Watch Silence of the Lambs.
Next, write your comment. Your comment does not need to provide an overview of the movie (we have all seen it). Your comment should be an in-depth analysis of the elements of the movie that are accurate and inaccurate in terms of profiling. You should use scenes and characters to provide examples of textbook/lecture concepts (and discuss their accuracy).
First off I would like to say that I really really loved this movie. I had never seen it before and I thought it to be absolutely fascinating and a great way to segway into profiling.
There was a lot of profiling done by Hannibal Lector in the film for the most part. He sometimes would walk Clarice though what he was thinking and how he was coming up with his conclusions but for the most part what we found out about Buffalo Bill was directly from Lector's assumptions. I think being a psychiatrist himself in his past life (before criminal) really helped him in thinking like Buffalo Bill would. Buffalo Bill was unfortunately the killer of one of Lector's former patients and that's how he knew about the head.
There was almost no geographical profiling in the film and almost all of it relied on psychological profiling. They included Lector in the case in the first place to get themselves a serial killer that they could try and think like Buffalo Bill in an attempt to catch him.
Similar to Hannibal Lector and eating off the faces of his victims, Buffalo Bill had a signature also. He would cut off the skin of his victims after they were dead and in the end of the film you discovered that this was in an attempt to make a full suit out of women's skin to complete his transformation as a transsexual. Buffalo Bill's MO was also very distinctive. He would kidnap his victims and keep them for a couple of day so that he could make sure that their skin was soft and moist enough for his suit to last. He would keep them in a well and make sure that they put on lotion to moisturize their skin or else he would spray them with a hose.
Based on the reading I would believe Buffalo Bill to be a mix of a hedonistic serial killer and a power-oriented serial killer. He liked to see himself in power when he was standing over his victims in the well but he also had a sort of sadistic sexual pleasure when cutting off and wearing their skin.
One of the things that I really enjoyed about Clarice's character was that she made a valiant effort to create a relationship with Lector so that he would feel comfortable telling her things and they could get more information that would save people's lives. After a while she wasn't very much afraid of him as she was fascinated, like I was when introduced to Lector's character.
I think when Bill answered the door to his house when Clarice went, exemplifies that people can change and be someone they're not very quickly. Very quickly did Bill change from a sadistic killer to a normal everyday guy answering the door. This brings in doubts about how accurate profiling can be if people have the ability to change that quickly.
Key Terms: profiling, serial killer, geographical profiling, psychological profiling, hedonistic, power-oriented, signature, Method of operation
There is an abundance of cognitive and behavioral psych that went into creating the characters in this film. Many of the characters, including some of the investigators struggle with internal issues that make them who they are.
The first character we meet is Clarice Starling. Clarice is currently in schooling and is alos training to become part of the FBI. Clarice's education is halted when she is assigned to a case that involves a serial killer. The killer, known as Buffalo Bill, is a repeatedly killing, and skins his victims post-mortem.
Clarice's first assignment of the investigation is to go visit Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a former psychologist who turned into a serial killer himself. While lethal, Lecter can offer a in depth analysis of Buffalo Bill, and the FBI uses him to do so. Starling is informed to strictly talk about the investigation to Lecter, and to not discuss her private life.
Starling's first visit to Lecter involves her questioning him on his thoughts about the case. While Lecter does offer some insight on Starling's investigation, the conversation soon turns to Clarice's private life. Lecter manipulate's Starling, and soon has her mind in the palm of his hands. Her past is brought to the surface and Lecter uses that to his advantage to get closer to Starling. Lecter also believes that Buffalo Bill may be connected to one of his previous patients, and sends Starling on a search.
Lecter's behavior proves to be both frightening and interesting. His cognitive abilities and intelligence seem to be uncanny. While he is a serial killer, Lecter is also very smart, and still has the ability to analyze people. His manipulative ways played a role in his serial killing. His behavior in the killings included killing his victims, and ingesting their body parts.
This pattern of killing is a sign of intelligence. Criminals who kill randomly tend to be ranked lower on the intelligence scale. Lecter's psychology background not only adds to his intelligence, but also aided him in reeling his victims in.
Clarice is also intelligent when it comes to analyzing criminals and the psychology behind their behavior. One example of this is when she is riding in the car to go see the 3rd victim of Buffalo Bill. She informs her chief that Buffalo Bill will keep on killing until he caught. She explains this is due to the pattern in his killings, and makes the connection behind intelligent serial killers.
Both Lecter and Starling profile Buffalo Bill accurately, using what they know about the patterns in his serial killing. Intelligence plays a key role in the success of his murders, and also adds organization to his crimes. While he does pick at random, the pattern that Buffalo Bill displays shows both Lecter and Starling that he does not lack intelligence.
Lecter uses his knowledge to make Clarice's past become part of the investigation. Lecter notices that Clarice has become very determined on finding the victim alive, and begins to make connections behind her behavior. Towards the end of the film, Lecter interrogates Starling, asking her question after question about her childhood. We then learn that Starling suffered two traumatic events during this time.
One of the events was the death of her father. While examining the 3rd victim, Starling peeks her head into the visitation, and observes her surroundings. This takes Clarice back to her childhood, and she is reminded of her own father's visitation. The traumatization of this event seems to drive Clarice.
After the death of her father, Clarice is sent to live with her aunt and uncle. Here, she witnesses the slaying of baby lambs, which leads us to the second traumatizing event. Clarice feels guilt for not saving one of the lambs. Lecter examines Clarice and tells her he thinks that she has carried these feelings with her, and makes the connection with her current investigation. The reason that Clarice is so intent on finding Buffalo Bill's fourth victim, is because she could not save the baby lamb as a child, and it has stuck with her to adulthood.
The final main character in the film, is Buffalo Bill himself. We learn towards the end of the movie that Buffalo Bill is gay, and is struggling with his sexuality. He uses him victims to create a new identity, and is making a skin coat out of their flesh, post mortem. Not only does these killings satisfy Bill's need to maintain control, but he also uses it as a way to find himself, and create a new identity.
Starling uses Lecter's annotations to aid her further in the investigation. She soon finds out that Buffalo Bill knew his first victim, and uses this knowledge to track him down. He is identified as James Gumb by Starling, who notifies the FBI.
The FBI set up a trap, and attempt to bring Gumb in. Unfortunately, Gumb has switched locations. Starling moved ahead of the FBI and is determined to find the 4th victim before time runs out.
Starling's profiling on Gumb proved to be correct in this film. Using this investigative technique, Starling was able to successfully find Gumb, and kill him in self defense.
This movie not only gave us a demonstration of psychological analysis, but also gave a great example of how profiling can be used to track down criminals. Profiling was the main technique used in the investigation and helped to piece together clues that were essential to finding Gumb. This film was very suspenseful, but also provided an in depth look on how investigators use profiling, and a psychological analysis to guide their investigations.
Silence of the Lambs is a movie where a previously convicted cannibalistic serial killer is used as a mentor to new FBI agent, Clarice Starling, to seek out a new criminal who is committing similar offenses. Hannibal Lecter is especially useful not only because of the parallel nature of his own criminal history, but more importantly because of his previous professional career involving psychiatry that makes him what seems to be a master of the mind - his own mind and others.
Clarice approaches Lecter in hopes of gaining insight from his knowledge of mental disorders that tend to influence behavior, cognition and perception - some or all of which could be abnormal in the criminal she is pursuing, nicknamed Buffalo Bill. While Lector could help Clarice without stipulations since nothing will change his life time sentence, he cleverly takes advantage of the situation by offering a favor for a favor, what he calls quid pro quo, saying that he will perform a psychological profile for Buffalo Bill if she can get him transferred elsewhere with a better view to look at for the duration of his life behind bars. You could say this is manipulation or bribery, but I think it is pretty smart of him; however, he does employ this same manipulative tactic by intimidating her with his skills coupled with male dominance, making it seem like he is the one with all the cards in his hands. This is ironic because our book discusses the "reid technique" that involves the interrogator making the suspect feel a loss of control & socially isolated, but Hannibal is the one using this techniques on his interrogator. He doesn't let context of the situation (his powerlessness) make him crack under pressure to share information like most people being interrogated.
Even though Hannibal says he will profile Buffalo Bill which was Starling's ultimate goal of contacting him, she does a little profiling herself on the car ride to analyze the body of one of the victims. Details she suggests are that the man is between 30 and 40 years old, he has the self-control of an older man, and lives in the middle f nowhere because he would need privacy to do what he does without anyone around to catch him. Considering his levels of self-control similar to that of an older man, Clarice classifies him as an organized killer who is not impulsive, but selects their victims carefully and strategically. She employs forensic psychology analyzing the dead body, assuming the victim was not a local due to her piercings. This was foreshadowing what would later be discovered through geographic profiling: that the killer's victim's hometown would reveal his own location. Most of her suggestions are accurate, but it is Hannibal who has the special edge on profiling that provides the missing link between the investigation search and the truth. He leads the FBI to search for hospitals who administer sex-change operations and says that Buffalo Bill suffers from previous abuse & current sexual and self identity issues. Revealing that he not only knows Buffalo Bill, but has met with him before & conducted therapy, Hannibal remarkably recalls memory from years back in 1980, rattling off specific details about their encounter like it was just the day before. Rather than blind guesses, Hannibal provides the investigators with dead-on information in Buffalo Bill's psychological profile because Hannibal actually knows the guy. Also, Hannibal annotates the case files which lead Starling to connecting the dots and realizing the killer's first victim was not random; Buffalo Bill knew her personally. This leads the search to his hometown where they eventually find him.
Another last thing worth mentioning was the psychology that the missing victim's mother used by attempting to connect on an emotional level with Buffalo Bill on television. Clarice explains the brilliance of this tactic by saying the mother is "making Katherine a real person, not just an object to cut up," which was essentially what the victims were to Buffalo Bill, as he had them trapped in his basement dungeon like an animal & forced them to obey his orders.
terms: psychiatry, mental disorders, behavior, cognition, perception, reid technique, manipulation, intimidation, dominance, pressure, organized killer, forensic psychology, geographic profiling, abuse, sexual & self identity, memory, emotions
The Silence of the Lambs displayed many cognitive and behavioral psychological terms along with many law terms that were affiliated with profiling, case linkage, types of serial killers, and myths about psychopaths.
Sensation and perception: When Clarisse enters the prison cells to talk to Dr. Lector, he first points out what the second jail mate says to her and then claims to be able to smell her Evian lotion and perfume. When Clarisse gets uncomfortable from this along with later getting defensive when he analyzes her fears/past memories, you can tell that Dr. Lector has a great use of sensation and perception. Clarisse also displays an amount of her sensation and perception when enters Buffalo Bill’s house at the end of the film, sees the moth fly by in the kitchen, and senses that he is the serial killer by slyly cocking her pistol under her jacket. After chasing him through his house, Clarisse catches herself in a highly dangerous situation when Buffalo Bill turns off the electricity in the basement leaving her to feel along the walls and the space in front of her. Through her sensation she hears Bill cock his pistol behind her and quickly perceives that he is about to fire, causing her to react quickly and shoot him first.
Motivation/Behavioral Psychology and Cognitive Dissonance: I like to think Clarisse is the most motivated character throughout the movie. At the beginning it shows how motivated she is to pass the academy by running out in the woods by herself, and quickly running inside after being ordered to meet with her boss. Throughout the whole movie she always answers each order abruptly with “Yes, Sir”, displaying her cognitive dissonance of doing her job as a profiler, or at least a student who wants to be a profiler. She also displays her motivation to fill her cognitive dissonance by tracking down the garage number of the guy’s name that Hannibal gives to her. She shows her motivation when the older man tells her she might have to come back in the morning with someone to open it, she goes and finds something to lift it with and enters quickly without hesitation. This shows how determined she is to figure out why Dr. Lector sent her there so she can possibly be lead to Buffalo Bill even faster.
Cognitive Psychology: Clarisse also displays a great deal of cognitive thinking when she puts her profiling skills to use of creating a description of Buffalo Bill through evidence collected and claiming he’s not done with his work because he’s “got a real taste for it now, he’s getting better at his work”. Also, when she converses with Dr. Lector and speaks smoothly to him without letting him bug her, she is displaying cognitive psychology because she is thinking before she speaks to him. She adds information when negotiating with him about moving him to the island if he helps her solve Buffalo Bill’s case. Dr. Lector (being a psychologist himself) is a quick thinker and analyzer of anything and everything for he cognitively analyzes Clarisse by talking about silencing the lambs in her dreams that she has being having nightmares over since her incident when she was little. He interprets that Clarisse must save Katherine from Buffalo Bill in order to make her childhood nightmare go away (silencing the lambs).
Psychopath/Serial Killer-Hedonistic and Mission-oriented: Both Buffalo Bill and Hannibal Lector are psychopaths and serial killers in this film. Bill is someone who probably somewhat transgender, but pretends he is a transsexual. He displays his psychopathy when he tucks in his genitals and prances around in the women’s’ skin he has sewn together. Dr. Lector is obviously a psychopath and a serial killer for he eats his victims’ body parts (tongues, livers, brains, etc.) and it was said that he attacked a nurse, ate her tongue, and his blood pressure stayed the same throughout the attack. He also kills two of the prison guards to escape and then later claims he is ‘having an old friend for dinner’ at the end of the film, meaning he is going to make his ex-dr. his next victim. Since both of them plan their murders and seek out certain victims, they are both organized serial killers. Buffalo Bill is more of a hedonistic killer for he receives some sexual pleasure off of skinning his victims and sewing their skin to wear it afterwards. Dr. Lector seems to seek out his victims from revenge or some reasoning behind doing so (so it seems when he plans to go after his dr. that he hated throughout the movie) making him most likely a mission-oriented killer.
Forensics/Profiling: Clarisse, although a student, takes on the job of a profiler by using forensics throughout the film. She does this by creating a description of Buffalo Bill (which seems pretty accurate), interviewing Dr. Lector and observing what he is drawing and/or looks like, giving a psychological autopsy of the dead girl’s body pulled from the river and piecing together the moth cocoon lodged in the her throat with the rest of the other dead victims (which is how she catches him at the end of the film by noticing the flying moth in the kitchen). The moth cocoons and moths create a case linkage for Clarisse because they seem to match up Buffalo Bill’s signature of his victims that he leaves and also the striations of skinning his victims for the police to find. This marks his victims but instead of bettering himself because of it, it only leads Clarisse and other detectives to make an inclusion of this evidence by tying it all together and catching him at the end.
Terms: sensation and perception, motivation, behavioral and cognitive psychology, cognitive dissonance, transsexual/transgender, psychopath, forensics, profiling, serial killers, hedonistic, mission-oriented, inclusion, signature, striations, organized killer, case linkage, psychological autopsy
This was the first time I had seen Silence of the Lambs and I must say that I really enjoyed it. There were several elements that related well to the topic of profiling.
At the beginning of the movie, Clarice was given the task to research a serial killer named Buffalo Bill. She was first shown several pictures of his victims. She discovered that all of the them were probably female and that they all had some skin removed from their body. This is one thing to take notice of when trying to track a serial killer. Many killers have a pattern in which they kill. Also their victims are all usually from the same population, such as Caucasian, Black, African American, etc. Clarice, after being showed the pictures, concluded that the serial killer must be a white male. She thought he was white because apparently serial killers don't kill others from a different race (which may or may not be true). In my opinion, Buffalo Bill seems to be a power-oriented killer. He would capture his victims and control them in a tiny well in his house. He had a thing for making sure the women were larger. Also, he wanted their skin to be well moisturized. He made sure that it was by making them put on lotion everyday. In the end, we find out that he wanted his victims to be large so that he had extra skin to sew with. He also wanted it to be moisturized so that it made the quality of the skin better to wear. He was eventually hoping to have enough skin to make a new transsexual identity for himself.
Clarice was then assigned to interview the serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lector. Dr. Lector was formerly a psychiatrist but had been sent to prison because of charges of cannibalism. It amazed me how well Dr. Lector was at profiling. He made quite a few harsh judgments toward Clarice and her family upon first meeting her. Clarice fought back though and said that he should point the finger back at himself. I was just impressed with how quickly he could come up with that information and the rate at which he said it was very fast, meaning he didn't hesitate at all. After this initial meeting, however, Clarice and Dr. Lector started to form a bond. Dr. Lector provided her insight to a psychopath, which eventually led Clarice to find Buffalo Bill.
The steps they took to find Buffalo Bill were quite detailed. First, they looked at an autopsy of a woman that had been a victim. First they noticed that skin had been removed from her back, which was the first clue that it had been Buffalo Bill's handiwork. I found several things that we had talked about previously in forensics in this scene. They took pictures of her teeth so that they could possibly line that up with bite marks if need be. They also discovered a rare moth from Africa in the victim's mouth. This information actually led Clarice to find Buffalo Bill in the end. Another thing to point out is the fact that there had been diamond shaped cuts on the back of the victim's body. When searching the home of Catherine (the current victim) she discovered tape in the shape of a diamond on Catherine's dress. All of these examples are a part of forensics. They are things that can be easily seen with the human eye.
As far as the actual profile of Buffalo Bill, things got a bit more complicated. When questioned, Dr. Lector refused to give Clarice Buffalo Bill's actual name. Once police got involved, Lector refused to say anything at all. However, he did end up telling them a good profile on the man. He said that he had blonde hair and was around 170lbs. Again, this is very vague profiling which leads to some of the problems that come along with it. Dr. Lector was pretty accurate except he still wouldn't give them the real name, which lead the police to the wrong house. In the end, Clarice ended up finding the man first. She knew she was in the home of Buffalo Bill when she saw the moth fly around the kitchen. After cocking her gun, he knew that she knew it was him. In the end, she ends up killing Buffalo Bill.
Overall, there were several things in the movie that related to psychological profiling. It portrayed how it can go right and how it can go wrong. I feel that the movie was an accurate portrayal of what can happen in real life in terms of forensics and profiling.
Terms Used:
profiling, power-oriented, serial killer, autopsy, and transsexual.
Silence of the Lambs is a fascinating movie if you enjoy investigation shows (which I do). The movie was cited in the book as being the first movie to portray criminal profiling. However, the first movie I saw clearly portraying profiling was Mindhunters, which I have now seen about 7 times. In Silence of the Lambs, Clarice Starling is assigned to speak with Hannibal Lecter to try to get his aid in profiling the individual that had been killing women. Lecter enjoyed getting inside people’s heads, which made it difficult at times to discern what clues he was releasing.
One scene that first indicates profiling is when Starling is speaking with Lecter and mentions that the skin has been cut off. She says that serial killers keep momentos from their victims so that they can later discern one victim from another. However, Lecter mentions that she is incorrect because he did not. The momento that Buffalo Bill keeps is their skin which ends up being his signature. Since taking the skin had become his signature, officers are able to use case linkage to determine which victims are his and which are done by someone else.
Later, when discussing the moth, Lecter mentions that the moth represents change and transformation, which leads them to saying that Buffalo Bill is a transsexual and desires to be a woman as that would be a transformation. Lecter goes on to say that Buffalo Bill must have been abused as a child because he was denied sexual reassignment surgery by all 3 institutions that perform that surgery because he is not a true transsexual but believes he is because he is uncomfortable in his own skin.
After another body is washed up, we hear some very clear profiling from Starling that she actually learned from Lecter. Starling says that he is a white male because serial killers kill within their own ethnic group. She mentions that he has his own house because “what he does takes privacy.” He is in his 30’s or 40’s because he has the physical strength of a younger man but has the self-control of an older man. She says he has a taste for it now and is getting better so he will never stop. She also mentions that he isn’t impulsive and has an agenda.
Unlike most crime dramas, Silence of the Lambs contains minimal instances of forensic investigation. We don’t see DNA get collected or dusting for fingerprints. The main focus is on profiling. However, one aspect of profiling wasn’t particularly utilized. Geographic profiling was not really portrayed. We didn’t see any maps pulled out with all of the locations of the bodies with strings between them like geographic profiling is usually portrayed. However, it is mentioned that each body was found in a different river.
The movie was a great example on how profiling could work. However, it doesn’t portray any of the potential pitfalls of profiling such as tunnel vision. The killer ends up perfectly matching with their profile of him. However, part of that is because of the fact that Lecter knew the killer so he was able to give accurate facts that appeared to be just basic profiling.
Terms Used: Profiling, Serial Killers, Victims, Signature, Case Linkage, Forensic Investigation, Geographic Profiling, Tunnel Vision
I have heard of this movie before but I have never seen the movie. I’ve heard my parents talk about it and said how creepy it was. I wasn’t really sure what the movie was going to be about, but after watching the movie I really enjoyed it a lot. This movie related to profiling a lot and was a good example of a movie that had good profiling in it.
Clarice is in school training to become an FBI agent but is put on a case to find Buffalo Bill. She is sent to talk to Hannibal Lector who is sentenced for life in prison. During Clarice’s investigation she tries to seek information from Hannibal that might get her closer to finding Buffalo Bill. This leads to a bond between Clarice and Hannibal Lector. In this process Hannibal asks for a favor for a favor which meant that if Clarice could get him transferred to a facility he could have a better view he would help her.
Hannibal Lector does a good amount of profiling throughout this movie. He would talk to Clarice and tell her what he was thinking and what his assumptions are. Through Hannibal’s profiling that was the only way that Clarice was able to find buffalo bill in the end. All of Hannibal’s profiling was based on psychological profiling. It was very interesting how much information he came up with on Buffalo Bill just by reading the case file that Clarice gave to him, but you learned later in the movie that Hannibal Lector actually met Buffalo Bill once in his life. I still believe that Lector did a great job helping Clarice profile Buffalo Bill and help lead her to Buffalo Bill.
There are always complications I believe when it comes to profiling. Just like in the movie Hannibal Lector gave a profile of Buffalo Bill saying he has blonde hair, blue eyes, and around 170 pounds. With all that being said it could lead to wrong places just like the cops were led to the wrong house. Clarice was actually the one to find Buffalo Bill first. She didn’t realize it was him at first until she stepped into the house and saw the mouth flying around. She cocked her gun and then he realized that she knew it was him.
Another interesting thing about this movie is that it’s all based on profiling and no forensic evidence. Most of the time in crime shows or movies they are mostly about collecting data and evidence from the crime such as DNA, fingerprints, footsteps anything that the killer would have left behind. In this movie they don’t mention anything about that and just focus on profiling which I found really interesting that they still found the killer.
There can always be problems when it comes to profiling. Profilers are not going to be right 100% of the time. This movie gave a good example of profiling and even though the cops were lead to the wrong place there were still about to find Buffalo Bill and save the Senators daughter in the end.
Silence of the Lambs is one of my all time favorite movies, so this is absolutely not the first time that I have seen it. I was so happy that one of our movie assignments was over this! I was also excited because of the fact that there are so many concepts and ideas from this film that tie into what we have learned from the psychology and law textbook as well as from lecture.
The assignment asks us to post an in-depth analysis of the elements of the movie that are accurate and inaccurate in terms of profiling. Examples of profiling are plentiful throughout the movie. According to the textbook, profiling is the process of drawing inferences about a criminal’s personality, behavior, motivation, and demographic characteristics based on crime scenes and other evidence (p.97). One clear example of profiling from the movie is when Jack Crawford is asking Clarice what kind of person the perpetrator is when they are on their way to a funeral home. Clarice rattles off a bunch of characteristics, such as he is a white male because of the fact that most serial killers hunt within their own ethnic group, he is not a drifter, he doesn’t live in an apartment, but rather a house so that he can have privacy, he’s in his 30s or 40s, he’s got real physical strength, yet he has an older man’s self control. He’s cautious and precise, but he will never stop doing what he’s doing because of the fact that he’s got a taste for it now.
This profiling technique that Clarice used was very impressive, but it seemed to me that it might be a little bit far-fetched. She could definitely go out on a limb and make educated guesses about some of those characteristics, but she ended up being dead on with her description, so that seems a little bit unnatural. The thing is, when it comes to serial killers, how can one be sure about their characteristics? They are not going to fit into a neat category of being either organized killers or disorganized killers, and they aren’t always going to have cross-situational consistency, meaning that their behavior across crimes may not always be the same. Also, many profiles are merely inferences, which may have no real information to back it up.
Another time that profiling was used in the film was when Dr. Lecter offered to give Clarice a psychological profile of Buffalo Bill in return for information about herself. Lecter stayed true to his word, and started giving Clarice this psychological profile by telling her about the significance of the death’s head moths that were found lodged inside the victims’ throats. Lecter said that moths mean change, and that Buffalo Bill wants to change. He is not a real transsexual, but he tries to be. He suspects that Bill tries to be a lot of things. He said that he hates his own identity, and that it probably stems from severe childhood disturbance that can be associated with violence. Buffalo Bill was not born a criminal, but was made into one. Although Dr. Lecter is a brilliant man, it is improbable that he would be able to come up with all of this information after being locked up in a cell for eight years. He was correct about this psychological profile, but how could he have possibly known everything that he said from simply reading the case files?
Physical profiling is also used in the movie when Dr. Lecter is transported to Tennessee to speak with the current victim’s mother. He gives a detailed physical description, including the perpetrator’s height, weight, eye color, hair color, and supposed name and address. He gave the correct physical description, but he led the FBI to the wrong place. Instead, it was Clarice who discovered the where the crimes had been taking place. There were also physical profiles of the victims. All of the victims were white women that were bigger in stature.
A final aspect of profiling, known as geographic profiling, can be seen in this movie. As defined by the textbook, geographic profiling is a method that relies on maps and mathematics to associate key locations of serial crimes (p.111). This was seen when a map that showed where the victims were from and where their bodies were dumped was pulled out. Clarice said that the computer had not picked up on any patterns between the locations, but then she was able to come up with where the perpetrator was with a little help from Dr. Lecter. This type of profiling could probably be pretty useful in real life crimes that deal with serial killers. Patterns could probably be picked out pretty easily, making it more realistic that the perpetrator would be caught.
Besides all of these examples of profiling being used throughout the movie, there are also many other concepts that can be connected with what we have been learning in lecture and from the textbook. For example, forensic entomology, which is the use of the insects that inhabit decomposing remains to aid legal investigations, could be seen in the film. During the autopsy of one of the victims, Clarice found something lodged in her throat. Investigators pulled it out and they realized that it was some kind of bug cocoon. Clarice took the evidence to be examined by entomologists, and they told her that this was a death’s head moth that was native to Asia. This helped the investigation because they were able to track the shipment of death’s head moths to the suspected perpetrator, and were finally able to track him down.
There was also a lot of documentation going on throughout the film, whether it is photo documentation or written documentation. A lot of photographs were taken during the autopsy of one of the victims. Also during the autopsy, evidence collection could be seen when they pulled the cocoon out of the victim’s throat and Clarice placed the cocoon in a small jar with some solution so that the evidence would not be damaged.
Another concept that can be seen in Silence of the Lambs is signature. Signatures are the distinctive, personal aspects of the crime that presumably reveals the personality of the killer (p.98). Buffalo Bill’s signatures included lodging the death’s head moths inside of the victims’ bodies, keeping the victim alive for a total of three days, and then shooting them, skinning them, and finally dumping them. These signatures could be used to apply case linkage to all of the supposed Buffalo Bill murders.
Obviously there were many concepts that relate both to psychology and to law that were portrayed throughout this film. The Silence of the Lambs provided us with a great opportunity to expand our knowledge by throwing examples of all of these concepts at us and having us apply them to what we have learned thus far. I am happy with this assignment, and I am looking forward to learning more in the weeks to come!
Terms: profiling, perpetrator, serial killer, organized killer, disorganized killer, cross-situational consistency, inferences, psychological profiling, physical profiling, victim, geographic profiling, forensic entomology, autopsy, investigator, entomologist, investigation, documentation, evidence collection, signature, case linkage
Silence of the Lambs was an extremely interesting movie in my opinion. Having never seen it before, I wasn’t very sure what to expect when I started to watch it. As graphic as it was, I couldn’t take my eyes off of the screen. It was very fascinating, especially due to the fact that accurate profiling lead to the arrest of a serial killer.
Clarice Starling was given the task to interrogate the notorious, cannibalistic psychiatrist, Dr. Hannibal Lecter. It was Starling’s duty to try to get him to comply with her and use his expertise to profile the latest serial killer, Buffalo Bill. Lecter is extremely intelligent and even quick to judge Starling, as he rattled off a brief, impressive ‘profile’ of Starling herself. As we have learned about the “Reid Technique”, where the interrogator uses intimidating tactics for unwilling suspects in order to get information, Lecter utilizes his intelligence and professional experience to show Starling that he will say and do what he wants. Though somewhat reluctant and on to her motives at first, Lecter decides to help Starling and leads her to her first clue in the investigation.
Although Lecter proves to be an immense help throughout the film, Starling is able to do some profiling on her own, which she is very skilled at. When examining the body of Buffalo Bill’s latest victim, she was quick to mention certain details such as the earrings, fingernails, and most importantly, the skin on her back that had been removed. Just as important, her sharp eyes observed the moth cocoon that was lodged in the victim’s throat, which would later become an equally vital piece of evidence as the removed skin. When Lecter was presented with this information, he used his experience to analyze that the removed skin would be kept as a memento by Bill, as well as that the cocoon of the butterfly (moth), resembles the need for change that Bill longs for. This becomes important because it leads Lecter to the conclusion that Bill is a transvestite and to check the three hospitals that specialize in sex-change surgeries, because he was probably rejected for not being a ‘true’ transvestite, but just uncomfortable in his own skin.
After further investigation, as well as reviewing Lecter’s psychological-profiling annotations on the case file, Starling is able to come up with a distinct profile for Buffalo Bill. She notes that he is between 30 and 40 years old, for he has strength but self control. Also, he must have his own, rural home for he has to have space to do what he does without being caught. His victims are all young, white females that are larger because he needed extra skin to tailor with. He had to have been a white male, because killers do not kill outside of their own race. Something that we learned that may have been helpful to her was the type of killer that he seemed to be. In my opinion, he was a power-oriented serial killer. He took pleasure in making his victims succumb to his will by trapping them in a well and forcing them to lotion themselves so that the skin was moisturized when cut off, or get hosed.
In regards to profiling, the film was very good at depicting the positive side of profiling (as noted above) and very little on the negative side. The only negative aspect that I noticed was how vague profiles can ultimately lead to dead ends. We learn that Lecter knows who Buffalo Bill is throughout the film, for he had administered therapy to him years prior. He would not reveal the real name, but used a fake anagram to deceive the police and get transferred. He gave an extremely vague profile, which eventually lead the police to the wrong house when trying to arrest Bill. And though we learn that after Bill’s victims are skinned post-mortem, he throws them in different rivers, no other references toward geographic profiling are mentioned.
Other evidences of psychology that are worth noting are the flashbacks that Starling has in different part of the movie. When trying to get information out of Lecter, he offers his profile as a part of a quid pro quo, as he wants to know more about Starling’s life. He was able to analyze how her traumatic childhood has lead to her stunning determination in rescuing the latest of Buffalo Bill’s victims. Also, the fact that Catherine’s mom, the Senator, kept repeating her daughter’s name during her statement to the public shows that she wanted to reiterate the fact that she is a person and not just an object like Bill perceived them as.
It is important to remember that this is just a movie and that not all cases lead to the capture of the suspect, as Starling was able to do with Buffalo Bill. In addition, we must also not forget that this movie was based mostly on the positive aspects of criminal profiling. As we learned in our textbook, it is not clear how effective profiling is because cases are so varied and circumstantial. However, as long as the science of criminology and psychology are still around, we are continually finding new theories and tactics that can help improve criminal profiling. Personally, I believe that this movie was fairly accurate in depicting the ups and downs of profiling and how it can be used with the help of forensics to solve crimes.
Terms: interrogate, cannibal, psychological-profile, geographical-profile, serial killer, incarcerated, reid technique, power oriented, quid pro quo, flashback, intimidate, suspect, criminology, forensics.
I have never seen this movie or even heard of it even though I knew a few quotes that came from it but I just did not know what movie they were from. For the most part the movie Silence of the Lambs I thought was a very exciting plus thrilling movie except for the occasional description or visual scenes of Lecter’s and Buffalo Bill’s crimes which did not sit too well with me they were quite difficult to take in. There was not too much physical profiling going on throughout the movie as there was psychological profiling.
Clarice Starling was a very energetic woman who wanted to get to the bottom of her first case by first getting a psychological profile of Hannibal Lecter since there were a few similarities in how Lecter and Buffalo Bill dealt with their victims as in taking parts of their bodies whether it is by eating or skinning them. When Clarice first entered into the prison/psych ward she was just bombarded with many terrifying emotions having to deal with Lecter and his ways of getting into a person’s head to play with them, also Miggs who was in a cell right next to Lector did some harm to Starling to not physically but emotionally as well. Starling was very intellectual at psychologically profiling serial killers throughout the movie and the first one I can remember was when Lecter asked Starling why she thinks Buffalo Bill skinned his victims and she said “Most serial killers keep some sort of trophy from their victims”.
Lecter was a very interesting man because he has very strong analytical and cognitive skills since he could remember landmarks and even draw what he had seen almost ten years earlier. Before Lecter turned to the life of crime he was a therapist who then changed into a cannibalistic serial killer. Lecter’s psychological personality jumped so much throughout the movie like when he first met Starling he did a physical and psychological profile on Starling by smelling or visually scoping the type of perfume, clothes, and shoes she wore which he made a rude comment on. While Starling and Lector had their confrontation he acted as a teacher to Starling while she questioned him, but then go to making Starling relive some terrible memories of her past especially her dad and the little lamb. The one thing that was the most disturbing thing Lecter did was gut the one police officer than skin the others face off and put it on himself to escape on the ambulance.
Buffalo Bill had many strange differences in abnormal or personality psychology even though he was not visually seen for most of the movie. When he had killed his first male victim, Benjamin Raspail his lover which was a former patient of Lecter’s, Bill became obsessed with becoming a female that he wanted to have a sex change but his psychological state that had to be analyzed first before he could get surgery made him become denied at ever hospital he went to. His obsession grew more to the point he killed plus size woman and skinned the best parts of them to make a woman suit of real skin. From what I could tell throughout the movie was that Buffalo bill did not really want the world to know he was homosexual or possibly bisexual. Buffalo Bill only dressed as a man whenever he had company or when he would go out and the only way we really found out he was homosexual was when Lecter mentioned Raspail told him of their relationship and even wanted Buffalo Bill to see Lecter or when he was shown the first time cross dressing.
Terms: Psychological profile, emotions, physical profile, victims, cognitive, psychologist, crime, psychological personality, analytical, and abnormal psychology
I thought that Silence of the Lambs was a very good movie that did a good job of depicting profiling. It gave both sides of to how profiling can be good and also how it can be bad. It gives us the idea that if you aren't accurate with the profiling that it will lead you to the wrong person as the right person is ready for the next crime.
Clarice Starling was a student going through the Academy to become an FBI agent. She then gets an opportunity to talk to Hannibal Lector where she begins her first case to get a psychological profile on him. The reason that the FBI needed this psychological profile on Hannibal was because there was a series of events that were taken place by who was known as Buffalo Bill that had same aspects to the crimes that Hannibal was committing. The profile would possibly help them get an idea of who Buffalo Bill was. There was a lot of emotion that Clarice dealt with when she first met Hannibal. She came off very confident and then when Hannibal started to bring her down a bit followed by the other inmates. She seemed very frightened and all of the sudden she began remembering her past with her father because he was a fellow police officer who had been killed (this would be the cognitive part of psychology). As the movie went on, Clarice and Hannibal's relationship would get stronger and they would have more of an understanding of each other.
Hannibal was a very strange man to me who had a lot of issues. It's hard to think that people could actually go out and do something like that to other people. I also found it strange that he used to be a psychologist and his job was practically to read people and help them out in any way he could, and then all of the sudden he turns around and is the completely opposite person. Hannibal is willing to help Clarice but what he wants is to be able to see the outdoors. Clarice knew that he had information about Buffalo Bill because he told them that he knew who it was. Clarice then fakes a place that he would go to in order to get him to speak and give them information. As the movie plays through you begin to see the world that Buffalo Bill lives in and the things that he has been doing to these women. It honestly can be very disturbing what things had been seen and what he had been and would do to these women. I remember one part of the movie when the FBI and Clarice are on their way to the funeral home to examine the body that had just been found of the woman. Clarice gives a detailed profile of who Buffalo Bill probably was. It's interesting how people are able to fit a description of somebody the have no idea about and no information on and almost can be so accurate.
One scene where the profiling had gone wrong was when Hannibal was taken to see the Senator because her daughter was the one who was kidnapped. After Hannibal acted out of line with the Senator, she became very aggravated and told them to take him away. He then gave a very precise description of Buffalo Bill and was allowed to stay. The FBI then took that information and got on a plane where they believed they had found the suspect. However, they didn't tell Clarice that they had found him and she still continued with the investigation. When the FBI arrived they had picked the wrong suspect and nobody had been home, mostly because he wasn't who they were looking for. Clarice ends up at the right place because of the investigating she was doing. When she enters the house she looks around and notices the butterfly, which a butterfly egg had been found in the previous victims throat, and realized she had found the suspect. It also didn't help the suspect when he kept asking questions about the case which seemed very suspicious.
Buffalo Bill was a weird character as it was. He was a transvestite but only showed that when he was at home. He began to pick heavy set women as his victim because he used that skin to what looked to have been to make himself like a skin suit. It was odd that he took care of the victim first before actually killing them, but he did give then stuff that took care of their skin and kept it healthy. It was mostly intrigued by the backs of the women because they had the most skin on them that he could use. I don't believe that Buffalo Bill used much of geographic profiling, but I think I recall that Clarice talked about the lakes that some of them lived near or where they had been found. They looked at it on the map and I believe that was the only pattern they had found.
Overall the movie did a great job of depicting the bad and the good sides of profiling. Even though this movie showed that profiling can be spot on most of the time, that's not how it works today. Profiling is not so great and hardly ever finds the right person in a crime. There is so much detail that goes into profiling and a lot more is dealt with serial killers as displayed in the book and the movie. I believe that profiling still has a long ways to go and this movie showed us that.
Terms used: profiling, FBI agent, psychological profile, cognitive, psychologist, victim, investigation, suspect, geographic profiling, serial killers
I thought Silence of the Lambs was a good movie with many aspects pertaining to psychology and law. There were many great examples of profiling in the movie. The characters in the movie were trying to get a profile on "Buffalo Bill." Buffalo Bill was a serial killer who had a signature of skinning his victims. Buffalo Bill was an organized killer who had carefully selected his victims and had a plan of what to do.
I believe that Buffalo Bill was a Hedonistic type of serial killer because of his pleasure he got from him thinking he was transexual and wearing the skin of his victims, who were all female. Because Buffalo Bill was a hard case to profile on, Starling was sent to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter, who was a captured serial killer with psychopathy. He was a psychopath because his signature was that he ate parts of the victims body.
Good examples of psychological profiling of Buffalo Bill were shown by both Starling and Hannibal. When Crawford asks Starling, she says that most serial killers keep a "trophy" of their victims. She also gave a physical description that he was a white male. She then went on to say that serial killers tend to kill within their own ethnic group. He was not a drifter and had his own house (not apartment) because what he does with his victims needs privacy. He was going to be in his 30's or 40's with physical strength. He was going to have an older man's self-control, caution, and precise. He was not impulsive and he won't stop because he has a taste for it. Her profile on Buffalo Bill was very accurate.
Dr. Lecter's profile on Buffalo Bill was also very spot on. He said that Billy (which Lecter liked to call Buffalo Bill) was not an actual transexual but that he thinks he is one and tries to be one. He said that he had probably applied to the three major centers for transexual surgery, and got rejected. He said he was rejected because of sever childhood disturbances associated with violence. He was not born a killer, but made into one through years of systematic abuse. He hates his own identity, which is why he thinks he is a transexual, but his pathology is much more savage and terrifying. He said that he kills to fulfill his psychological need of covet. Its his nature. This psychological profile was accurate as evidenced by the way the killer dressed and wore make up. Lecter also gave a good physical profile of Buffalo Bill when talking to the Senator. He described him as 5'10", about 185 pounds, strong build, blonde, pale blue eyes, and about 35 years old.
A good example of geographic profiling occurs when Crawford shows Starling a map of the locations of where Buffalo Bill's victims were abducted and found. They were marked on the maps with circles and arrows.
Terms: serial killer, signature, hedonistic, psychological profiling, geographic profiling, psychopathy, physical profile, organized killer
A lot of the profiling done by Lecter about Buffalo Bill shouldn't be counted. Lecter himself stated that he had a passing acquaintance with Buffalo Bill, prior knowledge of him and the connection to Raspail proves that he was not lying about that. There's a massive difference between profiling based on information about a crime and having a chance to psychoanalyze.
Lecter was amazingly quick at intuiting information about people. He made Starling on the inside of ten minutes and figured out that she was outside of the loop on what the FBI actually wanted her to do. Lecter realized they did it on purpose, hence the line about Crawford being slippery that seemed to serve no relevance to the initial conversation with Crawford. Crawford himself counts on Starling's ambition to give her initiative to pursue Lecter's help on Buffalo Bill. It isn't really profiling, not like the FBI is forced to do to catch Buffalo Bill, the only real act of profiling in the movie.
Even Lecter isn't perfectly accurate while predicting Starling even with the benefit of having her in person. He seeks more information constantly, with the understanding that the significant amount he can pick up on isn't really enough to measure the total amount necessary to truly understand an individual. He makes Starling tell him to measure her response.
There are few instances of actual profiling in the movie. Starling about Bill being the main topic. Starling places him as a white male in his thirties or forties. White male was an easy one, since most serial killers are white males between the ages of twenty-five and forty. Starling narrows it down to thirty and forty based upon his self control and lack of impulse killing but that is a bad call.
In this movie, it turns out to be right but age isn't necessarily an indicator of patience and methodical action. Serial killers tend toward intelligence if not always self control, and impulsiveness is hit or miss with serial killers. Buffalo Bill stalks his victims before he strikes, extensively. Bill does a bit of profiling himself, he preys on the generosity of Catherine Baker Martin by seeming like an injured man moving furniture by himself.
It's very deliberate, very planned and probably done more than once before. The cast itself is even used as a weapon. A fairly ingenious use as it's inconspicuous, easy to make and dispose of.
Starling also pins the fact that he had to have his own home. Another reasonable leap, but it didn't have to be a home, or even his home. A defunct building could have worked easily enough so long as it was secure and out of use. It could have been an old bomb or storm shelter in the middle of the field or a temporary dugout. There's no real reason to assume a home as a place of containment in what they mentioned that they knew of Buffalo Bill.
A home would actually be a poor bet, especially one in a town. There isn't much in the way of secrets in a small town. Not much to pay attention to, enough eyes to go around. It's actually a poor bet on that end. A farmhouse makes more sense and is a lot more reasonable.
By definition, it's far in the country so it'd be easier to hide any strange noises. It struck me how strange the basement of Buffalo Bill's house was. It was almost as if it was built on top of a well, and a labyrinth. That basement was extensive and that section of the house looked much older than the time that Buffalo Bill was supposed to have lived there. Indeed, Starling didn't expect that house to be the one.
Starling was only asking questions, but once inside it became easily apparent that this was probably the guy. There were butterflies everywhere in the house. Paintings, walls, hanging ornamentation. Then she saw the moth, not to mention the fact that the man himself had manicured nails and interesting jewelry choice for a male. She probably should have caught on quicker than she did in all honesty once she was actually there. It was no real hard evidence, save for the presence of the actual moth. That was the final nail in his coffin.
In this movie, profiling did very little to actually solve anything. Lecter, who had prior knowledge of the suspect, who knew who Buffalo Bill was from the start, dropped clues Starling including the final one that put her in the exact right town. Likely, he even knew what town to begin with because of his keen investigative skill and his inquisitive nature. Once Starling was there, it was her own investigative skills that lead to her pursuit and eventual killing. The profiling had actually very little to do with any of it.
They make a big deal out of Lecter consulting on Buffalo Bill's profile but all he really does is walk Starling through it and give her extraneous information that wasn't in the report. Arguably, the more clever hidden profiling in the movie was Jack Crawford to Hannibal Lecter.
Why did Hannibal Lecter help? Because of Agent Starling, who was only there because of Jack Crawford, the agent in charge of the profiling division, specifically sending her there as a play to get Lecter on their side. Crawford plays Starling as a pawn, literally. He leaves her out of the loop to endear her to Lecter. Later, Crawford does something very similar to fit in with the good ol' boys club when they find another body. He instantly makes himself one of the guys by snubbing a female in a sexist small town police department. Something he admits to and knew he was wrong for doing and that he apologized immediately when called on it.
There is no good reason for Starling to be there. Crawford could have picked anyone, but he picked her, a female trainee, to go by herself. It does establishe in the film that she was good, but also that she wasn't the best. If you are so shorthanded as to rely on trainees, why send someone who wasn't the best against a serial killer who was? The reason is simple, Crawford profiled and played Lecter hard. He got Lecter on their side and that lead directly to the case being solved. While Lecter did spiral out of control and escape, none of that had anything to do with Crawford either. It's subtle, but it's there.
I must say, watching this movie late at night while being home alone was a bad choice!! Although, it was a pretty good movie, and I am glad to say that I have FINALLY watched this movie. The psychological elements that I saw portrayed in this movie were the following: sensation, perception, social, and clinical. Also, the most evident theme in this movie was profiling, which tied in perfectly with what we have been talking about in class.
Perception: This element of psychology is seen in this movie through the character of Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins). Before ever meeting Hannibal, Clarice Starling had a particular perception of Hannibal through the information given to her of the crimes that Hannibal had committed and the monster that he was, but upon meeting him, he played the extreme opposite from what would be expected. Hannibal was very polite and respectful to Clarice. This in turn lead her to behave in the same manner with him; although, he used this behavior to break down her barriers with him, and to get inside her head which is one thing that she was advised not to let him do. Another way that perception was shown in this movie was in the way that Hannibal describes the features of Buffalo Bill, when providing investigators with a profile to aid in the investigation of finding Catherine Martin before she is killed.
Sensation: This element of psychology is also seen through the character of Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Hannibal consistently speaks of different sensations when interacting with various characters throughout the movie. For example, in regards to Clarice, he mentions her using a certain lotion and speaks of her bleeding. Hannibal’s way of describing different sensations when interacting with individuals allows him to get inside their minds and also for him to gain pleasure from seeing them become uncomfortable.
Social: This element of psychology is seen in many ways throughout this movie. One way is how Hannibal influences Clarice to eventually start speaking to him of her life experiences, even when she is advised not to and when she does not intend to. The second way social influence is portrayed in this movie is through the way that Buffalo Bill entices his victims, such as the part where he draws the girl in by looking like a man needing help loading a couch. Buffalo Bill uses different influential social interaction in order to draw in the victims. Another way that the social element of psychology is portrayed in this movie is through the way that Hannibal manipulates the investigators to give him things upon request for vital information to the Buffalo Bill case. Hannibal is smart enough to know that he can get them to do exactly what he wants, because he has what they want.
Clinical: The clinical element of psychology is clearly portrayed through the characters of Hannibal and Buffalo Bill. These two characters obviously are suffering from a mental disorder that leads them to commit such horrendous cannibal crimes, and feel some kind of satisfaction and pleasure from it.
The aspect of law that comes into play within this movie is profiling. Profiling is seen when Clarice looks at the photographs of Buffalo Bill’s victims and identifies him as a white male, sticks within his ethnic group when killing, lives in his own house/apartment due to needing privacy for his crimes, he is in his 30-40s, has physical strength, and he is cautious, precise, and getting better at his work. These descriptions of Buffalo Bill go along with what we have learned in our textbook about profiling of serial killers, such as the fact about serial killers wanting to stick within their ethnic groups. The other part of profiling that was accurately portrayed in this movie was the use of “signature”. Buffalo Bill skinned all of his victims and he kept that consistent with all of the murders. I don’t believe that the profiling that was done by Hannibal Lecter should be considered profiling in this instance in that he had previously had contact with Buffalo Bill and knew him personally; therefore, it wasn’t just a description provided through viewing evidence of the crimes, but recalled from memory. The only reason I would consider his description “profiling,” because his description did help in aiding investigators, especially Clarice, in finding Buffalo Bill.
If this story was real and not just a movie, this would be one of the few cases where criminal profiling was successful.
Overall, I thought this movie did a great job in showing elements of both psychology and law!
The movie, Silence Of The Lambs, is based on the crimes of a serial killer and the overall investigation.This movie contains many ideas from our text and many great examples of profiling. In the past I have seen this movie multiple times, however, I can truly say I watched this time from an entire new aspect. Although I only had an opportunity to watch the beginning of the movie there are still many connections I have made from the movie to our class to analyze.
The main character on the detective side is a younger women around the age of thirty. The use of this women has really opened my eyes to the importance of every aspect of investigation. I feel the reasoning behind using her is to use Hanibalector to the best of their abilities. Also the use of Sterling takes away any bias or tunnel vision. The absence of her knowledge and experience is an investigation tool of its own used by the lead, Crawford. The relationship between Hannibalector and Sterling is a key point in the movie and investigation. The first scene of their interview shows many aspects of criminology, profiling, and sets the overall approach to the investigation. Hannibalector is a past psychiatrist who contains an insight on the investigation. In the first meeting Sterling exchanges conversation and develops a relationship with Hannibalector and gains information about Buffalo Bill. In this exchange he profiles Bill and gives information to lead sterling to a storage unit. The storage unit leads Sterling to discover a large piece of evidence. She then rushes back to Hannibalector. At this point the characteristics based on the profiling for Bill is the following; white male, middle aged, previous abuse, organized,and mission oriented. The cross-situational consistency is very high in all the murders which leads to a case linkage. He follows the same pace of kidnapping his victims, starving them for three days, then shooting them, and finally sinking them.
Bill then makes an addition to his serial killing and the urgency for investigation heightens. The investigation on the body gives further insight to Bill and his tendencies. The movie shows the psychological autopsy. During the autopsy they find a bug deep within the victims throat. Sterling takes the bug to an entomologist to find out that the bug was nurtured and cared for from Asia. This symbolizes the metamorphism of life, one key clue to what our perpetrator wants. There is also some flashes of Bill at his home. As a viewer analyzing Bill from these scenes he seems to be very unstable and mission driven. He struggles with characterizing his victims as a person, they are to be objects to him. They are just a piece of his pattern to complete his transformation. Hannibal seems to know right from the beginning who Bill is, and uses the transformation aspect to lead Sterling to her verdict. Overall, this movie focuses on the importance of relationships and profiling.
Key Terms: Serial killer, profiling, investigation, bias, tunnel vision, evidence, organized, mission oriented, cross-situational consistency, case linkage, psychological autopsy, entomologist, perpetrator,
Clarice Starling, an FBI agent trainee, is selected by Jack Crawford to help with an investigation dealing with a serial killer. Starling is one of the top agents in her class, however she is also a female, which is a major component to why she was chosen to help with the case. Crawford wanted Starling to speak to Hannibal Lecter in hopes of gaining insight from his background and knowledge of mental disorders from his experience of previously being a psychiatrist. Starling, being a female, was a benefit to Jack Crawford because he believed that Starling could appeal to Lecter, either by her feminine charm or his preference for female victims. This is a play on Lecter’s weaknesses and is a good tactic for when interrogating a criminal. Crawford wanted to get as much information out of Lecter as he possibility could to help solve the case and by using Lecter’s weaknesses against him, Lecter may slip up and provide insight.
When Clarice goes to visit Lecter in prison, she is sent with the task of receiving an offender profile on Buffalo Bill. In Clarice’s first visit, she struggles to stay in control of the conversation. Lecter’s knowledge and wit allows him to profile Clarice by asking about her past and fears. Lecter uses his charisma and dominant personality to push Clarice out of her comfort zone and reveal personal information. This is an example of both social and personality psychology. Lecter is controlling the conversation by using his personality strengths to influence Clarice. Lecter uses his dominating personality to create a bargain with Clarice, that if she provides information about her past and helps him be transferred then he would help create the profile of Buffalo Bill. This is also later seen when Starling visits Lecter in Memphis and is yet again told that if she reveals the whole truth of her traumatic childhood that he would give her his notes and the case files. Starling reveals her nightmares about the slaughter the lambs and Lecter tells her that if she is able to save the fourth victim then her nightmares would go away and she would silence the lambs. Lecter is using his past experience in psychology and using his social influence over her to make her more vulnerable and weak. Another example of social psychology is when Chilton records Starling and Lecter’s conversation and reveals to Lecter that the deal made about his transfer was a trap, but that he was willing to transfer Lecter in exchange for a deal of Chilton’s own making. This is an example of male dominance and that Chilton was trying to show that he had the control in the situation and he was the more dominant male of the two.
Clarice creates an accurate profile of her own after seeing the body of the young girl victim. The profile that Clarice creates states that the man is between 30 and 40 years old and would have to live in seclusion because he would need privacy to do what he does without anyone catching him. Also taking into consideration the perpetrator’s levels of self-control were similar to that of an older man, Clarice classifies him as an organized killer who is not impulsive, but selects his victims carefully and strategically. Clarice does a psychological autopsy on the victim to determine that she is not local and that finding her hometown may be a key part of the investigation. From finding this Clarice is able to create a geographical profile from the hometowns of the victims and is able to determine that the killer’s house is in the middle of each of the hometowns. She determines this because there is a buffer zone where no murders had been committed. During her analysis of the young girls body, Starling also finds a dead moth in the girl’s mouth. After further investigation she comes to find that the moth is a unique species. This moth was a hint at what the killer’s signature was. Moths have the ability to shed their skins and create a cocoon and shed that too, which is symbolic for Buffalo Bill’s signature, which was skinning his victims. The moth and the cocoon that are found in two different crime scenes could also be considered case linkage because the moth was so rare that having the same moth at two completely different crime scenes would be improbable.
Buffalo Bill and Hannibal Lector are deemed the psychopaths and serial killers in this film. Bill is suffering from confusion of not knowing what gender he is and the social taboo of being transgender. Dr. Lecter is another category of serial killer; his motivations derive from his need to be in control and his urge to the dominating personality. He receives this power from not only killing his victims but also by eating parts of their bodies. Both Buffalo Bill and Hannibal Lecter plan their murders meticulously, are detail oriented and seek out a certain type of victims; they are both organized serial killers. They both show patience and self-control by waiting for the right moment to commit their crimes. Buffalo Bill is more of a hedonistic killer because he does receive some sort of sexual pleasure from the skinning of his victims and sewing their skin to wear it afterwards. I also believe that Buffalo Bill is partially a power-oriented serial killer because he also likes to hold his victim’s captive for a period of time and torture them before killing them. Dr. Lecter seems to seek out his victims from revenge or an idea that he is bettering the world, making him most likely a mission-oriented killer. He is motivated to kill because he sees his victims as evil or unworthy of living. I also believe that, like Buffalo Bill, Dr. Lecter seems to be a power-oriented serial killer in that he also likes to capture and control his victims before killing them.
Overall, I believe that this movie does a good job of portraying profiling and forensic psychology. Although some things in the movie are over exaggerated to make a good movie, I believe the basic information that is provided is accurate.
Terms: serial killer, mental disorder, psychiatrist, victim, interrogating, social psychology, personality psychology, profile, perpetrator, psychological autopsy, geographical profile, organized killer, signature, case linkage, psychopath, hedonistic killer, power-oriented serial killer, mission-oriented serial killer, forensic psychology
Silence of the Lambs was a pretty good movie. I remember watching when I was younger, but this time I was looking for a little bit of different things. The thing I was looking for was the aspects relating to psychology and law. This movie did a great job on what profiling is. The definition of profiling from our book defines it as a process pf drawing inferences about a criminal's personality, behavior, motivation, and demographic characteristics based on crime scens and other evidence.
This movie's main characters Hannibal Lector and Clarice Sterling were a huge part of making the profile. The profile being of the serial killer Buffalo Bill. It all started when Clarice went to Lector for a quick interview. It seemed that as soon as Clarice started to talking to Lector, he was already profiling her, which you really just can't look at a person and say she's like this. It did intimidate her.
I noticed that he had no remorse when he was taunting her about how he ate someone for dinner. Showing no guilt and empathy for his actions lead me to conclude he was a psychopath. Either way Lector knew who was Buffalo Bill, he struck a deal to give a profile of this so called Buffalo Bill. The signature of Buffalo Bill was skinning his victims.
Lector and Starling profiled Buffalo Bill accurately, because they knew the patterns and his signature. What gave Lector his edge was his background in Psychiatry. He analyzed the crime files and gave his profile on Buffalo. Though it is hard to trust a criminal like Lector, Sterling took his word. Throughout the movie I could see that a lot of things triggered her memory of her dad. For example, when her and the FBI were about to look at the body she saw the casket, and remembered her dad's funeral. This would be a perfect example of cognitive psychology.
This movie did a great job at portraying a psychopath, an FBI agent, profiling, and how to interact with a crime scene/victim. The movie was a great example on how profiling could work, but really doesn't seem to show the downfalls of profiling. A profile should always have some revising to it, with the evidence that comes up with it.
Terms: psychiatry, psychopath, behavior, cognition,manipulation, intimidation, profiling, signature, serial killer, victim
I have seen ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ before, however when paying critical attention to the profiling aspect of the film made me enjoy it even more. There were multiple scenes that showed profiling by different characters, including Clarice Starling and Dr. Hannibal Lector. Though the film showed an accurate portrayal of profiling for the most part, such as ideal characteristics of the criminal like a white male, ages thirty to forty who has been severely abused during his childhood, however the film did not show any down sides of it. Though profiling could be a successful, it is not proven that it is always beneficial to the case or when the criminal does not fit the profile that is described.
The movie begins with Clarice being assigned to interview Dr. Lector to learn more about him, and profile him as a serial killer, however her boss Jack Crawford wants her to get his help profiling the serial killer James Gumb, better known as ‘Buffalo Bill’. She starts by looking at his artwork and asking him questions to begin her profile. Just as Clarice is trying to profile Lector, it seems that he is trying to get into her mind as well, by asking her questions about her life and memories from her childhood. It was an accurate portrayal because Clarice made assumption about Lector from his profile that she studied. During this first crucial scene, which sets the groundwork for the rest of the film, she also begins to ask questions about Buffalo Bill and the profile that Lector created about him.
Another aspect of profiling seen was when Crawford asks Clarice about characteristics of Buffalo Bill. She states her profile, including that he was a white male (assumed because of the race of his victims), between thirty and forty (because he is experience, and not impulsive), and would not stop because once he started the killing, he continued to better his murders and they would not end. These are assumptions made by Clarice, which is accurate for a profiler, although having a profile that is so precisely correct may not be accurate or realistic. There was a glimpse of geographic profiling in the same scene, when Crawford shows Clarice a map of the circled areas where the bodies were found. This does not show that the areas are telling of where Buffalo Bill’s comfort zone is, however, using the map to circle the areas could show some kind of relationship between the dumping of the bodies.
The last aspect was of Lector’s profile of Buffalo Bill that is shown throughout the film. He states his physical description because he met him in previous years, however the most important aspect of his profile is what he shares with Clarice, including that Bill thinks himself as a transsexual and does not like himself. It is important also because he states that he kills these women and skins their corpses because of envy. Identifying the reason as to why crimes occur is critical to have a better understanding of the criminal, and in turn have a greater chance of catching him. This is also a turning point in the film, where Clarice takes a deeper look into the latest victim, Catherine Martin’s, life leading to the capture of Buffalo Bill.
There are also different kinds of psychology that are portrayed throughout the film. Cognitive psychology was prevalent because of the amount of thought and perception done by both profilers, Clarice and Lector. Also, it is seen when Lector is analyzing Clarice’s childhood tragedy from her father’s death, and when she tried to save a lamb that was to be slaughtered. It is clear throughout the movie that both Lector and Clarice are very careful and thoughtful about what they say to each other, as what they assume about Buffalo Bill while building his profile.
Forensic psychology was also very important in the plot in order to eventually find Buffalo Bill. Though there was not the usual aspect of forensic psychology such as dusting for fingerprints or looking for other kinds of evidence at the specific crime scene, it is portrayed when Crawford and Clarice go to analyze the body found in the river. Clarice does an accurate job at concluding that the girl was not from the small town because of her ear piercings and blue sparkling nail polish. She also states that the girl was in some kind of containment because of her missing fingernails. Lastly, one of the most important pieces of evidence is also found in this scene, which is the moth cocoon.
Overall, there is aspects of psychology, both cognitive and forensic, are seen in ‘Silence of the Lambs’. Also it is seen in the prevalent theme of profiling, which is done by both main characters, Clarice and Dr. Lector. Though in the film it seems that it is the ideal situation of profiling, and its successful, it lacks to portray and downfalls of it. Considering the fact that we are not one hundred percent assured that profiling is always successful or accurate, therefore in reality, profiles will not always be accurate or as simple as this film makes it out to be.
Terms: profiling, serial killer, profiler, crime scene, evidence, cognitive psychology, forensic psychology
First off, I really enjoyed watching this movie. I am not someone that likes scary movies but I think I like Silence of the Lambs because it had more psychological aspects to it, instead of someone just going around killing people.
The main focus of this movie was having Clarice Starling profile the serial killer, Buffalo Bill, with the help of Dr. Hannibal Lector, a serial killer himself. What I found most interesting about this movie is that while Starling was profiling Buffalo Bill and Lector, she was also getting profiled herself. Dr. Hannibal Lector is an extremely creepy character because he is so evil but also very smart and cunning. He helps Starling create the profile for Buffalo Bill, but he also creates a profile of Starling. This is a big element of personality psychology because it focuses on why people do what they do and what makes us unique. Dr. Lector is very good at that and he helps Starling become good at it too.
I think that for the most part, this movie does a pretty good job of demonstrating profiling. Starling lists off many details of the serial killer, without going overboard. She looks at his signatures, the way Buffalo Bill personally goes about choosing and killing his victims, and is able to make inferences about him. Starling looks at all the information she and the rest of the FBI have gathered and gets a pretty good description of the killer. From these details we can see that the killer was kind of a mix of three of the four types of killers. Visionary because he seemed to be psychotic and have some clinical psychological issue with believing that he should be transgender. Mission-oriented because he only killed females of a certain build because that’s what he needed to make his skin suit. And power-oriented because, as Starling puts it, “he’ll never stop [because] he’s got a real taste for it now, he’s getting better at his work.” This shows that Buffalo Bill is really starting to enjoy his killings and he feels that he will never be caught because they are going so well. We can also infer that Buffalo Bill is an organized killer. He knows what he’s going to do and he has a well, thought-out plan on how to accomplish it. All of these clues were helpful to catching Buffalo Bill, but Starling would not have been able to fully find him without the help of Dr. Lector.
Dr. Lector, whether he is a killer himself or because he is smart, was very helpful to Starling in this case. He provided insight about Buffalo Bill and helped Starling see what she needed to see without giving her the answers. One way he did this was with a type of geoprofiling. He looked at the map and told Starling to look at it too because the killings probably weren’t as random as they seemed. From looking at the map, Starling was able to depict that from where the killings took place, ultimately lead her to the spot where the killer lived because of the geographic of the killings. This form of profiling is actually very helpful in law and I think this movie did a good job of showing that.
One problem that occurred in the movie that also occurs in real life with profiling is the problem with tunnel vision. The officers working on the case with Starling took Dr. Lectors word about who the killer could be. They became close-minded because they thought they had out-smarted Dr. Lector and Buffalo Bill so they only looked at certain clues instead of the big picture. Because of this tunnel vision, they did not find Buffalo Bill and probably never would have had it not been for Starling that looked at all the clues. Overall, I thought this movie was very well done and does show the idea of profiling pretty well too.
Terms: serial killer, profiling, personality psychology, signatures, visionary killer, clinical psychology, mission-oriented killer, power-oriented killer, organized killer, geoprofiling, tunnel vision
I was uncomfortable on the idea of watching this movie, so I looked up short clips on YouTube to prepare myself for it. After viewing these clips, I knew that I could not watch this movie. I know it is a favorite of many, and a very well done movie, but it was just too intense for me to watch.
After reading about this movie online, I found that this movie is about a young FBI agent, Clarice, who is given the mission to speak with Dr. Lector and try to find answers and clues from him that could lead her and the other investigators to locate a missing women who is at the fate of serial killer, "Buffalo Bill". They choose to speak with Lector because of the psychological insights he might have, as he himself is not only a fellow serial killer, but also a psychologist. After giving insights and bits of information, Lector helps the team and Clarice in the technique of profiling by developing a suspect and by getting into the mind of the suspect in order to solve these series of crimes.
From not watching the movie, but reading information on the plot and connecting it to what we have learned about profiling, this movie is a good example of profiling techniques and psychological investigation.
In Silence of the Lambs, Clarice Starling tries to create an accurate profile of Hannibal Lecter by questioning him. While she questions him, he gets into Clarice’s head by asking her about her childhood and why she was trying to be an FBI agent. It is as if Lecter is trying to create his own profile of Clarice. Clarice gets little snippets of information out of Lecter but not without giving him a lot of information about herself. He uses this information to manipulate Clarice by saying that he can help her catch Buffalo Bill. Clarice takes the bait. Clarice did not realize this is the actual reason Crawford has sent her to question Lecter. By limiting Clarice’s knowledge, Crawford is using his own understanding of Lecter’s mind to increase the possibility of catching Buffalo Bill.
The depiction of Starling trying to profile Lecter is accurate. Starling is directed by Crawford to note everything about Lecter, including his attitude, drawings, and questions in order to better understand Lecter. The method Starling is using to profile Lecter is exactly the same method Profilers use when trying to track down a loose serial killer, only Starling has the benefit of being able to ask Lecter questions.
Starling is again accurately depicted collecting information to build a profile when she is assisting in the autopsy of a girl that was killed by Buffalo Bill. She carefully notes every detail of the body, from the broken finger nails to the skinned back, in order to develop a profile of Buffalo Bill. During the car ride back, Starling gives Crawford her opinion of how Buffalo Bill looks and what he is like based on her examination of the evidence. She makes several inferences, such as he is white, strong, and 30-40 years old based on the evidence. This scene provides an accurate depiction of what a profiler’s job would be, except the movie only provides examples of accurate profiling. By doing so, the movie fails to show viewers that profiling can be extremely inaccurate and may not help catch the killer at all.
The only example of an inaccurate profile in the movie is provided by Lecter. Lecter starts by accurately saying Buffalo Bill’s size and hair color, but then inaccurately leads the investigators to believe that the killer resides in Illinois and is named “Louis Friend”. Even though Lecter’s information is an example of an inaccurate profile, the inaccuracies are portrayed as Lecter intentionally misleading the investigators. As with Starling’s profile, this example does not show that profiling can be extremely inaccurate and that multiple profiles can have conflicting information. However, this example does show how an inaccurate profile can cause investigators to have tunnel vision.
While Silence of the Lambs may have inaccurately portrayed the validity of profiling, the characteristics of the serial killers are fairly accurate. Both Lecter and Buffalo Bill are organized killers and each has their unique signature. Lecter knew his victims and would patiently stalk them. After killing them, Lecter disposed of (the uneaten portion of) the bodies. Bill’s first victim was a girl that he knew and stalked before killing her. This first murder is an example of an organized killing. After the first murder, Bill started to become a disorganized killer because he would kill girls he did not know and had not stalked. However, he was still somewhat organized because he would dump their bodies in a location that was different from where he had picked up the victims. This progression from organized to disorganized killing is described as probable in the book because serial killers may alter their MO’s and do not necessarily have cross-situational consistency. Bill also had a recognizable pattern of killing and skinning his victims. Other parts of Bill’s killing signature are waiting three days so that their skins were loose and stuffing a moth cocoon in their throats. These very specific characteristics of the bodies helped Starling and Crawford link the cases together.
Hannibal Lecter seemed like a power-oriented killer because he liked to manipulate their feelings. Additionally, Lecter was very intelligent. Buffalo Bill is a combination of a power-oriented, hedonistic, and mission-oriented killer. He enjoyed forcing the girl to slather herself in lotion while keeping her in a well. Additionally, he seemed to get immense pleasure out of the skins. His mission is to create a skin suit out of their girls’ bodies. According to the book, these depictions are realistic in that a serial killer may be motivated by one or lie on a continuum between the several motivations.
While this movie does not directly address geographic profiling, one scene does show that Starling and another student looking at the locations where Buffalo Bill picked up each girl. The victims initially appear erratic, but Starling realizes (with the help of Lecter) that Buffalo Bill’s home base may be near the first victim’s home. Her deduction proves to be accurate and she manages to kill Buffalo Bill and save the girl.
Terms: cross-situational consistency, profilers, serial killers, organized, disorganized, validity, accuracy, hedonistic, power-oriented, mission-oriented, MO’s, tunnel vision, home base, signature, autopsy, case linkage
I thought this movie was really enjoyable. It has the first time I had ever seen it and I stayed interested the entire time! After watching the movie, I concluded that psychology had a huge impact in this movie. When Hannibal Lector was introduced, I noticed that he wanted to get into the mind of acquaintances. He often tried to get them to tell him about themselves. He also wanted to manipulate them mentally. I believe sensation psychology was highly involved in this movie because both Buffalo Bill and Lector were serial killers who detected a stimulus in killing and made it a high priority. Finally, social psychology was shown also because Bill is a serial killer at night but can act socially expectable when he’s around other people in public, for example when he answered the door to Clarice.
I think profiling was first involved when Clarice was assigned to talk to Lector. Profiling is the process of drawing inferences about a criminal’s personality, behavior, motivation, and demographic characteristics based on crime scenes other evidence. I realize Clarice wasn’t a criminal but I believe Lector tried to figure her out. I distinctly remember the very first visit Clarice visited Lector, he was describing how she was, what she was wearing, what type of personality she had etc. In his earlier life, I know he was psychiatrist so maybe that was just natural for him. However, when Lector was in his binge of serial killing, he had a signature. A signature is the distinctive, personal aspect of the crime that presumably reveals the signature. His signature was eating the faces of his victims. When Lector heard about Buffalo Bills signature he knew exactly who he was because Bills signature was cutting off the skin of his victims once they were dead.
I can’t decide if Bill was an organized killer or disorganized killer. An organized killer is described as carefully selecting and stalking their victims and planning out what they will do to their victims. A disorganized killer killed on impulse and picked their victims at random. In the movie, it showed him trying to put a piece of furniture in his van and a woman stopped to help him. Did he try to pick women who were only a certain size? He asked her if she was a size ten and she was.
I would have to say that I think Buffalo Bill was a power-oriented serial killer. He definitely enjoyed the satisfaction of capturing and controlling his victims before killing them. He put the women in a well and kept them for three days. While keeping them in the well, he made them put on lotion to moisturize their skin and if they refused he would shower them with a hose.
Lector gave a really accurate profile of Buffalo Bill. I was very surprised when he was right before he was in jail for eight years and that would drive almost anybody crazy. I do believe since Lector was a psychiatrist he would be able to profile people a little better than the average person. Clarice also did a little profiling of herself when she was in the backseat of the car with one of the professors. They have the exact scene written in the book from the movie. Overall, I believe this movie was a great representation of what profiling is and how it could he used. In my mind, after watching this movie I have a clearer vision of what profiling is and how it’s done.
Terms: cognitive psychology, sensation psychology, social psychology, profiling, signature, organized killer, disorganized killer, power oriented.
I have seen this movie prior to this assignment but it was a long time ago. I wasn't really sure what to be looking for now that I was watching it for an assignment. Profiling is the basis of this movie. There is hardly any crime scene investigations or evidence in this movie. This movie is centered around Clarice putting together an accurate profile of Hannibal.
They are approaching Hannibal because not only is he a psychologist but a serial killer himself. They are trying to find information on "Buffalo Bill," which Hannibal eventually provides some, to find a missing woman. He offers her a psychological profile of "Buffalo Bill" based on the case evidence. He offers to help her catch hi,. Hannibal does this in a round-about way. He doesn't necessarily give her answers but guides her along to make her do the profiling and finding of Buffalo Bill. One way is when he has her look at the map with him. He guides her to realize that the killing spots werent as random as they seemed. This led her to finding where he lived.
My favorite scene is when Clarice puts the offer on the table about the transfer. I think its interesting when Hannibal starts profiling her and asks for information about herself in return for Buffalo Bill information. The look on Hannibal's face is crazy while they talk. You can tell he is very smart and witty. He keeps asking Calrice questions about the newest victim. He asks the questions as though he already knows the answers and basically is looking for Clarice to clarify and agree. You learn a lot about Clarice during this scene. He gives clues that Billy hates his own identity and thats what makes him think he's a transexual.
ny time Clarice is asked by Crawford what she is thinking, what she sees, and what to look for, she answers the questions correctly. Crawford always says "very good, correct" which leads you to see that Clarice is very intelligent herself.
The scene when we find out what the title of the movie means in very insightful.
As the movie continues you see a difference in Clarice's profiling and the other officers. Clarice is just as intelligent as Hannibal and knows she has to read outside the box and not take his words for what they are. The officers automatically assume that any single word Hannibal says is what it means and they only focus on that.
As the movie goes on you see how Buffalo Bill gets his thrill from woman and how badly he wants to be a transgender. Because he was rejected at three different institutes for a sex change he finds a way to still be a woman and that is through his victims. All his victims are woman and you finally see and understand why they are bigger etc when Clarice calls Crawford while she is at the house.
I enjoy this movie because it gives you insight for each individual- police officers, FBI, Clarice, a criminal-Hannibal. It shows how each person thinks differently and how beneficial and successful profiling is but it also shows you where things can go wrong.
terms: crime scene, evidence, profiling, criminal, intelligence, FBI
Silence of the Lambs is a movie centering around the investigation and apprehension of a serial killer known as Buffalo Bill. Throughout the movie many aspects of both psychology and of profiling are presented. There are two main profilers within this movie, Clarice and another serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lector. The other main feature of the movie was the in-depth look at two different serial killers.
Both Clarice and Dr. Lector begin their psychological analyses in the same manner that a real FBI agent or investigator would. They first study the case file to deduce something about the killer. Clarice accurately gives a description of the killer they are in search for; a man in his 30s-40s, has decent strength, has his own home away from others, and has a fair amount of control. Having control allows him to be an organized killer, meaning he has a plan and is very precise on what actions he takes. Not only does Clarice make a psychological profile of Buffalo Bill she also does a brief psychological autopsy for one of his victims that washes up in a river. Clarice takes note of the woman’s fingernail polish and makeup to conclude that she was not a local, rather from a city. Clarice also notices an object in the throat of the woman, a moth cocoon, that later leads to the FBI catching Buffalo Bill. The other profiler would be an enlisted murderer, Dr. Hannibal Lector. Since Lector was a psychiatrist is to provide great insight into Buffalo Bill. It also turned out that Lector had actually met the criminal, which aided in his profile.
While the actions taken when profiling Buffalo Bill were accurate, the success of the profiles was inaccurate to the real world. In reality profiling is nowhere near as precise and accurate as what was depicted in the movie. It is a very small percentage of profiles that lead to a direct arrest of a criminal.
Throughout the movie there were many aspects of psychology. Two of the most prevalent forms of psychology were cognitive and social psychology. Any time that a profile was being given someone (either Clarice or Lector) were analyzing and manipulating the file (stimulus) in order to reach a conclusion. Lector also uses a great amount of memory recall during the moving. It is through cognitive processes that conclusions about the killer were made. The other highly prevalent form of psychology was social psychology. Dr. Lector took a great deal of enjoyment for manipulating others and getting access to their thoughts. He was so well able to manipulate those around himself that he was able to cause the death of another inmate by merely speaking to him.
Another key factor of the movie was that it involved multiple serial killers. The two killers in this movie, Dr. Lector and Buffalo Bill, were completely different in their motivation for murder and in what type of serial killer they would be classified as. Dr. Lector seemed to target those that had either wronged him or angered him where as Buffalo Bill targeted women of a certain size or look. Both men had aspects of being power-oriented killers. Dr. Lector took pleasure in getting into a persons mind and making them suffer by exposing their fears and weaknesses. Where as Buffalo Bill would isolate his victims by placing them in a well and would force them to perform tasks over a period of 3 days before killing them. Buffalo Bill could also be seen as a hedonistic type for those same reasons, he took pleasure in keeping them alive to ensure that they were of proper quality when he murdered them.
Overall this movie displayed many of the positive sides of profiling. It displayed a realistic manner in which a profile could occur but it did not however show how often profiles are ineffective. The movie also did a decent job at portraying some of the motivation for certain serial killers and how they are not all the same.
Terms: Profile, serial killer, psychological analysis, psychological autopsy, cognitive psych, social psych, motivation, hedonistic type, power-oriented type
Silence of the Lambs is a movie about a young FBI agent trying to catch a serial killer named Buffalo Bill. Criminal profiling is a very important piece of this movie. It is greatly emphasized as the key to catching the killer. In reality, profiling rarely is the key to solving crimes. Anyway, Clarice Starling who is still in training to become a FBI agent is brought into the case. She gives her initial profile of Buffalo Bill and it turns out to be spot on. Now as impressive as that may sound, it really wasn't all that helpful. A white man in his 30s or 40s, who is cautious and has physical strength. That really doesn't narrow down much of anything. She is sent to talk with Hannibal Lecter, a former psychiatrist and serial killer who would eat his victims. The FBI believes that he could profile Buffalo Bill very accurately and help them solve the case. Lecter gives a very detailed profile that helps Starling solve the case.
In this movie Buffalo Bill watches his victims, makes a plan and is always in control. In the scene where he is putting a chair in the back of his van he pretends to be injured so the women he has selected will come over and offer to help. He is pleasant and in control right up to the point he gets her in the van. This would suggest to me he is an organized killer. Further evidence is he transports his victims, hides their body, and no weapons and little evidence is found. I would also describe him as a power-orientated serial killer. When he puts his victims in a deep hole in his basement and demands that they submit to him and do exactly as he says.
Throughout the movie they keep showing a newspaper article that says bill skins fifth. That means they found 5 victims and determined that they were all killed by the same person. That process is called case linkage. And the main way investigators link cases together that are similar, is they look for the killers signature. Buffalo Bill's signature was cutting of the skin and putting a moth in the victims throat.
The movie briefly touched on geographic profiling. When Starling was looking at the map and the placement of the victims she discovered that they way he hid one of the bodies, bill must have known her. It wasn't something that the computers picked up on though.
The profiling done in this movie was eerily accurate and was a big help to catching the killer. This is just hollywood glamorizing criminal profiling. In reality, profiling can be a useful tool to help solve a case however, it is mainly just simple and relentless police work that solves cases.
Terms: Criminal Profiling, serial killer, organized killer, power-orientated, case linkage, signature, geographic profiling
Silence of the Lambs is a thrilling film that depicts an investigation involving the serial killer Buffalo Bill. In the movie, FBI agent Clarice Starling works with another famous serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter to form a social profile of Buffalo Bill. Together they form a deal in which Dr. Hannibal is to be transferred to another prison for his help with the social profile. With the profile, the FBI hopes to find and apprehend Buffalo Bill.
When the case was first introduced to Clarice, pictures of the crime scene and victims were presented. Based off the photos and evidence provided, Clarice was able to form a vague profile of Buffalo Bill. She described him as a white male because serial killers tend to hunt within their own ethnic groups. He has good physical strength; she based this assumption on the idea that he must have good strength in order to kidnap and handle his victims. Buffalo Bill is in his thirties or forties because of his physical strength combined with an older man’s self-control. Clarice based Buffalo Bill’s age due partly to his strength. A man age 30-40 will most likely have better physical strength than someone older. When Clarice states he has an older man’s self-control, she is referring to Buffalo Bill as being an organized killer. He is an organized killer in which he selects his victims (based on gender and size), stalks them, and plans out what he will do to his victims. This is another reason why she chose the age range 30-40. Someone younger than 30 may not have as much self-control and are most likely disorganized in which they are impulsive. Buffalo Bill is not a drifter; he has his own house somewhere not an apartment. The reason for this depiction is because what Buffalo Bill does takes privacy. Clarice continues to describe him as cautious, precise, and he’ll never stop. He will never stop she states because he has a taste for his work and he is getting better at it.
A white male, age ranging from 30-40 years old with psychical strength and a residency house is very vague. Although Clarice’s profile is correct with supportive reasoning, her description is not very distinctive and could cause biases such as tunnel vision. With Dr. Hannibal’s help however, Clarice is able to make correlations between the victims and Buffalo Bill. One correlation made was Dr. Hannibal’s idea of coveting. He tells Clarice we covet what we see every day. He also points out that the random scattering of sites seems desperately random, as if there is some sort of connection that she hasn’t made. With these clues Clarice was able to make the connection that Buffalo Bill knew his first victim. With this information, Clarice visits the victim’s home town to discover that Buffalo Bill was a tailor. Using the skin he took from his victims’ bodies was not a signature; rather it was being used as fabric.
Based on the profile that Dr. Hannibal had provided, the FBI was searching for a man with this description: five foot ten, strongly built, about a hundred and eighty pounds; hair blonde, eyes pale blue, age 35. With this information given, the signature of the month, and the information that a certain man named Jame Gumb was denied a sex-change, the FBI stormed this man’s house in Illinois. This man however was not Buffalo Bill and the serial killer was still on the loose. This incident proves how unreliable profiling can be. There are many men with the description provided and profiling can cause injustice to some and the escape of others.
In the end, Clarice discovers the actual home of Buffalo Bill. The profile she had first formed had only helped her when she was face to face with Buffalo Bill. The actual clues that lead her to discovering his location were evidence that the victims’ locations were not random, case linkage, his signature, and the discovery that the perpetrator knew the first victim. Silence of the Lambs was an excellent movie that depicted the pros and cons of profiling. The movie makes an effort to show the importance of details and evidence rather than relying solely on profiling.
Terms: serial killer, signature, profiling, organized killer, case linkage, disorganized killer, correlation, perpetrator, and victim
The textbook starts off by describing a scene from Silence of the Lambs where Agent Clarice Starling produces an impromptu profile of Buffalo Bill. The profile is eerily precise citing specific ages, living habits, personality, and method of killing. Though this profile impresses her boss, Jack Crawford, Starling is merely a fictional character whose talents, characteristics and actions are dreamed up by someone else, as the textbook points out. The real question in the depiction is not how precise her profile is, but how accurate it is, and while it turns out to be accurate in the Hollywood scenario, does that translate to real life?
The textbook talks about how profilers need to analyze the evidence from the crime scene, witnesses, police reports, autopsies, etc. Starling, at that point in time, hadn’t actually researched much of the case so lacked much foundation for her statement.
According to the textbook, the research supporting the type of profiling found in the movie is rather lacking. Though there is much anecdotal, qualitative evidence supporting the effectiveness of profiling, actual systematic, empirical research has been “slow to develop.”
I found it particularly interesting that Dr. Hannibal Lector actually did the majority of the profiling in the case, aside from Starling’s original profile, or he points Starling in the right direction. Even more ironically, Lector uses what he knows of Starling to create a profile for her, which again, is eerily precise and accurate. His quid pro quo method of exchanging information about Buffalo Bill for information about her seems to be serving him quite well. Much of the profiling speculation developed by Starling with the help of Lector or by Lector himself have much actual use. As the textbook points out, “many profiles include speculations that are interesting but of very little use to investigators.” For example, Starling concludes that Buffalo Bill may be living on his own, be very physically strong and be in his thirties or forties. While this is interesting, the police cannot investigate every physical strong individual in their thirties or forties that lives on his or her own. Neither can they rule out someone that doesn’t fit into any or all of these categories because Starling’s suggestions are instinctual and commonsensical, not based on empirical data. Again, the evidence presented in the textbook about profiling does not seem to support the ideas appearing in Silence of the Lambs.
However, the textbook does provide examples of some useful profiling. One such example is when Dr. Brussel alleged that the “mad bomber” was a disgruntled former employee of Con Edison. Very similarly, Dr. Lector suggested to Starling that Buffalo Bill may be someone interested in a sex change operation. While that information, in and of itself, does not aid in the investigation of Buffalo Bill or in the prevention of any further crimes to be committed by him. That being said, it was the APPLICATION of said information that proved to be exceedingly beneficial to the ongoing investigation. With that knowledge, Starling could look up at local hospitals to see who had applied to receive a sex change operation, and who had been denied.
Also, the textbook discusses the ideas of an organized and disorganized killers, and further along in the textbook it states that research indicates the process as more of a continuum. Buffalo Bill seems to support the latter theory. Certain evidence indicates that he is very organized (i.e.: very little witnesses, no blood given, everything is very planned), but he is also a little disorganized in his devotion to his puppy and his emotional reactivity to the plight of his captive (he gets distraught when she begins to beg him, but his need of female skin overweighs his conscience).
My last point of interest is that the film focuses on Dr. Lector’s skills at profiling, whereas the research illustrated in the textbook states that clinical psychologists are not as skilled at profiling as trained criminal profilers. It is interesting to see how Lector is such a better profiler than Starling.
Terms: victim, perpetrator, organized killer, disorganized killer
The Silence of the Lambs is an excellent film, and I really enjoyed watching it again but this time through a critical lens of psychological profiling. I think that the film does a really quality job in its portrayal of profiling. It plays very heavily on minute details, the culmination of which finally lead agent Starling to Buffalo Bill. Early in the film, Starling as an amateur does a quality job of making an initial profile in which she is able to determine Bill's age-range, race, residential status, strength, and lack of impulsivity in his crimes. She was able to determine these aspects due to her FBI training and examination of the case files.
One element that added a lot of substance to the film was Dr. Lechter's own psychopathology. He is a remorseless and incredibly violent serial killer as well as a cannibal. It is up to Starling to overcome her fear and hesitation around him in order to solve the case. It is clear to see that it is not an easy task in the sene in which he describes what he did to one of his victims. " I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti." He is a terrifying character and a very interesting one to examine from a psychological standpoint.
It was very interesting to see the juxtaposition of an intelligent yet inexperienced FBI trainee and the cold and calculating Dr. Lechter. He was the key in profiling Bill because of his encounter with him, as well as the wealth of information that he was able to provide given both his distinguished psychiatric background as well as his own experience as a serial killer. Starling was also key in that she was the only one who Lechter was willing to communicate this information.
Lechter did the majority of the profiling himself after Starling provided him with the case files and agreed to play his mind-games. He was able to further clarify Starling's initial profile quite significantly. He described bill as a 35 year old man standing five foot ten, strongly built, weighing a hundred and eighty pounds with blond hair and blue eyes.He was also able to do a psychological profile on Bill in addition to the physical description, which was perhaps even more useful in finding him. After Starling discovered the moth pupae and presented that information to Lechter, he explained that the moth was a symbol of transformation. This is very relevant because he was also able to determine that Bill considered himself a transsexual, and in being rejected from gender reassignment surgery, turned to his own means of transformation.
Terms: profiling, psychopathology, serial killer, victim, transexual, psychology
The film, Silence of the Lambs, tells the story of the FBI Behavioural Analysis Unit in the midst of two projects: collecting data on serial killers and solving the crimes committed by Buffalo Bill. Neither project was profiling.
Starling is sent to vist Hannibal Lecter in prison,supposedly to gather data for her boss's files on serial killer. This is not profiling; it is developing a base of information to use when analyzing the behavior of a still active criminal.
The real purpose in sending Starling is to trick or convince Dr. Lecter into giving insight into the personality of the killer, Buffalo Bill. Dr. Lecter's expertise comes from his work as a psychiatrist. Lecter works from case files and crime scene photographs, in the way that a profiler would to determine personality traits from behavior.
He gives details and clues to Starling so that she discovers the identity and location.
This is a killer who is organized, and a planner. His ruse of struggling with a piece of furniture to appeal to his last victim's compassion, the elaborate starving of the victims to loosen their skin, and the application of moisturizing lotion, his posing of the bodies all speak to his careful, if insane, routine.
Starling tells Crawford in the car that she believes the killer is strong and lives in his own home in order to have the privacy to hold his victims over several days. She puts herself in the mind of the killer to come up with information that begins to give a picture of the killer.
On the other hand, Buffalo Bill's insertion of a rare moth in the mouths of his victims provides a psychologically interesting connection between Bill's desire for trans-sexual surgery and the moth's ability to transform itself. These fascinating details are slowly revealed to Starling, making for a lot of suspense.
Another interesting psychological aspect is shown in the dehumanization of his victims by Buffalo Bill, calling his latest abducted young woman, "it". In contrast, the young woman's mother refers to her by name repeatedly in her televised appeal to the killer. The mother's effort was to make her daughter real to the killer in the hope the killer would not kill her.
Lecter showed great skill in his psychoanalysis of Starling, bargaining for her secrets and understanding intuitively her weaknesses. He was able to ask questions that would elicit her deepest secrets and reveal her childhood fears. Lecter "got into Starling's head" as Starling's boss predicted when he warned her not to reveal personal information.
But Starling also gets into his head, and guesses Lecter will want to live by a beach with birds, even if for only a week a year. She tricks him into helping the FBI.
The film demonstrates the ability of trained psychologists to glean information about other people in order to catch criminals.
Terms: profiling, B.A.U., psychoanalyze, psychology, victim, dehumanize, organized, trans-sexual, serial killer, personality
This was a great movie; I have not seen before and thoroughly enjoyed it. The movie fit with the chapter on profiling nicely. Hannibal Lector did most of the profiling he would walk Clarice through his thought process on Buffalo Bill, all of what we know about Buffalo Bill came from Lector himself other than his physical characteristics which came from Clarice. Involving Lector in the case was a good idea because they could get into the mindset of a serial killer. Like Lector, Buffalo Bill also had a signature to trace. He cut off the skins of his victims so that he could make a body suit. He would keep the bodies for a couple days in a well to make sure that the skin was soft and moist enough for his suit to last in the complete transformation to a transsexual.
Clarice first profiled Buffalo Bill when her and Crawford were on their way to the funeral home. She was rambling off basic facts like he was a white male, because normally serial killers don’t kill outside their ethnic group, that he was around his 30’s or 40’s, that he lives in a house for space and privacy, and that he will never stop doing what he is doing because he has a taste for it now. Most of these facts could be educated guesses and the way that she hit these facts about Buffalo Bill dead on was not normal. Many profiles are just inferences and it is hard to recognize them as facts because of lack of information to back them up.
Geographical profiling as well as psychological profiling was used in the movie when there was a map on where Buffalo Bill’s victims were coming from and where their bodies were found. They said that they found no trend, but Clarice was able to find the location of Buffalo Bill with a little help from Lector.
Buffalo Bill was a mix between a hedonistic serial killer and a power-oriented serial killer. He liked to be above his victims and he found pleasure in cutting off their skin and wearing them around. Some of this is shown in another more lighthearted movie, Joe Dirt. Buffalo Bill is making Joe put lotion on in getting ready to wear his skin. He is an organized serial killer, he definitely had his motive and that he had a certain way of doing things.
There were even times when Hannibal Lector was profiling Clarice, in thinking she was a young woman and wasn’t as good as he was, he states that he will say and do what he wants. Clarice does some really great profiling on her own however after they get information out of Lector. She examines the body of Buffalo Bill’s latest victim and finds clues in the fact that her skin has been removed and that a moth cocoon was lodged in her throat. This was also a signature of Buffalo Bill, and was also a connection made from the house of Buffalo Bill when a moth was seen flying around. The moth is a connection for Lector because this leads him to know that Buffalo Bill is a transvestite. The moth or butterfly signifies Buffalo Bill’s need for change.
Criminal profiling was portrayed really positively in the film instead of showing the really vague side of profiling and the dead ends that the book shows.
Terms: Profiling, geographical profiling, psychological profiling, signature, hedonistic serial killer, power-oriented serial killer, and organized serial killer