Silence of the Lambs DVD cover analysis

Explore the narrative image of 'The Silence of the Lambs' and the way this is constructed through the DVD cover



The narrative image of a film can be created in a number of ways. One of which, is the DVD cover.

The main image on this DVD cover is a level frame, big close up of a woman’s face, taken at eye level. This use of big close up enables the audience to have a very good view of the expression on the woman’s face. The woman is directly addressing the camera, this makes the image more striking and attracts people's attention.
The woman herself appears to be a white female, but the image appears to have a blue coloured tint on it, which makes her skin seem to be fairly blue-ish in colour. This use of blue makes the character seem quite deathly, since skin becoming blue-ish is often a sign that blood has stopped flowing properly in a person.
The big close up on her face prevents us from seeing the woman’s hair, which makes the picture more enigmatic since we can’t really get the full picture of what this woman looks like, so we begin to wonder who exactly this woman is. This is something that the audience would expect to find out once they watch the film.
She has quite a wide-eyed, almost shocked/surprised expression on her face, which leads the audience to wonder what has happened to surprise her like that. The woman’s eyes are yellow, which stand out from the rest of the blue on her face and the yellow makes her appear to be less human, and the audience wonders what happened to this woman to make her eyes yellow (and a bit scary) and her skin blue.This is also something that the audience would expect to find out when they watch the film.
The woman’s mouth is being covered by some sort of moth-like bug, which at first glance appears to be harmless, but in fact there’s a skull on the moth. This skull signifies death and it seems as if this moth is trying to prevent her from speaking and also point her out to whoever the villain character in the scenario is. So effectively, having this moth on her mouth is like a metaphoric omen of death. The death-omen moth, along with the woman’s yellow eyes and blue skin, all connote that the woman on the cover is the victim/one of the victims in the film.
The woman has very feminine facial features, which make her appear more vulnerable. Since she doesn’t really seem to have any particularly distinctive features, it seems as if she is used to represent any/all of the victims that the audience will come across during the course of the film.

At the top of the DVD cover, there is a ‘Special Edition’ banner, which is intended to make the audience want to buy the DVD as it is a special version. The film is a certificate 18, which makes the audience expect that the film will be more disturbing, violent and/or scary than a film with a lower certificate. The actors’ names are relatively small on the cover, which shows that they are not being used to try and sell the film. In the same way, the director’s name is not featured at all on the cover.
The use of blue (for the main image) and yellow (for the text) is quite unusual for a thriller film DVD cover, since the conventional colours would be red and black. Using blue and yellow emphasises the deathly look of the DVD cover and suggests that the film will not be your conventional thriller, and may focus more on what happens after victims are killed rather than the deaths themselves.
The title of the film is essential in creating the narrative image. The word ‘silence’ connotes deathly silence, and suggests that during the course of the film, you won’t find the (presumably) female victims running around screaming, but instead they will be silent (for whatever reason). The moth covering the woman’s mouth in the main image also links to the ‘silence’ idea. The use of the word ‘lambs’ signifies innocence and presumably the ‘lambs’ referred to in the title are the victims in the film. Lambs are animals which often have their wool shaved, which links to the main aspect of killing in the film (skinning). Lamb meat is also eaten by humans, and since ‘lambs’ in the title appears to be used to represent the victims in the film, the idea of cannibalism (which features in the film) is also put across.

A film's DVD cover is very important in creating the film's narrative image. Using the title, main image and mise en scene, DVD covers can set up a lot of audience expectations for the film, and these expectations may or may not be met once the audience actually watches the film.