Hannibal Lecter ooh he's gonna eat yer arms and legs

[popcorn]

I have recently watched the first four Hannibal Lecter films. Years ago I would have typed all these thoughts up into a proper bloggy essay thing but frankly who has time for that these days. More interesting to type some half-arsed shite onto CaB and see what everyone else says.

Manhunter - along with everyone else, I really fucking love the way this film looks and sounds. Brian Cox is quite interesting as Lecter. It's especially interesting how his main characteristic is not to be charismatic or intriguing but basically just really fucking annoying. Ooh, Hannibal, you're so fucking annoying, argh.

Can't help but feel the Will Graham character is miscast. The chap just looks a bit silly half the time, but I can't really work out why. He's also a bit of a silly character generally - he can just sort of magically imagine how serial killers think. IMO it's a bit redundant, because Lecter (being both an actual serial killer and a forensic psychiatrist) is the guy who has that power. I think that plot dynamic works better in Silence, when he's working with an ordinary person.

Tom whatsisname as the Tooth Fairy is amazing though. He just looks and moves and acts in a really weird, strange, heartbreaking way. Love the scene where he goes into the dark room through some kind of weird rotating door and it's like he's beaming into some 80s sci fi universe.

Strong As I Am is an incredible song - I've loved it since first seeing Manhunter as a teenager 500 years ago. I remembered it being used in the most amazing, atmospheric, cathartic way, like oh yeah now the shit is hitting the fan, but couldn't really remember how, and so was a bit disappointed to find its use a bit pedestrian when I rewatched it. Oh well.

The Silence of the Lambs - I find it interesting how this film is both quite austere and stripped-back and also very Hollywood daft. Hannibal Lecter is now a romantic figure who lives in an insect box in a dungeon. He later lives in a plastic box in some sort of art gallery. I also think his preposterous configuration of corpses is daft. But so much of film is impressively bullshit-free.

I really like Clarice. I like how there's no subplot about her having an affair with the boss or going home and having to raise two kids or whatever. She just gets on with the job.

Silence also seems to be the only one of these films that has a clear idea to express, reinforced through simple and effective visual motifs. Hannibal tells her that Buffalo Bill "covets" women, and asks her: "Don't you feel eyes moving over your body, Clarice?" (Hannibal has to say "Clarice" or "Will" every other two lines, for effect.) Then there's that simple and brilliant gimmick of Buffalo Bill watching Clarice with nightvision goggles, and he could just shoot her right there, but the thing that undoes him is that goddamnit he just can't help but covet her and reaches out, he dawdles. It's a theme! They've done it! They've made a theme.

Hannibal - hadn't seen this one before. I went into it with low expectations because I knew it was supposed to be quite different and not very good and most of the Silence team had binned it off because of the lurid subject matter. But I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. It's drastically different, and inarguably much worse in many regards - quite a lot of it resembles some shite CSI episode, with generic FBI shootouts and lots of shots of planes landing and so on. It's also undeniably ridiculous (Hannibal is in the top 10 most wanted but apparently flies the world, even nipping back into the USA for the finale).

TBH it would be a fairly ordinary film were it not for the completely OTT dinner scene. I think this scene is amazing and hilarious. In an old thread people were saying it was "unintentionally funny" but come on, it's clearly written and played as comedy, just the blackest imaginable. Ray Liotta's had a lobotomy (hurph hyuk Clarishe shure is pretty Doctah Lectah blroghh blorghhh) and Julianne Moore's really ill - which for me is the funniest thing about it, the way she's trying to kind of play along with the dinner ("I really would like some wiiiine now") while on the point of passing out from shock and morphine. And at the end Hannibal chucks a tea towel over Ray, ha ha ha.

It is of course so ghoulish and horrible that it's a complete betrayal of everything that made Silence work, and it says nothing about anything really. Even the move from poetic/symbolic titles to the unevocative and uninspired "Hannibal" - almost literally saying "we gave him a movie!" - is revealing of how empty this film is. But I did find it terrific fun.

Red Dragon - was surprised to see this was released only a year after Hannibal. I actually like how Manhunter, Silence and Hannibal are all so wildly different they form a bizarre trilogy, and this sort of spoils it. Clearly conceived as a kind of course-correction after Hannibal, with all the cast at the time seemingly keen to say they loved Silence but not Hannibal.

It's also in its strange way a kind of correction of Manhunter, which was of course adapted from the same novel. Oh no, Manhunter, you are too stylish and cool, you made the Tooth Fairy live in some kind of Miami condo with interesting lighting. No no, he must instead live in a decrepit manor full of antiques and paintings of his mother, that is correct. No no, Manhunter, this needs to have 10 extra Hannibal scenes, and we're going to invent new ridiculous things for him to do in prison. (Still, there is an argument that Hannibal is best when he's in prison, reducing him purely to a personality.)

It's all safe and formulaic, and also rather tame. I suppose they kept the gore under control to give it wider appeal. Hated the "surprise! the killer is still alive and now he's attacking you in your house" epilogue. Boring. In fact the final 30 minutes are very boring.

I find it interesting to view the Anthony Hopkins trilogy through its posters:



Good poster! The youth and whiteness of the face suggests calm and innocence (a bit like a lamb). The moth over the mouth suggests corruption and mutedness (a bit like silence). It's a strong and scary visual image that ties together visual and thematic motifs from the film. It's a theme! They've done it! They've made a theme.



Oh, well, that's just a fairly literal image of Hannibal Lecter looking spooky. This is Lecter as a slasher movie serial killer, ghoulishness without subtext or suggestion really, so a fair representation of the film I suppose. The painterly effect I guess is evocative of the setting and of Lecter being a big arty snob.



Just doing normal posters now then eh. Normal posters for normal films.

Not seen the other film or the telly program.

That's all I have to say about Hannibal Lecter.

[Famous Mortimer]

"Hannibal Rising" is absolute shite. Something no-one wanted, done badly.

No idea why they made "Red Dragon", really. "Manhunter" only looks better with age.

[Mister Six]

Telly programme is great so long as you accept that the aesthetic is "What if Wes Anderson really liked gore?" - daft and OTT, but not obnoxiously so. Starts off too episodic but becomes marvellous in the second and third seasons. Mads Mikkelsen is better than Hopkins, for me - his restrained performance grounds the show, which is necessary because the rest of it is so daft.

I also appreciate that it plays Hannibal as basically being a total cunt, whereas the books and later movies seemed to be enjoying his awful behaviour far too much.

[bgmnts]

I can smell your cunt, mate.

[Menu]

i like it when he sticks his todger between his legs. five stars

[El Unicornio, mang]

"you wanna fuck me? I'd fuck me"

Great chat-up line.

[Dropshadow]

The "Hannibal" film from 2001 is not only my favourite one of the lot, but it gives the perfect explanation of why serials kill........ it's a public service. Lecter kills that classical flautist to "improve the sound of the Baltimore Philharmonic Orchestra". I like that.

[chveik]

Telly programme is great so long as you accept that the aesthetic is "What if Wes Anderson really liked gore?" - daft and OTT, but not obnoxiously so. Starts off too episodic but becomes marvellous in the second and third seasons. Mads Mikkelsen is better than Hopkins, for me - his restrained performance grounds the show, which is necessary because the rest of it is so daft.

I also appreciate that it plays Hannibal as basically being a total cunt, whereas the books and later movies seemed to be enjoying his awful behaviour far too much.

I thought his performance was very far from restrained. what bothered me the most with the series was all the armchair psychology, these guys really aren't as clever as they think they are. maybe it was the point.

[bgmnts]

Has anyone actually cooked a Hannibal recipe? Sans cannibalism of course.

[evilcommiedictator]

You're missing Hannibal Rising there of course, which I put myself through after finally watching after putting off the last season of the Hannibal TV show for ages.

Manhunter is a good film, and Red Dragon is also a good film, they're just telling the story in different ways, and of course, the latter needs to keep up the gore porn rate from Hannibal the movie.

[Bazooka]

Lecter vs Beetlejuice, releases Fall 2021

[JaDanketies]

I saw Hannibal in the movie theatre in New York when it came out, and it was just like when a cinema is in the movies. People screaming and throwing their popcorn in the air when something scary happened, rolling in the aisles with laughter whenever Hannibal said 'okily dokily...'  The most animated movie audience I've ever witnessed.

I was only 13 and it was a bit too adult for me, in that I remember being bored during all the storyline bits and only perking up when a kill happened. But now I watch it as an adult and it's fantastic. I love the whole franchise.

[buzby]

Disclosure - Manhunter is one of my favourite films.

Manhunter - along with everyone else, I really fucking love the way this film looks and sounds. Brian Cox is quite interesting as Lecter. It's especially interesting how his main characteristic is not to be charismatic or intriguing but basically just really fucking annoying. Ooh, Hannibal, you're so fucking annoying, argh.

Cox based his portrayal of Lecktor on the Scottish serial killer Peter Manuel, who conducted his own defence when charged with 8 murders and who Cox described as being completely amoral.

I based my Lecter on a Scottish criminal called Peter Manuel, a serial killer before the term was even invented. He was evil incarnate. Of course there are many versions of evil, but I love the iceberg Lecter, where you see only the top third – the Lecter that lives amongst us."

I find Cox's portrayal far more believable and scary than Hopkins' scene-chewing pantomime villain. Hopkins' version doesn't work outside that gothic dungeon of a cell - you can't imagine him working in a university or interacting with normal people, he's just too creepy. I saw Hannibal at the cinema when it came out and thought the whole thing was a bit silly compared to the previous two films, like a high-concept Freddy or Jason slasher sequel.

Can't help but feel the Will Graham character is miscast. The chap just looks a bit silly half the time, but I can't really work out why. He's also a bit of a silly character generally - he can just sort of magically imagine how serial killers think. IMO it's a bit redundant, because Lecter (being both an actual serial killer and a forensic psychiatrist) is the guy who has that power. I think that plot dynamic works better in Silence, when he's working with an ordinary person.

In Manhunter, Will Graham can get into the mindset of how serial killers think because psychologically he is on the knife edge of being one himself. Lecktor makes that quite clear in the meeting in his cell, asking Graham how he caught him and then taunting him with "You want the scent back? Smell yourself.". There is also the plot thread where Graham either consciously or subconsciously manipulates the situation that results in Dolarhyde killing Graham's enemy Freddy Lounds.

The Silence version of Lecter basically takes on the role of detective himself but using Clarice as an avatar to do the 'manual labour' part while getting kicks out of her discomfort. he is a totally different character to the Manhunter Lektor, who has no desire to help Graham but uses the opportunity to mentally unbalance him and potentially get his revenge for being caught by getting Dolarhyde to kill his family.

Graham's first case on joining the FBI was to catch the serial killer Garrett Jacob Hobbs, who murdered college students. Graham tracks down Hobbs and finds him in the process of murdering his family, stabbing his 11-year-old daughter in the neck. He shot Hobbs 6 times with his revolver but he still didn't go down, and he ended up killing him with his bare hands.  After killing Hobbs, Graham had a nervous breakdown and ended up in mental hospital for a month under the care of Dr. Bloom to get him back over the correct side of the knife edge. There was an unused scene in the Manhunter script where Jack Crawford goes to see Dr. Bloom to ask if he thinks Graham could go over the edge again where Bloom says he has the ability of empathy and projection, and if he goes too far he might not be able to get him back again.

When Graham later returns to his family at the safe house after Lecktor gives his address to Dolarhyde (after tricking it out of the night receptionist at Dr. Bloom's university office), his wife Molly remarks that he's going to end up screwed up again if he carries on working on the case.

I think William Petersen was very well cast. He has an oddness to him and intensity, like a coiled spring ready to explode, a good portrayal of someone who is battling to keep his psyche on the straight and level but showing glimpses of his dark side when he has to put himself in the killer's mindset (such as the replaying of the events at the Leeds house, or watching the films in the hotel room). It's far better than the bland portrayal of the character by Edward Norton.

Tom whatsisname as the Tooth Fairy is amazing though. He just looks and moves and acts in a really weird, strange, heartbreaking way. Love the scene where he goes into the dark room through some kind of weird rotating door and it's like he's beaming into some 80s sci fi universe.

Tom Noonan is excellent as Dolarhyde. He gives the character that sympathetic edge (which Graham remarks on during the hotel room scene with Crawford) which Fiennes failed to do IMO.  He is a method actor who stayed in character for the entire shoot and was also purposely kept away from the rest to the cast until he had scenes with them. He only met Petersen when they filmed the final scenes (which had to be filmed twice - he orignally had the Red Dragon tattoos on his body, but Mann thought they were too much so all his shirtless scenes had to be reshot without the tattoo.


The rotating door in the darkroom is a light lock, btw - so you can enter and exit while processing film without light from outside getting in.

[Gregory Torso]

I really loved the NBC TV series, although (because) it was so ludicrous and camp. It turned completely abstract in its last season, just totally disjointed mosaics of scissoring women melting into each other and gaping anuses gushing out molasses and honey. Adore Mads Mikkelson. And seeing Eddie Izzard eating his own leg whilst simultaneously gnawing on his own terrible American accent. The whole love story between Hannibal and Will was truly amazing to follow, how it went from something subtle to full on knife and fork penetrative fan fiction made flesh. Beautiful.

[Gregory Torso]

Telly programme is great so long as you accept that the aesthetic is "What if Wes Anderson really liked gore?" - daft and OTT, but not obnoxiously so. Starts off too episodic but becomes marvellous in the second and third seasons. Mads Mikkelsen is better than Hopkins, for me - his restrained performance grounds the show, which is necessary because the rest of it is so daft.

I also appreciate that it plays Hannibal as basically being a total cunt, whereas the books and later movies seemed to be enjoying his awful behaviour far too much.

And agree with this post 100%

[Noodle Lizard]

The TV show really confuses me because it is kind of shite when all's said and done, but fucked if it isn't somehow great at the same time. One of the most bizarre and ambitious shows ever produced - for a notoriously boring network channel, no less! It's also got some of the most grotesque imagery I've ever seen this side of the "stopped at customs" underground horrors. It really is stupid and try-hard, but admirably so.

Mikkelsen is the best Hannibal, I reckon. The guy's just so captivating in whatever he does that it's nearly impossible to imagine him turning in a bad performance, and he's so good at playing this almost supernaturally exaggerated character (with some occasionally appalling dialogue) without it ever feeling cheesy or desperate. He honestly makes Hopkins' version look daft by comparison.

[El Unicornio, mang]

The TV show is brilliant, probably my favourite of the 2010s. Shame it got canceled before they had a chance to create the planned segue to Clarice (apparently Ellen Page was frontrunner for the role), but at least it went out with the quality still high. The dishes Lecter prepares always looked delicious.

Order of greatness:
The Silence of the Lambs
Hannibal (TV)
Manhunter
Hannibal
Red Dragon
.
.
.
.
Hannibal Rising

I read all the novels also, the ending of Hannibal is bonkers and terrible (in an otherwise good novel), Clarice riding off into the sunset with Hannibal.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Mikkelsen ... honestly makes Hopkins' version look daft by comparison.

Hopkins made Hopkins version look daft.
It's odd that Mannhunter goes fairly low key with the performances of its killers, when it's so over the top with '80s cheese otherwise.

[popcorn]

Has anyone actually seen Hannibal Rising? I haven't, it doesn't even sound interesting to study.

The Wikipedia plot summary begins: "In 1941, eight-year-old Hannibal Lecter lives in Lecter Castle in Lithuania."

[dissolute ocelot]

I like the original Manhunter a lot but it doesn't half look of its time, and Mann's style doesn't always make a lot of sense. I think it also suffers because up against Lecter/Lecktor, Will Graham is a bit of a nothing character. He seems straight out of the cliched 80s sea of troubled detectives. In contrast Jodie Foster is excellent, seeming like a real person who's often overwhelmed but always determined to fight through and get justice. William Petersen just kind of drifts, he wants to be retired, he doesn't want to be inside the killer's mind - I don't think it's miscasting or really his fault as an actor, it's that Mann fails to make Will Graham a figure of light and morality in the way that Clarice Starling is.

I get the idea of contrasting bright light and airy modernist architecture with moral evil, but I don't think Mann pulls it off, and it just looks like advertising photography without any reason why it should be. Miami Vice was about people pretending to be rich and the moral corruption behind the luxury but there's not much of a message of that sort to Manhunter. There's stuff about the killer Dollarhyde wanting to be part of families, but that's almost antithetical to clean, bright modernist architecture. In contrast, the clinical light does work for the insane asylum, but again, what is it trying to say? Are modernist buildings supposed to be just another kind of asylum, because that's lame. The memorable horror moments in Manhunter are often in darkness, for instance when Dollarhyde gets a hold of Freddy Lounds, or the night-time climax in a suburban house which features a lot of breaking things, confusion, and death. Silence of the Lambs does much more traditional production design and is all the better for it.

But I think both of the villains in Manhunter (Cox and Noonan) are more interesting and more scary than Hopkins and Levine in Silence, and only one film has Iron Butterfly's In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.

[Bad Ambassador]

Has anyone actually seen Hannibal Rising? I haven't, it doesn't even sound interesting to study.

The Wikipedia plot summary begins: "In 1941, eight-year-old Hannibal Lecter lives in Lecter Castle in Lithuania."

Yes, it's rubbish. Dino de Laurentiis told Thomas Harris he was going to make another Lector film whether he was involved or not, so Harris wrote the book with the intention of it being the basis for a film. Director Peter Webber was hired on the strength of Girl with a Pearl Earring, but HR seems to have buried his career, since the only person I recall being involved in it still being around is Rhys Ifans, who plays a nasty Nazi.

[GoblinAhFuckScary]

Came here to say I appreciate the thread title

[buzby]

I like the original Manhunter a lot but it doesn't half look of its time, and Mann's style doesn't always make a lot of sense. I think it also suffers because up against Lecter/Lecktor, Will Graham is a bit of a nothing character. He seems straight out of the cliched 80s sea of troubled detectives. In contrast Jodie Foster is excellent, seeming like a real person who's often overwhelmed but always determined to fight through and get justice. William Petersen just kind of drifts, he wants to be retired, he doesn't want to be inside the killer's mind - I don't think it's miscasting or really his fault as an actor, it's that Mann fails to make Will Graham a figure of light and morality in the way that Clarice Starling is.

I think that's the point - Will isn't supposed to be a figure of light and morality, he's someone who through the effects of his psychological makeup and job ends up struggling to stay on the 'right' side. Lektor pushes this in the later phone call while Will is in the hotel, congratualting him on the job he did on Freddy Lounds and diagnosing that his breakdown after killing Hobbs was due to refusing to admit killing him felt good, rather than the act itself. Lektor posits that the only difference between Graham and the people he hunts are that Graham fights against his true nature rather than giving in to it.

I get the idea of contrasting bright light and airy modernist architecture with moral evil, but I don't think Mann pulls it off, and it just looks like advertising photography without any reason why it should be. Miami Vice was about people pretending to be rich and the moral corruption behind the luxury but there's not much of a message of that sort to Manhunter. There's stuff about the killer Dollarhyde wanting to be part of families, but that's almost antithetical to clean, bright modernist architecture. In contrast, the clinical light does work for the insane asylum, but again, what is it trying to say? Are modernist buildings supposed to be just another kind of asylum, because that's lame. The memorable horror moments in Manhunter are often in darkness, for instance when Dollarhyde gets a hold of Freddy Lounds, or the night-time climax in a suburban house which features a lot of breaking things, confusion, and death. Silence of the Lambs does much more traditional production design and is all the better for it.

I don't think Man was aiming for anything as complex as that. It is more about the framing, imagery and 'feel' than any specific message (it is comparable to an 80s Giallo film in that respect).. He wanted to use colours and lighting to set the mood - there's a good interview from the DVD with Dante Spinotti about Mann's approach to the photography, lighting and production design: https://youtu.be/Qs9OyVIQZgg

[popcorn]

I still think it's a bit fanciful for someone to have the ability to sort of imagine being a serial killer and use that to reverse-engineer crimes, as if serial killers all act in the same way, have the same thoughts, etc. And I don't think Will Graham really comes across as someone truly grappling with that darkness in either adaptation. Especially not Ed Norton, who seems very much on top of things.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

It's a while since I've watched Manhunter, but I remember that side of Graham's character not really coming across. He just seemed like a grumpy old sod.

[buzby]

I still think it's a bit fanciful for someone to have the ability to sort of imagine being a serial killer and use that to reverse-engineer crimes, as if serial killers all act in the same way, have the same thoughts, etc.

It's not that they all act the same way and he doesn't imagine being the person as such. He uses cues from the evidence to reconstruct the mindset of the killer. In Lektor's case it was seeing a medical book on a shelf in his office about war wounds that tipped him off, and with Dolarhyde he works out that his putting mirrors in the victims eyes is part of his desire to be seen as someone who is accepted and loved by others, and from this extrapolates that he was an abused child. Fitz in the TV series Cracker does a similar thing, and is similarly screwed up mentally. Petersen spent time with the Violent Crimes Unit of the FBI and Chicago PD prior to filming as research, primarily to see what effect the stresses of the job had on the profiler's personal lives.

[The Culture Bunker]

I don't have any strong feelings about these films either way, though as Manhunter has a few Shriekback songs on the soundtrack, I'll say that's my favourite.

[Gregory Torso]

I don't have any strong feelings about these films either way, though as Manhunter has a few Shriekback songs on the soundtrack, I'll say that's my favourite.

Silence Of The Lambs has got 'Hip Priest' in it.

[The Culture Bunker]

Silence Of The Lambs has got 'Hip Priest' in it.

That may be so, but I can't stand the Fall.

[Jerzy Bondov]

I still think it's a bit fanciful for someone to have the ability to sort of imagine being a serial killer and use that to reverse-engineer crimes, as if serial killers all act in the same way, have the same thoughts, etc. And I don't think Will Graham really comes across as someone truly grappling with that darkness in either adaptation. Especially not Ed Norton, who seems very much on top of things.

The TV series fixes this. The Hugh Dancy version is incredibly intense and wound up and you can easily believe he might snap and do murders. He's just as loopy as mad old Hannibal the Cannibal in his way.