The scene: Night vision
Jonathan Demme’s Oscar-winning thriller makes good on all its pent-up tension with a finale that takes the “killer cam” idea to terrifying new levels. Having just clocked that Jame Gumb (Ted Levine) is ‘Buffalo Bill,’ the killer she’s been tracking – with the help of imprisoned cannibal Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) – Jodie Foster’s Agent Clarice Starling suddenly finds herself plunged into complete darkness in the murderer’s home and desperately trying to orient herself. Demme shoots the scene from Gumb’s point-of-view, through the killer’s night vision goggles, forcing us to watch a seemingly helpless Clarice as she is silently stalked and even taunted, Gumb reaching out a hand to just inches from her face. The sequence was reportedly shot over a 22-hour period and its influence lives in on the found-footage/screen life genre.
