Silence is the more complex, and perhaps, more interesting film to my mind. Freeland argues that it presents two tales: an internal one, in which Buffalo Bill is evil simply because he transgresses traditional gender roles. The external one involves Lecter's relationship to Clarice and how they develop their individuality and their alliance. Lecter's evil stretches back to traditional monsters like Dracula in his ability to mesmerize and his fascination with blood. Lecter's evil becomes appealing because he functions as a mentor for Clarice, he resists categorization by normal science (Freeland discusses the attempts by the psychiatrist and Clarices' survey) and he's just an interesting monster. Lecter becomes an individual and creative artist who constructs his own particular moral code of self creation (like Nietzschean values). Thus, on the one hand, we have the inner story of the film that deals with the re-affirmation of patriarchal values (because Clarice must enter the world of the FBI through Lecter's help and become the heroine who saves the damsel in distress and defeats the bad guy), and the outer story that deals with individuality, transgression of social values, and creative resistance.
"Repulsion puts us in the head of the murderer and shows that this is an unbearable place to be, that she ended up there because of an unbearable world. The Silence of the Lambs holds us back from the head of its primary killer, but it slyly implies that this would be an interesting place to be and that he got there through creative resistance against a mediocre and boring world" (p. 211).
I think that Freeland has done an excellent job reading these films. However, I think her treatment is more of a dialogue with the idea of individuality and the triumph of the will of persons. Her take on evil is less convincing to me and seems to posit more of a fascination with wanting to see someone triumph in the face of adversity. I've listed a few problems I have. My suggestion here will make more sense in light of the idea of evil and its presence in the world and how these characters interact with it.
Problems With Her Take On Repulsion
(1) Page 192 discusses the sexual repression hypothesis for Carol's attitude. Though Freeland is quick to reject it, it seems very fitting for much of the film. Later, she seems to affirm some of it. On p. 195, "Repulsion strongly hints that Carol's psychosis and sexual repression stem from a history of child sexual abuse. Some disturbing sequences of the film convey Carol's nightmare memories of sexual assault." Now, Freeland believes that the POV identification with Carol and the evil as depicted as stemming from male sexuality render her a sympathetic figure. But this does not rule out sexual repression.
(2) Freeland argues that the audience is driven to empathize with Carol and consider her as someone who cannot make a genuine response to the generalized evil in the world. I find many problems here. On the one hand, Freeland suggests that male sex is the locus of evil, then moves on in p. 198 to suggest that it is free floating and external, perhaps located in the surroundings of the film, the other people, and even the gaze of the viewer. My question is, how has evil moved from male sex to this free floating entity?
(3) "Instead, Repulsion presents a sort of anti-narrative about the inability to act, a continual waiting, passivity, and suffering that is something out of Samuel Beckett rather than Sophocles" (p. 198.). That sums up part of her intuitions. This is why I think her treatise is more about personal willpower than evil. Evil doesn't need to be a prerequisite for the inability to act, nor does it need to be present for suffering, passivity or waiting. The evilness of male sexuality may be present in the film, that it doesn't entail the free floating, almost cosmic evil she is discussing. Freeland seems more concerned with the loss of personal will in a fragmented and disjointed world. She mentions how Carol's acts are more like reactions rather than authentic deeds. I see this as the anxiety over a loss of will, of which her account of evil is not necessary.
Problems With Her Take on Silence
*The significant problem here is the last one, which relates to the idea of personal will and individuality.
(1) "The audience is prepared to accept all this because of who Jodie Foster is and what she brings to her cinematic role here" (p. 204). Freeland believes Clarices' transgressive attitude is informed by Foster's sensibilities off screen. Perhaps it enhances it but does one need to be intimate with Foster's background in order to enjoy the film?
(2) "But The Silence of the Lambs leaves both characters alive at the end, able to pursue their own creation of self. 'Good' does not combat 'evil' here because they are in effect mirror images of one another, not polar opposites" (p. 209). This is part of Freeland's idea that both Clarice and Lecter practice an individual approach to life and their deeds. Lecter favors individual self creation and defeating the system, of which Clarice must partly do by consulting a maniacal character such as himself. Freeland underscores much of Lecter's evilness (and its appeal) in his creative artistry and his ability to beat the system and resist categorization while fostering intrigue and mystery, kind of like Dracula.
There are a few relevant points here. On the one hand, these characters aren't mirror images of one another. I think they simply share common methods and outlooks, as Freeland describes. Yet they are radically different - that's what she misses. On the other, Lecter's creative artistry and personal individuality tie into a bigger concept. They affirm the whole idea of the triumph of personal will that I brought up initially, but they also tie into the idea of evil as being ambivalent. In the film, I would argue that it isn't good or evil that's being involved, but simply evil combating other evils. This renders the notion of evil as nebulous - we don't know what evil is concretely. Is Lecter evil? He's helping out Clarice. What about Buffalo Bill? The dude seems irrevocably evil, yet he's doing his own thing and trying to follow his own personal code. What is good? What is evil? I see it less black and white than I think Freeland does.
Why Freeland's Take Amounts More Towards Will Rather Than Evil
Freeland's discussion need not involve concepts of evil. I think she does a great job fleshing out the appeal of it and how it works in these films, but I'm less convinced in her treatment of evil as a floating force in Repulsion. Evil in Silence seems more like an amoral take, rather than a specific type of evil. And in each case, the will of the protagonists is tested. Carol cannot react genuinely, and Clarice is threatened by the patriarchal world of the FBI that she is desperately trying to inhabit. She consults Lecter - the creative, individual genius - to learn how to cultivate her will and promulgate her own value system, much like Lecter's own moral code that distinguishes his killing from that of Buffalo Bill's. So, to my mind, Freeland's analysis tells us more about the anxieties of the loss of personal will, and how it completely fails in Repulsion but triumphs in Silence. That's why the two central characters (Clarice and Lecter) are left intact at the end.
Thus, I think that Freeland's analysis concerns traditional patriarchal values and all that jazz - but simultaneously, I don't think her treatment of evil gels very well because it concerns more of an anxiety about the individual and the exertion of our will. Now, those things can be threatened by evil, but I would like to see a better metaphysical description of exactly where evil comes from and what its nature is like. Freeland vacillates between male sexual evil and external, worldly evil in Repulsion, which leaves me a little confused. In Silence, she provides an excellent depiction of Lecter's evil as being informed by monsters like Dracula, with a touch of style and artistic flourish that speaks of a transvaluation of values. But these films assume evil that exists in the world from the present - or, that's at least how I read Freeland and her account. I'm interested in exactly what makes evil truly evil, and how these characters incarnate it in their actions and deeds. Her suggestion that we enjoy Lecter's evil because it's about "beating the system" and his interesting character seems more about that exertion of will against the facticity of the universe (to borror Sartre).
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