Narrative Codes – Silence of the lambs opening

‘Silence of the Lamb’ is very effective in posing both enigma and action codes in the audience therefore keeping them ‘Hooked’ throughout. From the opening of ‘Silence of the lambs’ it is easy to see where they have used enigma and action codes.

The opening begins with a long shot of a woman running straight away we have the enigma code  ‘why is she running?’ and ‘who is she?’ it isn’t till shortly after until the action codes reveals information about her.

From a mid-shot we see small writing on her jumper which reads ‘FBI academy’ this then making the audience a where she belong to the FBI. It’s not until later when dialogue from a man shouting ‘Starling’  that we get her last name and later on when she meets her colleague we get her full name ‘Clarice Starling’.

 Another less obvious action code is the sweat on starling’s jumper; this then gives information to the audience that she is hard working. When she talks to the man in the Forrest he calls on her to tell her important information ‘Crawford wants to see you in his office’ this then poses the enigma codes ‘what does Crawford want?’, ‘What relation is that man to Starling?’ and ‘Why is it so important?’. We later then are given action codes when we see the man’s FBI hat and we know that they both work together in the FBI. We don’t find out till later in the film what Crawford wants with and why it is so important. This then keeps the audience interested and a reason to carry on watching.