Shocktoberfest #11 - A Tale Of Two Hannibals

You can’t talk about movie maniacs without bringing up Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter, the villain of three Thomas Harris chillers— Red Dragon, The Silence Of The Lambs, Hannibal and the prequel, Hannibal Rising. Lecter is a brilliant psychiatrist who also happens to be a flesh-eating butcher, a cross of genius intellect and pure savagery, the likes of which previously unseen in modern fiction. Most murderers are brutes; Lecter, on the other hand, is educated, sophisticated and whip-smart. He’s a viper dressed in a personally-tailored Saville Row suit.

  

To date, there have been five films based on Harris’ books— 1986’s Red Dragon adaptation Manhunter (which misspells the good doctor’s name as “Lecktor”); 1991’s The Silence Of The Lambs; 2001’s Hannibal; the 2002 remake of Red Dragon; and 2006’s Hannibal Rising. The two best films are the two first ones— Ridley Scott's beautifully-shot but emotionally empty Hannibal turns the fearsome Lecter into an antihero by pitting him against one of his former victims (Gary Oldman), whose sadism outpaces his own; while Red Dragon, while hewing closer to the source material, fails to reach the intensity and dramatic heights of Michael Mann’s much stronger Manhunter. Hannibal Rising is stylish but completely unnecessary, explaining too much about Lecter’s past and filling in gaps that should have been left mysterious (aka the “Let’s Give The Man With No Name A Name” syndrome). Apparently, Harris wrote both the novel and the screenplay of Hannibal Rising under duress when producer and rights-holder Dino De Laurentiis threatened to move forward with the project with or without Harris’ involvement.

 

With the exception of Gaspard (A Very Long Engagement) Ulliel as the young doctor in Hannibal Rising, Hannibal Lecter has been played by only two actors— Brian Cox and, most famously, Anthony Hopkins. They’re significantly different performances, each with its own merit. Hopkins is more theatrical, more deliberately “scary,” while Cox’s more naturalistic take on Lecter in Manhunter is laid-back, rational— and more believable, which ultimately makes him a more unsettling villain.

   

Manhunter is more of a psychological cop thriller than the more overtly horrific The Silence Of The Lambs. William Petersen plays Will Graham, a retired FBI “profiler” who takes on the perspective of the killers he pursues, studying them to understand how and why they murder. After getting too close to Hannibal Lecktor in the past, Graham suffered a nervous breakdown and only returns to duty when Jack Crawford (Dennis Farina, in a role played by Scott Glenn in The Silence Of The Lambs) pushes him to help him solve the murders committed by a killer known as the “Tooth Fairy” (Tom Noonan) who Crawford fears has been reaching out to Lecktor for advice. Written and directed by Michael Mann, Manhunter feels a bit dated at times — ‘80’s-era fashions and synth-music, shades of Mann’s own then-popular TV show Miami Vice, are in full bloom — but it’s still incredibly effective. Petersen is fantastic as the troubled Graham and Noonan is wholly believable as the “Tooth Fairy,” a man twisted by abuse who, in a surprisingly compelling romantic subplot involving a blind co-worker (Joan Allen), reveals — wordlessly — that he just wants to be normal.

Brian Cox, a versatile Scottish actor known for such different roles as the villainous Stryker in X2: X-Men United, Capt. O’Hagen in Super Troopers and the child-molester Big John Harrigan in L.I.E., makes for a stronger, more realistic Lecktor. He’s only in a handful of scenes, all in a stylized white-on-white cell in an insane asylum (actually filmed in an Atlanta modern-art museum). He’s forthright and logical throughout; there’s little about him that tells us he’s a brutal murderer— until his patronizing sadism slowly emerges during his conversations with Graham. We can see Cox’s Lecktor earning our trust and inviting us in to his confidence; he comes off more like a real-world psychiatrist living than Hopkins’ more affected take on the character. Like Michael Rooker in Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer, Cox’s Lecktor is an everyday monster, the epitome of what Hannah Arendt called “the banality of evil.” In Manhunter, Lecktor is terrifying because he recognizes a kinship with Graham, who doesn’t like to admit that he, like Lecktor, finds the thrill in the hunt. “Want the scent?” he asks Graham, referring to the trail of the Tooth Fairy’s murders. “Smell yourself.”

 

Anthony Hopkins’ Lecter in The Silence Of The Lambs is an effective and disturbing character. As in Manhunter, the story here involves a Federal agent (this time, Jodie Foster as green FBI trainee Clarice Starling) seeking advice from Lecter, this time in pursuit of “Buffalo Bill,” the code name for the deranged Jame Gumb (Ted Levine), a closet transvestite who’s butchering and skinning young women. As directed by Roger Corman veteran Jonathan Demme, who’d mostly directed comedies like Married To The Mob and Something Wild up to this point, the movie is terrifying, but also surprisingly down-to-earth and low key. The scenes where Clarice chases down leads in the small Ohio town where some of the killings have taken place feel almost documentary-real.

 
 

It’s surprising, then, that Demme makes Hopkins such a deliberate ghoul. Lecter’s underground prison — all big limestone bricks and thick bars — feels like something out of a Hammer horror film and bathing some of the encounters in this prison in garish red lighting feels like Demme is trying too hard. Hopkins makes for a more overtly mannered villain— his diction is extremely precise and he wears his intelligence on his sleeve, which makes his exchanges with the equally smart Clarice fascinating. We see the true nature of Lecter emerge late in the piece in a terrifying set-piece where he turns the tables on his captors when asylum head Chilton (a smarmy Anthony Heald) reneges on a promise made to him. There’s no doubting that Hopkins — no strangers to villainy in movies like Magic and the recent The Wolfman — has earned his place in the halls of Horror Villainy; both Foster and Hopkins deservedly won Oscars for their performances in the film, which also won the Academy Award for Best Picture. But still, Cox’s “Lecktor” feels more alive and real. We see Hannibal Lecter in the movies, but there’s a chance that there’s a Hannibal Lecktor out on the street walking among us.