Buffalo Bobbing

The beautiful song that Buffalo Bill plays while dancing around in his robe, “Goodbye Horses,” also appears in Married to the Mob, the film Jonathan Demme made prior to Silence of the Lambs. It appears in a scene in which Michelle Pfeiffer's character is wearing a robe.

The Silence of the Lambs is Jonathan Demme’s 1991 horror/thriller film, which is based on Thomas Harris’ 1988 novel of the same name. It’s about an ambitious, promising young FBI trainee, Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster), who has been recruited by Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn), head of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit, to assist with the pursuit of serial killer Jame Gumb (Ted Levine), known as Buffalo Bill, who kidnaps, kills, and skins young women. Starling’s assignment, which involves interviewing another serial killer, Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), gains greater urgency when Buffalo Bill abducts his latest victim, Catherine Martin (Brooke Smith), the daughter of Tennessee Senator Ruth Martin (Diane Baker).

Though the scene discussed here is typically called the Buffalo Bill Dance Scene, it’s as much about Catherine Martin as it is about Jame Gumb/Buffalo Bill. Occurring during the film’s final act, it comprises a series of crosscuts focusing on the two characters and their very different aims: Gumb, as he immerses himself in his fantasies of sexual desirability and transformation, Catherine, as she executes a plan to gain a bargaining chip and save her own life by luring Precious, Gumb’s beloved dog, into the basement pit where Gumb has imprisoned her.

This scene serves several purposes within the film. It gives the audience a brief but illuminating glimpse into Jame Gumb’s inner life and aspirations, an aspect of the novel that was largely sacrificed for the film adaptation. It also underscores the depth of Catherine’s peril in the face of Gumb’s strong motivations to cut her up in service to his fantasies, highlights Catherine’s determination and resourcefulness, sets the clock ticking for her as she puts her plan into motion, and ratchets up the tension.

The dance scene is not in Thomas Harris’ novel or Ted Tally’s screenplay, though it was inspired by a moment early on in the book when Gumb stands in front of a mirror and tucks his penis between his legs. The dance was the result of an on-set collaboration between Jonathan Demme and Ted Levine. Demme filmed two versions. The one used in the film is set to Q. Lazzarus’ Goodbye Horses, a song about transcendence and an appropriate choice given Gumb’s aims. The alternate version showed Levine performing a striptease to Bob Seger’s Her Strut. There is no doubt that Demme made the right choice for the film, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to see the latter.

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