View Full Version : The Silence Of The Lambs
Babygurl20
08-07-2005, 09:59 PM
Just got through reading this book and was amazed by how much better it was than the movie. I never really like books better than movies, but this one was actually way better. It went into detail more about what was happening and had parts in it that were horrific but they were left out of the movie. I beleive that if they had followed the book, scene by scene, chapter by chapter, it would have been so much better. I mean, don't get me wrong, it was an excellent movie. But I recommend the book to anyone.
Has anyone else read the book? If so, I'd like to hear your thoughts on it. Whether you agree with me or not. I still beleive it was an astounding book and very well written.
jenna26
08-08-2005, 11:11 AM
The movie was great and honestly, they did the absolute best they could , I believe(hard to follow a book exactly, because films and books are so very different). The book really was far better though. I found it deeply unsettling. But if you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend Red Dragon. Personally I think it is the best Harris book (and Hannibal was just so disappointing). Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs both have some incredibly well-written moments of suspense that are just absolutely blood chilling.:eek:
urgeok
08-08-2005, 11:56 AM
Originally posted by jenna26
The movie was great and honestly, they did the absolute best they could , I believe(hard to follow a book exactly, because films and books are so very different). The book really was far better though. I found it deeply unsettling. But if you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend Red Dragon. Personally I think it is the best Harris book (and Hannibal was just so disappointing). Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs both have some incredibly well-written moments of suspense that are just absolutely blood chilling.:eek:
the crap excuse for a book 'hannibal' is a direct result of a writer being swallowed up by the hollywood machine ..
either that or he just didnt have that much left in him.
i think it was the influence of the movies myself ... hannibal the character becoming some superhuman anti-hero because the movie audiences couldnt get enough of him ...
sort of like Dr Evil running away with the Austin Powers movies :)
meetthecreeper
08-08-2005, 12:45 PM
Red Dragon is an excellent book.
I also think that the film Manhunter was good too. The remake was a piece of shit. Even with a cast of great actors it still sucked.
I mean every line in the film save for a few scenes were the exact same lines in Manhunter. It would not have surprised me if they used the same script.
Hollywood needs to quit with the recycling.
KrimsonReaper
08-08-2005, 04:30 PM
I have read all of the books, and while I must say that at first I hated Hannibal, I think that was just because I had built it up too much in my mind. It was a highly anticipated novel, and I don't think that it could ever have been good enough to live up to the hype. Kind of like the Star Wars prequels, and the last Dark Tower books. If a long time goes between installments in a series, people get all of these ideas in their heads about what they think the book should be. About what they want to happen. But they are not the author, and the author's vision is very often vastly different. So people get disappointed. I am positive that the same thing will happen with the end of the Harry Potter series. It will be impossible for it to live up to people's expectations.
Go back and reread Hannibal. It is much more enjoyable the second go around, especially if you've already got it in your head not to expect a great novel. The truth is you find that it is. Not as great as the first two, IMHO, but a damn good book. It is much more cerebral than the first two. You get inside Hannibal's head a bit and get to learn his motivations and weaknesses. That is an underrated thing these days, because people want ACTION ACTION ACTION! There is more to it than that. The movie did it a grand injustice.
jenna26
08-08-2005, 07:09 PM
I think Urge hit on why Hannibal was so disappointing. I did read it twice, because someone else suggested I do so. To be honest, it felt like Harris didn't even know his own characters anymore. And that is why it was such a letdown to me. It wasn't the direction the book itself took, but the direction the characters took. It seemed very wrong somehow. And I don't begrudge a writer the right to his vision, but it was weak; especially compared to the previous novels.
urgeok
08-11-2005, 05:03 AM
Originally posted by jenna26
I think Urge hit on why Hannibal was so disappointing. I did read it twice, because someone else suggested I do so. To be honest, it felt like Harris didn't even know his own characters anymore. And that is why it was such a letdown to me. It wasn't the direction the book itself took, but the direction the characters took. It seemed very wrong somehow. And I don't begrudge a writer the right to his vision, but it was weak; especially compared to the previous novels.
an author shouldnt write a book in anticipation that there will immediately be a movie made from it.
thats exactly what Hannibal felt like ...
Harris writing with a producer standing over his shoulder - with a fistfull of money.
Babygurl20
08-11-2005, 06:28 AM
Originally posted by urgeok
an author shouldnt write a book in anticipation that there will immediately be a movie made from it.
thats exactly what Hannibal felt like ...
Harris writing with a producer standing over his shoulder - with a fistfull of money.
I second that opinion. Also, I can't stand when there are sequels and one of the main characters has suddenly changed. If Jodie Foster refused to do it. They should have just dropped the whole 'lets make a movie on this book' idea.
The_Return
08-11-2005, 07:21 AM
Originally posted by Babygurl20
I second that opinion. Also, I can't stand when there are sequels and one of the main characters has suddenly changed. If Jodie Foster refused to do it. They should have just dropped the whole 'lets make a movie on this book' idea.
I agree, but IMO, Julianne Moore still did a great job. Albiet, nowhere near as great as Jodie Foster would have, but she still played it well, IMO
jenna26
08-11-2005, 09:38 AM
Originally posted by The_Return
I agree, but IMO, Julianne Moore still did a great job. Albiet, nowhere near as great as Jodie Foster would have, but she still played it well, IMO
I will say that she did the best with what she was given to work with. It wasn't easy on her walking into a role that everyone already so strongly identified with Foster. But the movie was mediocre for reasons that had nothing to do with her.
I agree Urge....it did feel as if he were influenced in that way. If he didn't have the creative vision for another one, he should have let his characters rest in peace rather than forcing it just so the powers that be would have another moneymaker on their hands. But that is how it happens, not likely to change anytime soon. It is disappointing when a decent writer gets pulled in like that though.
urgeok
08-11-2005, 09:44 AM
Originally posted by jenna26
I will say that she did the best with what she was given to work with. It wasn't easy on her walking into a role that everyone already so strongly identified with Foster. But the movie was mediocre for reasons that had nothing to do with her.
I agree Urge....it did feel as if he were influenced in that way. If he didn't have the creative vision for another one, he should have let his characters rest in peace rather than forcing it just so the powers that be would have another moneymaker on their hands. But that is how it happens, not likely to change anytime soon. It is disappointing when a decent writer gets pulled in like that though.
i think Rowlings - who is in the best position in all of book-movie history to have had this happen - has fared a lot better.
after reading the last potter it seems she is following her origional plans for her books and only the tiniest nonconcequential influences of the films are sneaking through
horror_master
08-11-2005, 09:57 AM
I haven't read the book yet, but now I want to. I saw the movie the movies was pretty good. :)
jenna26
08-11-2005, 10:04 AM
Originally posted by urgeok
i think Rowlings - who is in the best position in all of book-movie history to have had this happen - has fared a lot better.
after reading the last potter it seems she is following her origional plans for her books and only the tiniest nonconcequential influences of the films are sneaking through
You're right, in fact, I personally haven't really felt the influence of the films at all in her books yet. She is in a slightly better position though, I think, because she had such a clear idea of where the books were heading. She knew pretty much from the start how many books there would be, what paths her character were going to take. Hell, she already has the last chapter of series written. So she is writing toward an idea that is completely untainted by the films and their success.
urgeok
08-11-2005, 10:55 AM
Originally posted by jenna26
You're right, in fact, I personally haven't really felt the influence of the films at all in her books yet. She is in a slightly better position though, I think, because she had such a clear idea of where the books were heading. She knew pretty much from the start how many books there would be, what paths her character were going to take. Hell, she already has the last chapter of series written. So she is writing toward an idea that is completely untainted by the films and their success.
yeah i was thinking the same points ...
still though - it has to be a pretty powerful lure .. she now has a lot of caught on film substance to her imagery .. thats hard to ignore once you've seen it.
i did catch a couple of things in the last book that were particularily descriptive ...that seemed to come from the movie .. i cant remember it all and it was so small it didnt taint my experience .. but they definately had to come from the filmmakers fleshing out of her vision ..
this woman is going to be the richest person in the world if these things are done correctly ..
Personally, I think Harris has been going down-hill sense Red Dragon. RD is a wonderful book - intelligent, haunting, fast-paced - really the ideal "profiler/serial killer" book - which I suppose is why so many people have imitated it. SOL was a fair book, a bit bloated and under-developed, and the film was actually better than the book - tight, stream-lined, more impact. Hannibal was excessively bloated. But, contrary to Urgeok's opinion, I think Harris wrote the book to be unfilmable - a kind of "hey, try to adapt this psycho-philosophical babble" into a thriller. Of course, Demme wouldn't /couldn't do it - and Ridley Scott just wanted to show someone eating his own brain (which helped the film break records for opening of an R-rated film!).
I doubt there will be another Hannibal book - or that Harris will ever write anything of worth again. Maybe he'll go back to reporting for that newspaper in Waco.
urgeok
08-12-2005, 10:39 AM
unfilmable ?
i didnt think so at all .. every page was full of 'lets give the people what they want. (the movie audiences - not the harris fans)
no book is unfilmable ... at least 3 or 4 Kurt Vonnegut's books have been adapted to film and they are far more complex and
surreal than anything Harris wrote ..
what made you think it was unfilmable ?
Originally posted by urgeok
unfilmable ?
i didnt think so at all .. every page was full of 'lets give the people what they want. (the movie audiences - not the harris fans)
no book is unfilmable ... at least 3 or 4 Kurt Vonnegut's books have been adapted to film and they are far more complex and
surreal than anything Harris wrote ..
what made you think it was unfilmable ?
I think the long forays into the "palace of the memory" excursion into philosophical ruminations, the graphic violence and the screwed up "role-reversal" ending. My feeling at the time, though I could clearly be all-kinds-of-wrong, was that Harris was trying to make a book so utterly "not-silence" that it would either escape the fame of the previous book - or so infuriate fans of SOL (film and book) that it would break the "chains of success". Who knows?? Apparently Thomas Harris is intensely reclusive - so there's really no way of knowing. I just recall that the initial reactions in the press (and in hollywood trade publications) was that the film would be a really hard sell. That, apparently, is part of why Jonathan Demme and Jodie Foster ditched out.
That said, there are clearly some "edge-of-your-seat" moments that seem very cinematic.