Over at Deadline, there was a great feature about participants of The Silence of the Lambs talking about the film, who had it, who wanted to star in it, how it ended up to be one of the best films of all time. But I didn’t know about William Goldman’s contribution. For those who have been following this site for a while know that in the beginning days, going back ten or so years, our tagline was always “nobody knows anything.” Then it changed to “the Trick is not Minding” but “nobody knows anything” has always been, and remains, one of the best pieces of advice anyone could ever give about how Hollywood works. No one really does know. Heck, out of Telluride I remember saying to people “Moonlight could actually win Best Picture” and them saying back, “they won’t even watch Moonlight.”
Turns out this piece of advice from Goldman probably saved Silence from being an imperfect film to a near-perfect one:
DEMME: We watched the movie. It played like gangbusters, and we got terrific response from the audience. Craig and I were high-fiving each other. Okay, we’re locked, baby. I got a phone call the next day at my house. ‘Hi, this is William Goldman calling.’ I was like, ‘Oh, hi. God, one of my favorite writers of all time.’ He said he thought the picture was terrific, but he thought there was one section that was holding it back from its full potential power. This came after Dr. Lecter escapes, and there was this scene that took somewhere between eight and twelve minutes. Jack Crawford is called on the carpet. They are summoned by the attorney general, who was played by Roger Corman. Crawford’s kicked off the case. Clarice is kicked out of the academy. They go downstairs, and there’s this blistering, really terrific scene on the steps. Clarice just can’t let go of saving the senator’s daughter. Her brain is going a mile a minute, and Crawford is telling her, ‘Didn’t you hear what happened up there? I’m off the case. You’re out of this thing. There’s no way on earth…’ But she said she was going to Calumet. Clarice looks at Crawford and says, ‘God Dammit Jack, I’m going.’ We cut to her in the car, crossing the bridge where she’s about to encounter Buffalo Bill. So Goldman said, ‘Take all that out.’ I’m like, ‘What? That’s one of the biggest scenes in the movie. Really? What?’ And he says, ‘That’s what my gut’s telling me. You guys should really take a look at it.’ So I was like, ‘Well, listen, thank you for this. Goodbye.’
I got to the cutting room and told Craig about this conversation, almost laughing about it. Craig was not really pleased because we were really…locked. But we said, let’s just take that section out, and watch the movie again, right here on the Steenbeck in the cutting room. So we lifted it out, watched it. And the power of just going to Jodie without all that other stuff…I think Goldman might’ve called it ‘the third act launchpad exposition stuff.’ It was just an extraordinary difference, an immeasurable improvement. That is William Goldman.
And Demme on the Oscar wins — btw, when Warren Beatty turns around? Beatty was their biggest competition coming in with Bugsy…in terms of Best Actor anyway.
DEMME: The awards were shocking. We knew how great Tony, and Jodie, and everybody was. But you just don’t think in those terms because, at the end of the day, it is a thriller. It has this young woman trying to save another young woman, but it is a thriller. It doesn’t seem like an Oscar movie. The nominations took everybody by great surprise. We thought these bigger pictures would win the prizes, and the only thing I can remember us ever really talking about was the impulse to put Anthony Hopkins in the Best Supporting Category because his screen time was so relatively short. He was on screen for less than 20 minutes, which would seem to relegate him to Best Supporting Actor. I just said, ‘Look, you guys, let’s have as much fun as we can with this. That’s not a supporting performance. It’s an outstanding achievement in a leading role by a male. So let’s go for it.’ We all went out for the Academy Awards, and then…we started winning. I was just completely freaked out. There was a moment when we were seated behind Warren Beatty, who was a few seats down from Arthur Krim and Eric Pleskow. After the second award, Warren Beatty turned around and said to Arthur and Eric, it’s going to be a sweep.’ We were like, ‘A what?’ So that was that.