Did anyone feel some undertones of sexism towards Clarice throughout the movie, for almost every male character in the movie had a scene with a close-up with Clarice that looked and feeled somewhat like the scenes with Hannibal. Or maybe the close-up was more meant to be something along the lines with, that all men have the potential to become deranged like Hannibal.
Your thoughts?
If the point was "all men could be deranged like Hannibal" then I would call that sexist lol.
I think the point was just that Clarice was a young, female, intelligent FBI student who was somewhat looked down upon by all the men in her field. The scene that really showed this was when they were at the morgue/funeral home thing looking at the body they just found and clarice is left alone for a second in the room full of like 15 male police officers and it's intentionally uncomfortable. Then she asks them to please leave so they can get to work and hey hesitate for a second to sort of be like, "uhh excuse me?" But if a male FBI agent said the exact same words the officers wouldn't have questioned it or hesitated at all.
Haha yeah your are right about your first point. That's a bit of an contradiction.
And i agree with your second point, but i still think that there were some level of "this is a mans world" type of vibe in her line of work.
Undertones?
It was handled with a very ham-fisted, almost parodical way.
It's sad that anyone needs this to be explained.
Extreme close-ups are a distinct trademark of Jonathan Demme, also clearly utilized (and just as overdone) in "Philadelphia." They don't have anything to do with sexism or whatnot. He's just obsessed with extreme close-ups, which is probably why he hasn't helmed a decent project in years.
If you're referring to scenes where practically every man Clarice encounters, even in passing (such as among the background players), just gawks at her in the most lurid and vulgar way, like they've never seen a woman before, then yes, that is also very much intentional.
As another poster here wrote, the theme of sexism is blatant and obvious, almost to the point of absurdity, but not quite, especially considering the hostile work environment women found themselves when pursuing careers in law enforcement and the military.
This was a fairly common thematic technique of that era, and Demme is even more blatant in "Philadelphia," which was so extreme in its political correctness that even LGBT activists thought its handling of homophobia was too hamfisted and unrealistic.
>the theme of sexism is blatant and obvious, almost to the point of absurdity
Is it? I am not so sure
I didn't feel that at all. There were multiple scenes with close-ups of Clarice, often staring right into the camera (opposite POV as her conversant, whether it was Crawford or Lector). The impact on the viewer depended much on the expression of the actor. When Starling and Crawford were shown in close-up, they were sympathetic. When Chilton and Lector were shown in close-up, they were despicable (Chilton) or scary (Lector). When Gumb was shown in close-up, it was freaky. It never left me with the impression that close-ups were used to suggest all men have the potential to become deranged, although one scene (just prior to the autopsy scene) did use close-ups to show how Clarice had to overcome a male-dominated town police force.
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