Deliberate mistake: The number of acts Lecter performed during his escape from the individual jail cell and until he was attended to by an officer (who thought he was an injured officer) would have taken a lot of time and effort to complete - way more time than he could have gone undetected by one of the many officers in the building. Slashing/ bludgeoning to death a person can be done fairly quickly (munching on a victim's face adds time!), but three particular acts required a substantial amount of time, especially for an elderly man whose ultimate goal was escape: Swapping clothes (undressing and dressing) with a police officer and trimming off his face/scalp to appear to be that officer, then getting to a strategic location to be discovered; Setting a dead officer on the roof of the elevator; and, somehow hanging / impaling (crucifixion-style) an officer from the top of the jail cell (which appeared to be around 10' high). The latter feat would be challenging for TWO physically-fit officers.
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The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
1 deliberate mistake
Directed by: Jonathan Demme
Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Jodie Foster, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine, Anthony Heald
Revealing mistake: When Clarice is at the archive, she sees two articles, one entitled "Baltimore Psychiatrist Receives Highest Honor" and "New horrors in 'Cannibal Trial'." The column beneath both titles to the right is exactly the same, and in the first article, that same column is repeated at the leftmost and rightmost columns and in the second, is repeated at the rightmost column. That same column is scattered on every article she sees. (00:21:35)
Jack Crawford: Believe me, you do not want Hannibal Lecter inside your head.
Trivia: None of the moths seen in the film are actual Death Head moths. In the interest of avoiding the hassle involved with actually shipping moth eggs over, then halting filming so they could be raised to the proper level of maturity, the production crew simply went with a similar looking domestic breed of moth, and glued false fingernails painted with the trademark skull like visage onto their bodies.
Question: I can not figure out how in the world agent Starling makes the connection about where Buffalo Bill lives. I don't understand the connection she makes at the house where she finds the pictures and says "you covet what you see" It has driven me crazy for years and I need help. How does she figure it all out?
Answer: "You covet what you see": Agent Starling looks out the window of the girl's house to see who the neighbors are, who may have been watching the girl.
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Answer: In Frederika's bedroom Clarice sees the dress being made and recognises that the pieces of material are the same shape as the pieces of skin missing from the victims' bodies. In the bank, where Clarice meets Frederika's friend, Stacy tells her the address of 'Mrs Lippman' whom Frederika used to work with. Presumably Buffalo Bill is related to, or is, Mrs. Lippman since that is where Clarice finds him.
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He's not Mrs Lippman. He did, however, kill her. As Clarice chases him through the cellar, the woman's decomposing body is in a tub.