Popular Culture Review Vol. 2, No. 2, July 1991 | Page 47

A Sheep in W olfs Clothing

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building itself, it waits for her from room to room. At one point the
camera has become so engrossed in detailing the objects which line a
hall shelf, that it very nearly misses her entrance into the extreme
right-hand portion of the frame as she she walks through to her
destination. In fact it isn't until she is confronted with the clippings
regarding Buffalo Bill which are tacked up in Crawford's office that
we, the audience and the camera, really see what Clarise is seeing.
Point-of-view shots and even basic eye-line matches are held to a
disturbing minimum where Clarise is concerned. Situations involving
fear or her attactment to the past are those wherein the camera
identifies most strongly with Clarise. Of course as a psychiatrist, Dr.
Lector is concerned with these same situations regarding Clarise.
The strongest example of the conflicting statements made by
the camera about Clarise involves the sequence at the funeral parlor
where Clarise will experience first-hand the handiwork of Buffalo
Bill. First we are given the world around her. Crawford asks the
local sheriff to adjourn to another room to avoid discussing this "sex”
crime in front of Clarise. As he and the sheriff leave, the camera
pans from face to face (at a slight low angle to emphasize their
imposing stature) as the male officers, one by one, fix their stares upon
Clarise (shot at a slight high angle to emphasize her lack of
physical presence). When the camera cuts to her reaction, we see her
squirming, anxious. She turns her back to the men and, consequently,
to the camera as she fidgets with her coat and scarf. Then something
catches her eye. At this point the camera becomes undoubtedly
subjective as Clarise walks toward an open casket. Here we are seeing
more than what Clarise is seeing in a strictly material sense; we are
now seeing what she is thinking, what drives her, what clouds her
vision. As she nears the casket the camera cuts to a view from inside
the casket to reveal the ten-year-old Clarise mourning the loss of her
father, a man who in life, must not have been too far removed from
the sensibilities of the men who had previously made her so
uncomfortable.
Here is a paradigm for the thorny issue of identification seen in
various sequences throughout the film. Demme’s camera at once
assaults Clarise with her "differentness" from the world around her
and then identifies with her deluded perspective, thus creating a
disturbing dialectic which drives the entire film, a dialectic
examined by Lector and exploited by Crawford. Her relationships