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August 20, 2008
How do we begin to covet?
Last night I watched The Silence of the Lambs on the tube. I had forgotten classic exchanges like the following:
Hannibal Lecter: First principles, Clarice. Simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius. Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature? What does he do, this man you seek?
Clarice Starling: He kills women...
Hannibal Lecter: No. That is incidental. What is the first and principal thing he does? What needs does he serve by killing?
Clarice Starling: Anger, um, social acceptance, and, huh, sexual frustrations, sir...
Hannibal Lecter: No! He covets. That is his nature. And how do we begin to covet, Clarice? Do we seek out things to covet? Make an effort to answer now.
Clarice Starling: No. We just...
Hannibal Lecter: No. We begin by coveting what we see every day.
Why do people focus so much on the line about eating the census taker with fava beans and a good Chianti? It is one of the corniest, weakest and least probable of Lector's in that film (silly boasting does not become him). And why couldn't the rest of the films in the series had writing like this?
Posted by dag at August 20, 2008 11:05 AM