Narrative codes:Silence of the Lambs

In the opening sequence the director has used the narrative codes to great effect using them to show small detail which will allow the audience to see what the film maybe about. There are to types of codes Action codes which are an event or moment which motivate the action in a certain direction and Enigma codes which are that are posed by the action or events which are then answered by the narrative.

The film starts with an immediate question when there is a person comes into shot and the audience straight away thinks ‘Who is this?’ then the question is posed when there is a shot of the character climb up the rope and the audience then is think ‘what is she doing?. This allows the audience to get an idea of what is happening to the character this is effective to showing the back story of the character as we later find out why she is climbing the rope.

The character is then seen to start running and the way it has been shot the audience will ask ‘why is she running?’ this is effective in showing how the character will be in the film because there is an edginess to the way the running is shot as if the character is being watched by someone. The audience then see a cargo net and then the question which is asked earlier on is answered that she is doing an assault course and that then gives them another question to answer ‘why is she doing the assault course?’. She then runs off past and the shot is of her running and she is nearly out of shot and another character is shown in the same location and this brings the first of the biggest question in the opening sequence when a man comes along and asks a question ‘Crawford wants to see you’. Then at this point we also find out that the man who is asking for her is part of the FBI this gives us more information into the main character and why she maybe asked to go and see ‘Crawford’.

The scene then changes and we see her running but towards a building and there are a number of other people around and they also are training and we could hear gunfire which gives the audience another question ‘Why is there Gunfire?’ She then walks through the building and she meets someone and they say her name to be Clarice this gives the audience more information to the questions which they may have been asking as the film goes on. Clarice then gets in the lift and when the shot comes on and she gets in a lift and in the lift there are just men and they are all wearing the same clothes and they are all considerably bigger than her, this gives the idea that she shouldn’t be in this work place.

She then walks through the building and there is a sign on the wall which says ‘Behavioural science’ and this give us the question as the audience another question ‘What is in the behavioural science?’ and ‘Why is she involved in the area in the FBI?’  This is good in giving the questions for the audience. The last of the action codes are the point where she gets told to go into Crawford’s office and then she goes into there. This gives the audience another question when she is told that Crawford isn’t there we ask ‘Why isn’t he there?’  And we finish the sequence with a shot of her looking at something and we ask the question ‘What is she looking at?’

Overall I think that this opening sequence for the silence of the lambs is very good for the narrative codes of the film because it gives the audience lots of question and the action codes are more understandable when the film is studied. The use of the subtle hints to the audience of what maybe happening but they are not giving away the whole storyline; they have given us a good number of questions.