makes him feel that he has the advantage over him, and that he can manipulate him easily. This could not be further from the truth. Anger against Chilton builds up in Lecter so that when he does get the opportunity to escape, killing Chilton is his number one priority.

How is Dr Lecter presented in the movie to emphasize how dangerous he is?

The way in which Lecter is filmed usually makes the precautions taken around him seem a little over the top. For example, he has he end cell and a double the number of locks than his fellow prisoners, even though at first glance he appears much smaller and less physically able to overpower anyone than they do. When he is transferred from the prison he is put in a straitjacket, and made to wear a face mask similar to an animal muzzle. This emphasizes to the viewer that he is capable of biting a chunk out of a man's face even when fully restrained. Throughout the film, Lecter's cannibalism is referred to visually as well as by his own words. It becomes obvious that cannibalism is not just something he enjoys but something that he needs to do. Unless muzzled, he will bite.

His imprisonment in a giant cage within a building is also visual overkill. Although a compact and clearly well-built man, he is by no means the physically largest of the male cast. Yet he is kept in a cage big enough for a giant. This again emphasizes the irony of Dr Lecter and the danger of underestimating him; he poses an enormous threat, and his prison arrangements emphasize this.