Telling Starling not to get too close to the glass made no sense.

MikeHunt12345, the concern is that if Clarice appears vulnerable and trusting, then Hannibal will waste her time by constantly trying to manipulate and scare her. Through maintaining physical distance, the trainee demonstrates that she is not seeing the psychopath out of friendship and understands how dangerous the latter is. Hannibal digs in to Clarice's private life to feel power, but ultimately complies with his visitor's work. There wouldn't be an even exchange if the woman did not have a stoic approach, and that would bore the prisoner.

Covid, yo.

Agreed. That WAS an error, well done.

I disagree. For someone with the mental ability and cold hypnotic eyes as Hannibal getting close could help him "get in her head" more than if there was distance

Seems like a fairly standard and reasonable instruction for someone visiting a psychotic cannibal in a high security detention facility to me.

Hannibal made a man swallow his own tongue just by whispering to him, couple that kind of psychological manipulation with the power of his stare and he could hypnotise you. He’s highly resourceful at collecting objects and could potentially throw things through the air holes in the glass. Then there’s the tray he can operate - smashing that into Clarice could send her flying into the stone wall on the other side.

I was always surprised she reached into it to collect the towel when it was dark - I’d be paranoid Lecter would yank it back and take hold of your arm.

Apart from willingly suspending disbelief for purposes of dramatic tension, how about this? If she came too close to the glass, he could convince Clarice to reach through the air holes--and then bite off her fingers.