eyeamflesch
16-05-2005, 22:02
The Mastery of Hannibal Lecter
Daniel Shaw
“You can’t reduce me to a set of influences. You’ve given up good and evil for behaviorism, Officer Starling. You’ve got everybody in moral dignity pants—nothing is ever anybody’s fault. Look at me…can you stand to say I’m evil?i
The phenomenon that is Hannibal Lecter is unmatched in the history of Hollywood. Never has an evil but clearly mortal character ever been so popular. Hannibal (2001) set box office records for a non-holiday weekend release, and it was one of the few live action films to do over $200 million in domestic gross. A remake of Red Dragon is coming out soon, one that reportedly gives Lecter a much bigger role than he had in the original Thomas Harris novel. Sales of the new DVD version of Manhunter (1986) are brisk (unlike its original box office take), and (as I write) a Criterion edition of The Silence of the Lambs (1991) has come out in tandem with the much heralded video release of Hannibal.
How has such a character enthralled the world? What makes Lecter’s brand of evil so palatable and attractive? Lecter is transformed from a ruthless serial killer into a beloved protagonist by the third entry in the series. This essay will examine all three Lecter films (and the novels on which they are based), seeking to explain our great fascination with Hannibal the Cannibal in terms of the almost preternatural power he exerts over everyone with whom he comes in contact.
Previously, and at greater length than is possible here, I have proposed a catharsis theory of horror-pleasure that focuses on the vicarious feelings of power that horror films provide their audiences.ii Influenced as I am by Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy of the Will to Power, I believe that much of our pleasure in horror films comes from our dual identification with both the threatening antagonists and human protagonists in such works. The astounding feats of the monster or human psychotic are what most attracts us to them, for they exhibit powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. It is precisely for this reason that we revel in their penchant for wreaking immeasurable havoc. Sharing in their superhuman acts, we are exhilarated and alarmed by our enjoyment of the forbidden. Our ambivalence is grounded in this tension between our guilty enjoyment of such power and the true terror we would feel if it were us that were being victimized, as well as this dual identification with both the monstrous force and with those who seek to conquer it.
In my view, then, a battle for mastery between human and monster is at the heart of most horror narratives. Following Nietzsche, I will highlight three senses of power in my account of horror-pleasure: power over the self, over the environment and over one’s inferiors. Wresting control in these major areas of our lives is essential to human happiness, which Nietzsche thought of as resulting from a feeling of increasing power. That feeling is most intense when great resistance is overcome. My major thesis is that Hannibal Lecter is one of the most powerful human characters in the history of horror and that is the primary reason why we are so drawn to him. This essay will analyze the evolving role of Lecter in the trilogy of novels and movies, where he develops from an interesting sidelight into almost the sole narrative and emotional focus.
Red Dragon/Manhunter
In Manhunter, Hannibal Lecter plays a relatively peripheral role in the goings on. Will Graham (William Peterson, in his first major role as a crime scene investigator) is unambiguously the protagonist, a tormented man who must identify with the psycho-killers that he targets in order to catch them. Graham tracked Lecter down initially, and Hannibal wants revenge. Graham reconnects with his nemesis in order to get the scent of a psychotic, and possible clues as to how to catch Francis Dolarhyde, the so-called Tooth Fairy (named for his habit of biting his victims with his saw toothed dentures). Lecter sends Graham’s address to Dolarhyde, and the hunter becomes the hunted.
The Thomas Harris novel and Michael Mann film diverge at this point. Mann depicts Graham as the traditional male hero, crashing through a picture window to save the life of the blind woman who had become Dolarhyde’s lover. In the book, Francis stages his own death for her benefit, then unexpectedly ambushes his adversary at Graham’s Florida Keys home (led there by an address sent by Hannibal Lecter). Graham would have died but for his wife, who hooks Dolarhyde with a massive Rapala lure and then blows the intruder away with a handgun. Mann’s macho ideology, and traditional Hollywood conventions, apparently would not permit such a gender reversal.
A narrative pattern is set in Red Dragon and followed (with interesting variations) in The Silence of the Lambs. The protagonist consults Lecter for help in catching another serial killer that is on the loose and must be stopped. Will Graham and Clarice Starling are relatively traditional law enforcement officers, the “good guys” after the “bad guys.” Both the Red Dragon and Buffalo Bill are undergoing psychic transformations, which drive them to their murderous pursuits.
Agents Graham and Starling have an intuitive link to those they seek, enabling them to anticipate what will happen next. This link troubles Graham, who was institutionalized after his last case and is clearly putting his sanity (as well as his family) on the line in this one. Lecter taunts him with the notion that he enjoyed gunning down the target of his last investigation, a particularly violent fellow by the name of Hobbes. Deeply shaken by the experience, Graham retired, only to be reluctantly coaxed back into service by Jack Crawford, his former boss at the FBI. In their first interview, Hannibal tweaks his captor’s deepest fear: “The reason you caught me is that we are just alike. If you want the scent, smell yourself.” (last line added by screenwriter Michael Mann).
Graham’s work on the case reveals that Lecter isn’t too far from right. When examining the first crime scene, Graham speaks of his quarry in the third person. As he gets into the criminal’s mindset, he shifts to the second person (“you did this, then you did that”). Finally, when he checks out the Jacobi house, he uses first person pronouns exclusively (“The house is mine…children mean nothing to me…I see you there, and I see me desired by you”), adopting the perspective of the murderer to understand the psychotic dream that motivates such horrific acts.
In creating a narrative momentum that never lets up, Red Dragon is the best novel of the trilogy. Dolarhyde is far more threatening, powerful and sympathetic than either Buffalo Bill or Hannibal’s Mason Verger. Born with a severely cleft palate, and unimaginably abused as a child, Francis harbors feelings of total inadequacy that lead him to transform himself into the Red Dragon. His murders are twisted expressions of a desperate need to be loved and accepted. He places mirrors in the eyes of his victims, so that he may see himself triumphant in their eyes. His dominant image, tattooed across his chest, is a William Blake paining entitled The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun, the Dragon rampant and exalting in its power). Focused almost solely on the visual, Dolarhyde chooses his victims from the home movies his photographic studio develops. He also films his intrusions, so that he may relive the atrocities over and over again (echoing the central theme of Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom [1960]).
But Francis becomes peculiarly sympathetic when he gets emotionally involved with a blind fellow employee at his photographic plant. Not put off by his imposing size and facial deformity, she responds to his attraction to her, and is deeply moved when he takes her to the zoo to pet a tranquilized tiger (photographing nocturnal creatures there is his explanation for seeking film that works in total darkness, which led to his meeting her). Reba McClane (Joan Allen in the film) makes the first move when he invites her over for dinner, and Francis has what is apparently the only satisfying sexual encounter with another person he ever enjoyed. As a result, his psyche bifurcates into Francis and the Dragon, who fight it out for the life of Reba.
Tom Noonan’s performance in Manhunter heightens our ambivalence; his soft, almost effeminate voice provides a striking counterpoint to his menacing appearance. The Tooth Fairy is by turns ruthless and touching, and we never lose sight of his tortured upbringing once it is revealed. By contrast, Mann’s film only alludes to the etiology of Dolarhyde’s psychosis in Graham’s passing admission to Crawford (Dennis Farina) that while he feels for the abused child, he will not hesitate to shoot the crazed adult.
A phone conversation between Lecktor (sic) and Graham (which does not take place in the novel) is explicit about the theme on which I am focusing. After gleefully rehearsing the details of the latest church collapse, and how many of the faithful had been slaughtered as they prayed (the old Problem of Evil, one of his favorite themes), Lecktor puts it this way:
L: We don’t invent our natures, they’re issued to us along with our lungs and our pancreas and everything else. Why fight it?
G: Fight what?
L: Did you really feel so depressed when you shot Mr. Garrett Jacob Hobbes? I didn’t know you then, but I think that you probably did. But it wasn’t the act itself that got you down. Didn’t you really feel so bad because killing him felt so good? And why shouldn’t it feel good? It must feel good to God, he does it all the time…
G: Why does it feel good, Dr. Lecktor?
L: It feels good, Will, because God has power and if one does what God does enough times, one will become as God is. God’s a champ…he always stays ahead.
all too obviously showing.
Daniel Shaw
“You can’t reduce me to a set of influences. You’ve given up good and evil for behaviorism, Officer Starling. You’ve got everybody in moral dignity pants—nothing is ever anybody’s fault. Look at me…can you stand to say I’m evil?i
The phenomenon that is Hannibal Lecter is unmatched in the history of Hollywood. Never has an evil but clearly mortal character ever been so popular. Hannibal (2001) set box office records for a non-holiday weekend release, and it was one of the few live action films to do over $200 million in domestic gross. A remake of Red Dragon is coming out soon, one that reportedly gives Lecter a much bigger role than he had in the original Thomas Harris novel. Sales of the new DVD version of Manhunter (1986) are brisk (unlike its original box office take), and (as I write) a Criterion edition of The Silence of the Lambs (1991) has come out in tandem with the much heralded video release of Hannibal.
How has such a character enthralled the world? What makes Lecter’s brand of evil so palatable and attractive? Lecter is transformed from a ruthless serial killer into a beloved protagonist by the third entry in the series. This essay will examine all three Lecter films (and the novels on which they are based), seeking to explain our great fascination with Hannibal the Cannibal in terms of the almost preternatural power he exerts over everyone with whom he comes in contact.
Previously, and at greater length than is possible here, I have proposed a catharsis theory of horror-pleasure that focuses on the vicarious feelings of power that horror films provide their audiences.ii Influenced as I am by Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy of the Will to Power, I believe that much of our pleasure in horror films comes from our dual identification with both the threatening antagonists and human protagonists in such works. The astounding feats of the monster or human psychotic are what most attracts us to them, for they exhibit powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. It is precisely for this reason that we revel in their penchant for wreaking immeasurable havoc. Sharing in their superhuman acts, we are exhilarated and alarmed by our enjoyment of the forbidden. Our ambivalence is grounded in this tension between our guilty enjoyment of such power and the true terror we would feel if it were us that were being victimized, as well as this dual identification with both the monstrous force and with those who seek to conquer it.
In my view, then, a battle for mastery between human and monster is at the heart of most horror narratives. Following Nietzsche, I will highlight three senses of power in my account of horror-pleasure: power over the self, over the environment and over one’s inferiors. Wresting control in these major areas of our lives is essential to human happiness, which Nietzsche thought of as resulting from a feeling of increasing power. That feeling is most intense when great resistance is overcome. My major thesis is that Hannibal Lecter is one of the most powerful human characters in the history of horror and that is the primary reason why we are so drawn to him. This essay will analyze the evolving role of Lecter in the trilogy of novels and movies, where he develops from an interesting sidelight into almost the sole narrative and emotional focus.
Red Dragon/Manhunter
In Manhunter, Hannibal Lecter plays a relatively peripheral role in the goings on. Will Graham (William Peterson, in his first major role as a crime scene investigator) is unambiguously the protagonist, a tormented man who must identify with the psycho-killers that he targets in order to catch them. Graham tracked Lecter down initially, and Hannibal wants revenge. Graham reconnects with his nemesis in order to get the scent of a psychotic, and possible clues as to how to catch Francis Dolarhyde, the so-called Tooth Fairy (named for his habit of biting his victims with his saw toothed dentures). Lecter sends Graham’s address to Dolarhyde, and the hunter becomes the hunted.
The Thomas Harris novel and Michael Mann film diverge at this point. Mann depicts Graham as the traditional male hero, crashing through a picture window to save the life of the blind woman who had become Dolarhyde’s lover. In the book, Francis stages his own death for her benefit, then unexpectedly ambushes his adversary at Graham’s Florida Keys home (led there by an address sent by Hannibal Lecter). Graham would have died but for his wife, who hooks Dolarhyde with a massive Rapala lure and then blows the intruder away with a handgun. Mann’s macho ideology, and traditional Hollywood conventions, apparently would not permit such a gender reversal.
A narrative pattern is set in Red Dragon and followed (with interesting variations) in The Silence of the Lambs. The protagonist consults Lecter for help in catching another serial killer that is on the loose and must be stopped. Will Graham and Clarice Starling are relatively traditional law enforcement officers, the “good guys” after the “bad guys.” Both the Red Dragon and Buffalo Bill are undergoing psychic transformations, which drive them to their murderous pursuits.
Agents Graham and Starling have an intuitive link to those they seek, enabling them to anticipate what will happen next. This link troubles Graham, who was institutionalized after his last case and is clearly putting his sanity (as well as his family) on the line in this one. Lecter taunts him with the notion that he enjoyed gunning down the target of his last investigation, a particularly violent fellow by the name of Hobbes. Deeply shaken by the experience, Graham retired, only to be reluctantly coaxed back into service by Jack Crawford, his former boss at the FBI. In their first interview, Hannibal tweaks his captor’s deepest fear: “The reason you caught me is that we are just alike. If you want the scent, smell yourself.” (last line added by screenwriter Michael Mann).
Graham’s work on the case reveals that Lecter isn’t too far from right. When examining the first crime scene, Graham speaks of his quarry in the third person. As he gets into the criminal’s mindset, he shifts to the second person (“you did this, then you did that”). Finally, when he checks out the Jacobi house, he uses first person pronouns exclusively (“The house is mine…children mean nothing to me…I see you there, and I see me desired by you”), adopting the perspective of the murderer to understand the psychotic dream that motivates such horrific acts.
In creating a narrative momentum that never lets up, Red Dragon is the best novel of the trilogy. Dolarhyde is far more threatening, powerful and sympathetic than either Buffalo Bill or Hannibal’s Mason Verger. Born with a severely cleft palate, and unimaginably abused as a child, Francis harbors feelings of total inadequacy that lead him to transform himself into the Red Dragon. His murders are twisted expressions of a desperate need to be loved and accepted. He places mirrors in the eyes of his victims, so that he may see himself triumphant in their eyes. His dominant image, tattooed across his chest, is a William Blake paining entitled The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun, the Dragon rampant and exalting in its power). Focused almost solely on the visual, Dolarhyde chooses his victims from the home movies his photographic studio develops. He also films his intrusions, so that he may relive the atrocities over and over again (echoing the central theme of Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom [1960]).
But Francis becomes peculiarly sympathetic when he gets emotionally involved with a blind fellow employee at his photographic plant. Not put off by his imposing size and facial deformity, she responds to his attraction to her, and is deeply moved when he takes her to the zoo to pet a tranquilized tiger (photographing nocturnal creatures there is his explanation for seeking film that works in total darkness, which led to his meeting her). Reba McClane (Joan Allen in the film) makes the first move when he invites her over for dinner, and Francis has what is apparently the only satisfying sexual encounter with another person he ever enjoyed. As a result, his psyche bifurcates into Francis and the Dragon, who fight it out for the life of Reba.
Tom Noonan’s performance in Manhunter heightens our ambivalence; his soft, almost effeminate voice provides a striking counterpoint to his menacing appearance. The Tooth Fairy is by turns ruthless and touching, and we never lose sight of his tortured upbringing once it is revealed. By contrast, Mann’s film only alludes to the etiology of Dolarhyde’s psychosis in Graham’s passing admission to Crawford (Dennis Farina) that while he feels for the abused child, he will not hesitate to shoot the crazed adult.
A phone conversation between Lecktor (sic) and Graham (which does not take place in the novel) is explicit about the theme on which I am focusing. After gleefully rehearsing the details of the latest church collapse, and how many of the faithful had been slaughtered as they prayed (the old Problem of Evil, one of his favorite themes), Lecktor puts it this way:
L: We don’t invent our natures, they’re issued to us along with our lungs and our pancreas and everything else. Why fight it?
G: Fight what?
L: Did you really feel so depressed when you shot Mr. Garrett Jacob Hobbes? I didn’t know you then, but I think that you probably did. But it wasn’t the act itself that got you down. Didn’t you really feel so bad because killing him felt so good? And why shouldn’t it feel good? It must feel good to God, he does it all the time…
G: Why does it feel good, Dr. Lecktor?
L: It feels good, Will, because God has power and if one does what God does enough times, one will become as God is. God’s a champ…he always stays ahead.
all too obviously showing.