Buffalo Bill's Basement

Hello Clarice.

‍As a child, I remember the first time I saw Silence of the Lambs in defiance of my parents' orders. The minute they went out, I watched the rented Blockbuster VHS eighteen inches away from the screen with my hand on the VCR's power button in case they returned early. I had nightmares for a week.

However, I was instantly fascinated and drawn to the film, particularly the maze of Buffalo Bill's basement. Twenty-nine years later, the basement called to me again. In 2020, alone in my own basement studio at the beginning of  COVID-19, I decided to recreate Buffalo Bill's basement. Almost no one knows this, but the proper term for this location is "Mr. Gumb's Cellar." The phrase "Buffalo Bill" is the nickname given by writer Thomas Harris to the semi-fictional character Jame Gumb in the film. (If you want to avoid your own nightmares, don't investigate this further). I re-watched the movie repeatedly, sketching the walls based on the screenplay to determine an architectural plan (fig 1). This method wasn't perfect enough. As with many films, the viewers' imagination fills in the blanks that contradict blueprints' precision.

But to recreate "Mr. Gumb's Cellar" properly was even more challenging. To my knowledge, official blueprints didn't exist—I checked—but I did get lucky. Kristi Zea, the film's production designer, donated a model of the basement and other materials from the film to the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, NY. Unfortunately, the museum was 816 miles away at the start of a global pandemic lockdown. While the world was stationary, I kept moving forward with the concept—a creative idea that never left my mind. Finally, almost three years later, I made it to the museum, and the model was still there (fig 2-3). Ninety-four photos later, I did my best to capture whatever plans I could—which were far from architectural blueprints—and sat alone with my mind in a basement.

I did my best to recreate the basement, and I can confidently say these are the most detailed plans I've seen anywhere. As mentioned in the key below, nothing is perfect. The model was highly detailed. VERY highly detailed. But it wasn't a blueprint; it was a set design. Measurements were calculated for the screen—meaning they were there to help carpenters, materials, lighting, and FILM. Literal film cinematography. This wasn't an actual basement at all; it was plywood, nails, styrofoam, and a film crew on set—a set built at the abandoned Westinghouse Turbine Factory in East Pittsburgh (40°23'54.7 N,  79°50'02.7 W / 40.398513, -79.834077).

The more perfect I tried to make it, the less perfect my mental state. The better I was, the worse I was. While trying to articulate exact measurements from the model, I found myself getting frustrated. Nothing made sense. I realized I had fallen into the trap of Buffalo Bill. An organic maze he dug out of a cellar in rural Layton, Pennsylvania. I assumed no one on the planet tried to figure this out: a set built in the context of a madman trying to make his victims feel trapped in a maze, and me...twenty-nine years later, attempting to articulate what wasn't possible. Luckily, I acknowledged my demise. I couldn't solve it with the perfection I wanted.

I envisioned what it would be like to experience the basement. To get lost in its maze. To live in "the well" for days. To feel frightened beyond belief. Could I take this psychological fear and interchange it with another? Much like Silence of the Lambs, the last scene of the film 2001: A Space Odyssey stuck with me. Both environments fostered madness. Clarke and Kubrick aren't normal human beings. This abnormalcy matched my current mental state from working on the blueprints of an imaginary basement for years, which led to the final execution: the visual aesthetic from the final room of 2001 laid upon the maddening structure of Buffalo Bill’s basement in Silence of the Lambs. The  perfect relationship.