I've been aware of the American Flag depictions in Jonathan Demme's Silence Of The Lambs since I first saw it. A huge flag drapes the car in the storage unit, there's a large flag in the killers house above his sewing table, and at the end when the window is shot out a small flag falls into frame and waves in the dust and sunlight. All these images were obviously placed there purposely and provide a subtext to the film (what that subtext is, I'll leave for smarter viewers than myself). But when someone asked me the other day exactly how many flags were depicted throughout the film, I had no idea. My guess would have been 5 or 6 - the 3 just mentioned which I remembered, plus a few I'm sure I never noticed.
A semi in-depth Google search came up empty. There were many discussions of the meaning of the symbolism (most too far-reaching for my taste), but no where could I find a complete list of flag depictions or an exact number. So I watched the movie again and the answer is...a lot.
If you just count actual American flags, there are, I believe, 10 plus several more on the uniforms of the police that are guarding Lecter in Tennessee (they each have a flag patch on the arm). There are 3 main actors where the patch is prominently shown, so 13 would be my answer for actual individual flags in the movie.
However, since the director is undoubtedly pushing the red, white and blue symbolism, there are many more instances that would go unnoticed in any other movie. I found at least 16 other images that could be considered representative of Old Glory. Here are just a few...
- When Clarice first meets Lecter, before she is taken down the hallway there is a board with 6 photos - 5 of them black and white, the sixth is a black and white portrait overlayed on red, white and blue stripes.
- The TV News graphic for the Buffalo Bill story includes wavy red, white and gray stripes.
- The body in the Tennessee gymnasium is strung-up with a red, white and blue banner (I should have remembered that one)
- When Starling searches the first murder victims room she finds a photo of her wearing a blue jacket with a red and white striped scarf
- Precious' dog bed is blue and white - not unusual, but there's red object (dog toy?) conspicuously placed in it
- When Starling is driving in Belvedere, she passes a wooded area where the trees are completely bare - except for a red, cloth object hanging on a branch in the distance (it's just as likely a flag as anything else)
At a certain point you start seeing red, white and blue symbolism everywhere (on purpose, coincidental, or just plain imagined - I don't know). There's a scene where a blue car is parked next to a red car against a white wall...and it's right across the street from a Pepsi machine (red, white and blue logo - was this originally an Orange Crush or 7-Up machine that was replaced with a color appropriate cola to drive home the theme even further?).
All told I found 29 images (actual flags plus representations) that could be legitimately argued as purposefully added to the film for a statement, plus another 7 or 8 that could be included if you're paranoid and/or insane. And all this doesn't include the Senator's daughter loudly singing Tom Petty's American Girl just before she's kidnapped.
To be honest, I don't get it. The flags are more prevalent around evil characters and evil deeds, but in the end good triumphs over evil and light shines on the flag. It doesn't really matter - I had fun watching the movie again (although it took about 3 1/2 hours with all the freeze framing) and now I have a trivia answer I didn't have before - 13 flags and 16 flag-like images.
Here the James Bond Baddies answers from the other day...
- No Hands - Dr. No
- Mute - Oddjob (Goldfinger)
- One Eye - Largo (Thunderball)
- Prosthetic Arm - Tee Hee (Live and Let Die)
- Three Nipples - Scaramanga (The Man With The Golden Gun)
- Deformed Ear - Elektra King (The World Is Not Enough)
- Face Scarred with Diamonds - Zao (Die Another Day)
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