The scene starts off with Clarice next to a door, about to go into the murderer’s room. There is an expected, abrupt cut as she moves left to right to burst in through the door. Because she is facing straight as the doors open, the 180 degree rule can be broken here. In the following cut, the camera is on the other side of Clarice, who now moves right to left and creates a sense of confusion. Rock music playing in the background becomes distorted as the camera moves to a gruesome, subjective shot of the murderer’s victim. This gets cut short to black as the lights shut off. The music stops as well. Next is a subjective point of view shot seen from the murderer--sound and the greenish, off tint of night vision glasses effect play a big role here. We see Clarice from the POV of Buffalo Bill (from his glasses) and hear Clarice’s heavy breathing for the majority of the rest of the scene, adding suspense. The subjective shots especially increase suspense when Buffalo Bill raises his hand as if to touch Clarice’s hair, and when he points his gun at the back of Clarice’s head. When Bill raises his hand, we hear a tense, dramatic string music that puts the audience on edge.
The shots of Clarice are long in comparison, and are cut by short,
neutral shots of Buffalo Bill with his night vision goggles. The shots of
Buffalo Bill are very unnerving because he is looking straight ahead at the
camera in his strange looking goggles. When Bill cocks his gun, we see it
pointed at the camera. It cuts back to his POV of Clarice, who turns around in
slow motion to face him. This effect highlights the peak of the tension and its
resolution by showing Clarice firing first by a fraction of a second.
When Clarice fires,
the light from the gun reveals Bill standing in the dark and Clarice standing
and shooting in brief, obvious bursts of cuts, which parallels the gun’s
shooting. When Bill goes down, the night vision effect is removed as the light
in the room mysteriously turns back on. Perhaps because evil is eliminated,
light is restored. Finally, the camera moves back to reveal Clarice alive with
Buffalo Bill dying on the floor.
