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Life and times of Hannibal Lecter
Kathy Hofmeyr
Posted Wed, 03 Oct 2007
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While teaching film at UCT some time ago, I was horrified to discover that few of my students had seen ‘Silence of the Lambs’. Without doubt the finest thriller made since the death of Alfred Hitchcock, it's a matchless film about the world’s most charismatic psychopath, Hannibal Lecter. One of only three films in Oscar history to win the Big Five (Best Actor, Actress, Film, Director and Screenplay – either original or adapted), it proved that, very occasionally, Oscar can get some things right. But then I found out why most of them hadn’t seen it: they were afraid to. Now that was more like it.
Hannibal Lecter is the bogeyman of their generation. He has grown beyond the bounds of Thomas Harris’ novels and the films made of them, becoming more than just a bloke from a book. He is the epitome of charm; terrible, vicious and calculating; surpassing even Norman Bates as crème de la serial killer.
Is there a Dr Lecktor in the house?
The first time one of Harris’s Lecter books was filmed was in 1986, when the heavy-handed Michael Mann made ‘Manhunter’. It has neither the grace nor the style of Jonathan Demme’s ‘Silence of the Lambs’, but it has some good performances. Most notable among the cast are William Petersen (Gil Grissom from ‘CSI’), Joan Allen and, of course, Brian Cox as the not-at-all-good Dr Lecktor (as the name is spelled in the first film).
‘Manhunter’ is based on ‘Red Dragon’, Harris’ first novel (chronologically speaking) in the four-book saga. Mann had originally intended to leave the title as it was for the film’s release, but with Michael Cimino’s ‘Year of the Dragon’ gaining massive popularity, it was decided that the name ought to be changed.
Four years later came ‘The Silence of the Lambs’. Jonathan Demme’s finely-wrought film brought former child actress Jodie Foster and Welsh veteran Anthony Hopkins into a most bizarre onscreen partnership.
Hunting Bufallo Bill
For the seven people left on earth (other than my erstwhile students) who haven’t seen the film, it’s a masterpiece about a young and extremely ambitious FBI trainee sent to seek the help of one serial killer in catching another. Clarice Starling, an orphan determined to join the Bureau’s Behavioural Science Unit, looks as small and fragile as her name suggests, but she is as tough as nails.
When the Unit’s head, Jack Crawford, sends her to interview the infamous psychiatrist-turned-serial killer Hannibal “the Cannibal” Lecter in prison, she forms a curious bond with him which ultimately enables her to capture the notorious Buffalo Bill.
Kathy would like to be remembered as a best-selling author, a little-known blues singer and perhaps someone’s favourite aunt. She is the Senior Copy Editor for FHM and lives in Jo’burg with her dogs, three pure-bred mongrels named Harpo, Buffy and Guinness.
Got something to say about The Maguffin? Email her!
Jodie Foster is positively incandescent in the role of Starling. Small, delicate and virtually sexless, with that brittly clenched jaw of hers, she radiates at once vulnerability and perfect competence; uneasy in the world of men who tower over her and whose very looks question her ability, yet unafraid to do everything they can do, and better.
Anthony Hopkins, as Hannibal, gives an awesome performance, too. At just over 16 minutes’ screen time, his performance is the shortest in history to receive a Best Leading Actor Oscar — but then his chilling presence permeates the entire film. He based his “Lecter voice” on a cross between impersonations of Truman Capote and Katharine Hepburn — and anyone who has heard either speak can hear them in his voice. He seems to be biting with cruel intent into each word he speaks, incisors tearing through the syllables with utterly malicious precision. There is pure evil in his eyes (Hopkins never once blinks on camera, lizard-like), and yet he is so urbane, charismatic and genteel one cannot help but be drawn to him.
In his first scene, when one sees him from Clarice’s point of view, it is already clear there is something pure about this monster. Of course, Demme’s brilliant set-up has a lot to do with this as well. Dr Chilton, the horrible little man in charge of the asylum, has brought her down into the very depths of the building and, under a red lightbulb, he calmly informs her of some of Lecter’s misdemeanours while in custody. “His pulse never went above 85,” he says, “even when he ate her tongue.”
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