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DARK CORRIDORS VOL. 2, No. 13 |
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MY DINNER WITH  |
 Anthony Hopkins |
As unlikely as it sounds, elegance saves Ridley Scott's 'Hannibal'
By
RON MILLER
of TheColumnists.com
My relationship with Dr. Hannibal Lecter goes way back to the mid-1980s when I started reading Thomas Harris' "Red Dragon"--the first novel in which Lecter appears--one lazy afternoon in Washington, D.C., while I was killing time before the evening session of the national PBS convention.
As it turned out, I never made it to the evening session because I couldn't put the book down. So, if anything major happened that night, the readers of the newspaper I was working for at the time never heard about it from me. I was transfixed by Harris' story--and more than a little regretful that I was going to have to spend the night alone in a strange city after reading that nightmarish novel.
In "Red Dragon," Dr. Lecter isn't the central character. He's the jailed serial killer that the hero, an FBI man, goes to for help in catching another serial killer. Still, "Hannibal the Cannibal," a brilliant, erudite man whose proclivity for eating his victims has branded him a monster, is the character you remember when the book is finished.
The following year I saw "Manhunter," Michael Mann's competent, but little-known movie version of "Red Dragon," which somehow escaped box office success. Though I enjoyed it immensely, I still didn't realize that by conjuring up Hannibal Lecter, Thomas Harris had begun a transformation of the thriller genre that would have profound effect in years to come.
That didn't become obvious to everyone until after the sequel, "Silence of the Lambs," was published, became an enormous bestseller, then was adapted for the screen as the critically-acclaimed film of 1991 that won the Academy Award as Best Picture as well as Oscars for Anthony Hopkins, who played Hannibal Lecter; Jodie Foster, who played his FBI nemesis, Clarice Starling; Jonathan Demme, who directed the film, and Ted Tally, who adapted Harris' novel.
Right now "Silence of the Lambs" is the most respected horror film in cinema history. It also achieved what many critics thought was an impossibility: It made a thoroughly revolting character--Hannibal Lecter--into a sort of international hero. An acknowledged mass murderer, Lecter escaped the authorities (in an extremely violent manner) at the climax of "Lambs," going unpunished for his multitude of crimes.
Worse
yet, audiences rooted for Lecter. Why? Well, some might say because
world civilization had degenerated by the end of the 20th century.
More specifically, though, I believe it's because Dr. Lecter
was portrayed as a man of impeccable taste and extreme ingenuity.
He also had helped the authorities, once again, catch an especially
pernicious serial killer. Audiences delighted when the sinister,
but debonair Lecter disappeared into the crowd in some Latin-American
foreign setting after charmingly telling Clarice Starling that
he was "having a friend for dinner."
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Like most everyone else, I, too, delighted in the very bizareness of the man, though I wondered what on Earth author Harris could do with him after taking him that far. The answer finally came in 1999 with the publication of "Hannibal," the follow-up to "Silence of the Lambs," which explained what had become of both Lecter and Starling over the years since their paths last crossed.
Though "Hannibal" was yet another huge bestseller, I was one of those who felt the book ultimately was a failure because it forced us to believe that the rational, methodical Clarice Starling would become so obsessed with Hannibal Lecter that she finally would succumb to his will and become his disciple. After reading the nauseating climax of "Hannibal," I was not the least surprised to learn that both director Jonathan Demme and star Jodie Foster had refused to take part in the film version of "Hannibal," even though Anthony Hopkins quickly signed on to reprise the title role.
In my opinion, Harris had lost control of his story and taken "Hannibal" to the point of an absurdist caricature of his brilliantly-conceived master villain/hero. So, I approached the film version with great trepidation.
Now I'm happy to report that the new director, Ridley Scott, has extracted all the juicy material from Harris' novel and thrown away its most distasteful elements--most especially the incredible descent of Clarice Starling into the phantasmagoric hell of Lecter's lunacy. Always a filmmaker with an absolute mastery of visual elegance, Scott has turned "Hannibal" into a work of exquisite beauty--at least if you can get past the sequence in which one character relishes the meal Lecter prepares using gourmet portions of the character's own body.
In the story, Dr. Lecter has found a new life for himself in Florence, Italy, as the new curator of a very richly-appointed museum of great art. Scott makes the absolute most of that with stunning imagery that reminds us what a spellbinding city Florence remains after all these years, underscored by a lush, romantic musical score by Hans Zimmer that lulls us into thinking Hannibal Lecter has found redemption in this world capital of elegance. Hopkins' quiet, controlled performance as Lecter also makes it seem totally natural that such a refined epicurean might prosper in Florence, charming the locals while keeping the lowest of profiles in terms of his murderous tastes.
In sharp contrast is the life of Clarice Starling, now played by Julianne Moore, whose FBI career is in shambles after she takes the fall for a massive drug bust shootout that wasn't her fault at all. Assigned to help track down Dr. Lecter, she's soon accused of concealing her close relationship with him, the result of planted evidence, and finds herself disgraced despite an impeccable record with the service.
Behind the demolition job done on Starling is the loathsome billionaire Mason Verger (Frankie R. Faison), who wants to use the disgraced Starling to lure Dr. Lecter out of hiding. Verger is the only Lecter "victim" who ever survived--and he wants revenge. (Hannibal drugged him and coerced him into slicing off his own face, then feeding it to his dogs.) Now a grotesque invalid who makes the Phantom of the Opera look like a GQ model, Verger has a master plan: He wants to feed Lecter to man-eating hogs, starting with his feet. Aiding him is Starling's FBI superior (Ray Liotta), an ambitious man with no discernible conscience.
You may wonder how any filmmaker could make such things palatable? Scott did it for me by surrounding even the most vile sequences--the disemboweling of an Italian policeman, for instance--with the aura of elegance. With the art decor, the music and the camerawork so tuned to beauty, the ghastliness seems to moderate. Hopkins' nuanced, mannered delivery of every line makes you focus on the eloquence of his language and forget what the bugger is doing with his surgeon's hands.
Except for the "dinner" sequence at the finale, which still strikes me as a bit much, "Hannibal" manages to seduce one's intellectual palate into swallowing when, by all rights, it should be like putting your fingers down your throat.
For sure, "Hannibal" isn't in the league of "Silence of the Lambs," which terrified you while it engrossed you. But it doesn't wind up as a no-class knockoff of the original, which is the fear I had going in. When I finished reading Harris' "Hannibal," I felt sure the chronicle of Hannibal Lecter had nowhere else to go that I could comfortably follow. After seeing Ridley Scott's spin of the material, I'm not so sure I wouldn't enjoy checking back on Hannibal in another few years, just to see what he has on his plate.
© 2001 by Ron Miller.
You can contact Ron Miller with an email to: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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