Clarice Starling
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Hannibal Tetralogy character | |
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| Clarice Starling | |
| Gender | Female |
| Ethnicity | White American |
| Birth | December 23, 1963 |
| Relationships | Hannibal Lecter (partner in solving murder, later lover) George Starling (father) |
| Current status: | Alive |
| Portrayed by: | Jodie Foster (The Silence of the Lambs) Julianne Moore (Hannibal) Masha Skorobogatov (as little girl in The Silence of The Lambs) |
Clarice M. Starling is a fictional character in the novels The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal by Thomas Harris.
In the movie adaptation of The Silence of the Lambs she is played by Jodie Foster, while in the movie adaptation of Hannibal she is played by Julianne Moore.
Clarice Starling, as portrayed by Jodie Foster, was ranked the sixth greatest protagonist in film history on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains.
[edit] The Silence of the Lambs
In The Silence of the Lambs, Starling is 25 and a student at the FBI Academy. She hopes to work at the Behavioral Science Unit, tracking down serial killers and ultimately apprehending them. Her mentor, FBI director Jack Crawford, sends her to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist who turned into a cannibalistic serial killer. He is housed in a Baltimore mental institution. Upon arriving at the asylum for her first interview with Lecter, Starling is the subject of the crude and lewd attentions of Lecter's captor, the asylum manager Frederick Chilton. She rebuffs him, much to his annoyance, which probably helps her bond with Lecter, who also despises Chilton. As time passes, Lecter gives Starling information about Buffalo Bill, but only in exchange for personal information such as painful memories.
She tells Lecter that she was raised in a small town in West Virginia, with her father (a police officer). When she was about ten years old, her father was shot by robbers. He died a month after the incident. Starling was sent to live on a farm with her uncle, from which she briefly ran away in horror when she witnessed horses and lambs being slaughtered. (The title of the book refers to her being haunted by the screaming she heard from the lambs. Starling believes that if she can save people from Buffalo Bill, the screaming will stop).
She spent the rest of her childhood in a Lutheran orphanage. She graduated from the University of Virginia at the top of her class and became a star student of the FBI's training school (according to the movie).
During the investigation, Starling and Lecter form a strange relationship with each other (Lecter gives her clues in the form of cryptic, riddling information designed to help Starling figure it out for herself.) The two grow to respect each other, so when Lecter escapes during a transfer to a state prison in Tennessee, Starling does not fear him, because she is certain that even though he was extremely dangerous, he respected her enough to not come after her.
Starling has a hunch that one of Buffalo Bill's victims had a personal relationship with him, and goes to investigate. She goes to the victim's home in Belvedere, Ohio, to interview people who knew her, and unknowingly stumbles onto the killer himself, Jame Gumb (he is living under the alias "Jack Gordon" when they meet). When she sees a Death's Head moth (the same kind that Bill stuffs in his victims' throats) flutter through the house, she knows she has her man and tries to arrest him. Gumb flees and Starling follows him into his basement, where his latest victim is alive and screaming for help. Gumb stalks Starling wearing night vision goggles and is about to kill her when she hears him behind her and opens fire, killing him. The victim is rescued.
Weeks later, Lecter writes Starling a letter from a hotel room somewhere in Detroit wishing her good luck in silencing the screaming of the lambs.
[edit] Hannibal
In Hannibal, Starling is in her early thirties and a full-fledged FBI agent. After a bungled drug raid in which she shoots a drug kingpin using an infant as a hostage (identified by the press as a mother holding a child) and is later blamed for the mess by Paul Krendler. Starling is removed from active duty, and she receives a letter from Lecter, who is (unknown to her at the time) residing in his favorite city: Florence, Italy. One of Lecter's surviving victims, the paralyzed and mutilated vengeful billionaire Mason Verger, is searching for Lecter and has offered a huge reward, which a corrupt Florentine detective named Pazzi tries to claim when he discovers Lecter's true identity in Florence.
Clarice finds out about Lecter in Florence and attempts to warn Pazzi. As Starling predicted, Lecter finds out about the plot that Pazzi has against him, and as a result, he kills Pazzi. Lecter then flees to the US. When he arrives, he immediately starts to follow Starling. Starling, meanwhile, is being harassed at the FBI by various corrupt agents such as her superior Paul Krendler, who is secretly assisting Verger in capturing Lecter. Starling attempts to find Dr. Lecter first, not only to capture him, but to save him from Verger and Krendler. Krendler was also trying to frame Starling by planting falsified letters from Lecter, in an attempt to get her fired by the FBI by making them believe that she and Lecter had an intimate relationship. This only results in her being put on a suspension of leave, but she is now powerless to stop Verger's men. Lecter is captured by Verger, who attempts to feed him to a group of specially trained boars.
Starling is aware that Lecter is being held by Verger, so she attempts to save him. She is wounded in the ensuing gunfight; Verger is killed by his own sister, Margot (though he is instead killed by his physicial Cordell in the film adaptation). Lecter nurses Clarice back to health and attempts to transform her into a surrogate for his late sister, Mischa, through a regimen of mind-altering drugs, brainwashing and psychological conditioning.
Lecter utterly underestimates her strong will, however; she mocks Lecter's devotion to his sister and tells him that he should brainwash himself into becoming Mischa, if he truly wanted her back. During this time, Lecter captures Krendler and cannibalizes his brain with a drugged Starling, and he holds a feast of his brains sauteed. Then, in the novel's most controversial sequence, Clarice opens the front of her dress and offers her breast to Lecter. Lecter accepts Clarice's offer and the two become lovers. Through this physical display of affection, she is able to humanize Lecter and subside his cannibalistic urges. They disappear together, only to be sighted again in Buenos Aires three years later by former orderly, Barney, who somewhat befriended him while he was incarcerated in Baltimore.
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| Novels Red Dragon • The Silence of the Lambs |
Main Characters Hannibal Lecter |
Films Manhunter • The Silence of the Lambs • Hannibal |
| Secondary Characters List of minor characters in the Hannibal series |
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