| Hannibal |
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USA, 2001. Rated R. 135 minutes.
Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Julianne Moore,
Gary Oldman, Ray Liotta, Giancarlo Giannini, Francesca Neri, Zeljko Ivanek,
Frankie Faison, Ivano Marescotti
Writers: David Mamet and Steve Zaillian, based on the novel by
Thomas Harris
Music: Hans Zimmer and Patrick Cassidy; additional music by Klaus
Badelt and Steve Jablonsky; arrangements by Geoff Zanelli
Cinematographer: John Mathieson
Producers: Dino De Laurentiis, Martha De Laurentiis, Ridley Scott
Director: Ridley Scott
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since Darth Vader was sent careening off into space in his fighter by the force
of the exploding Death Star has a sequel been so inevitable. Purists who hate
sequels on principle may disagree, but novelist Thomas Harris did not just make
possible a sequel to The Silence of the Lambs–he
made one necessary. Though by the end heroine Clarice Starling had caught serial
killer Buffalo Bill and quieted the screaming of the lambs, a far deadlier and
more dangerous force was on the loose. From the moment the freshly escaped Hannibal
"The Cannibal" Lecter signs off at the end with the remark that he's going to
have an old friend for dinner, people understandably have wanted more. (Those
who hate sequels should also remember that The Silence of the Lambs was
itself a sequel to Michael Mann's little-seen Manhunter.)
Given that in March 1992 The Silence of the Lambs scored a rare sweep
of the top four Oscars (Best Film, Actor, Actress, and Director) and is justly
remembered as one of the best thrillers in the history of cinema, it is a bit
much to expect Hannibal to live up to its predecessor. Indeed, Hannibal
is no Silence of the Lambs. But that is not the only reason it disappoints.
Superior acting, competent direction, and the fact that it's never boring make
Hannibal a functional thriller, and its notoriously memorable title character
makes Hannibal a little something more, but none of these things disguises
the shallowness of the narrative or covers up the bitter taste of the ludicrous
finale.
The catalyst for the return of Hannibal, who has been (in his own words)
in a "state of hibernation," is one Mason Verger (Gary Oldman, uncredited in
the opening titles and movie advertisements). Verger is, we are told, Hannibal's
second and only surviving victim–a child molester to whom Dr. Lecter was assigned
as a therapist by a rehabilitation-minded court. Hannibal's considered medical
advice was that Verger should cut off his own face and feed it to the dog. Given
the extensive background on Hannibal provided in The Silence of the Lambs,
it's odd we've never heard of Verger before. Evidently Thomas Harris hadn't
yet thought of a device around which to construct the sequel.
The hideously disfigured and insanely rich Verger harbors just a teeny bit
of resentment toward Hannibal and desperately wants to capture him. He has made
a standing offer for a three-million dollar reward to anyone who reveals Hannibal's
whereabouts. When FBI agent Starling (Julianne Moore) makes headlines for leading
a disastrously botched drug bust, Verger sees a new opportunity. Working through
his stooge in the Justice Department, Paul Krendler (Ray Liotta, in a thankless
role), he gets Starling suspended. (The fact that Starling is clearly on record
trying to abort the ambush is apparently irrelevant. This is but one instance
of bad writing–a way to place Starling's career in jeopardy and reassign her
to Hannibal's case is needed to the plot, but at the same time, Harris and/or
the screenwriters don't have the courage to tarnish their heroine in the eyes
of the audience by making anything that happens to her justified.) Verger knows
that Starling's suspension will attract Hannibal's attention because of the
"special relationship" he and Starling share. 
Meanwhile, Hannibal is living the high life in Florence as the interim curator
for some sort of library of antiquities whose previous curator has, ahem, disappeared.
Longtime Italian cinema star and Lina Wertmüller-favorite Giancarlo Giannini
has a major supporting role as Pazzi, the Italian police inspector who comes
to suspect Hannibal's real identity, but there's never much doubt he's hopelessly
overmatched.
Still, Commandatore Pazzi's investigation accounts for most of the cat and
mouse we get in Hannibal, which is otherwise sadly lacking, apart from
a well choreographed scene in Washington, D.C.'s Union Station. More conspicuously,
the multidimensionality of The Silence of the Lambs has been stripped
out. The hunt for Buffalo Bill was nominally the main plot line of The Silence
of the Lambs, but taken by itself, it's just an average get-the-absurdly-demented-serial-killer
story. The fact that Starling must face an even more monstrous killer in Hannibal
to obtain the clues she needs, while at the same time battling insidious sexism
professionally, is what makes The Silence of the Lambs an exceptional
and intensely psychological film.
The same cannot be said for Hannibal. Instead of continuing the exploration
of the psyche of hunter and hunted, Hannibal fundamentally changes both
protagonists. Starling seems to lack the toughness and resourcefulness she exhibited
in The Silence of the Lambs. She is reduced to a mostly passive role.
No wonder Jodie Foster turned down the role–Hannibal, as the title suggests,
is not really about Starling.
As for Hannibal, he no longer seems to be the indiscriminately vicious monster
we remember. One might argue that this is understandable. Being a prisoner in
The Silence of the Lambs ironically freed Hannibal to be his true self,
whereas as a free man, he must appear to play by society's rules. But that's
not all there is to it. The Hannibal of The Silence of the Lambs was
a mad genius who ate census takers and attacked innocent nurses. Now, probably
in an attempt to gain audience sympathy, Hannibal has been turned into a kind
of an avenging force, punishing only those who deserve punishment. His unpredictability,
part of what made him so terrifying, is gone. His frightening intellect is still
present, and he's always one step ahead of everybody else… except at a key juncture
where it is necessary for Hannibal to make a mistake in order to advance the
plot. More bad writing. (From David Mamet, State
and Main, Glengarry
Glen Ross, and Steve Zaillian, Schindler's
List, of all people!)
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The Big Picture
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| Alison |
D+
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| Carlo |
B-
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| Claudia |
-
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| Dana |
F
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| Jeff |
C-
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| ratings explained |
We could go on all day about ways in which Hannibal is inferior to The
Silence of the Lambs. When a film fails to live up to a highly regarded
predecessor so spectacularly, it's easy to criticize and difficult to praise,
even if the film itself is watchable (mostly) and parts of it are quite entertaining.
Indeed, the first half of Hannibal cruises along strongly, despite its
flaws, until it weakens considerably in the last third and falls apart completely
in the ludicrous ending. So we must give credit where credit is due.
Director Ridley Scott (Gladiator, Alien,
Blade Runner) is correct not to approach
the material in the same way as his predecessor Jonathan Demme. Demme's style
was straightforward and minimalist. He relied on the audience's imagination
and unflattering lighting that made everyone waxy and pale to create a pervasive
sense of dread. But Scott doesn't have two things Demme had: he doesn't have
a superior script, and he doesn't have the audience's fear of the unknown to
work with. So Scott paints in broader strokes. He imports his own lush visual
style, using his trademark ability to make breathtakingly beautiful photography
edgy and dark, as though A Room with a View had been shot by David Fincher.
Scott missteps, however, and falls into the common trap of confusing gruesomeness
with terror. There is nothing terrifying about Verger's appearance, for example;
he is just gross. Scott might have shrouded Verger's features more with the
lighting, or perhaps given him a cloth mask, and suggested the results
of Hannibal's handiwork, rather than just showing us an overdone makeup job.
He makes the same mistake in the finale with a laughable (albeit difficult to
watch) digital effect involving the, ahem, dinner.
Despite her the watered-down character, Julianne Moore acquits herself, even
doing a spot-on imitation of the way Foster speaks in The Silence of the
Lambs. Nevertheless, her performance doesn't change the fact that Starling
is a shadow of her former self, still tough, but powerless against the machinations
of the federal bureaucracy and her enemies. The feminist subtext of The Silence
of the Lambs , which helped to make Foster's role so meaty (no pun intended),
is gone, and the fact that Krendler hates women is an inadequate attempt by
the writers to recreate it.
The star of Hannibal is, of course, Anthony Hopkins. What can one say
about Sir Anthony Hopkins? He is, by himself, a reason to see Hannibal,
reprising his most famous role with equal amounts of zest and reserve–which
may sound like a paradox until you see the film. Too bad Hannibal's motivations
are unclear and his actions difficult to explain, particularly toward the end.
By not delving into Hannibal's psyche, the script doesn't do justice to Hopkins'
performance–Hopkins had much more to work with in far less screen time in The
Silence of the Lambs. In this script, Hannibal is a creature of fancy, not
an embodiment of our most elemental fears. Not having any alternative, Scott
goes along with that kind of treatment, visually portraying Hannibal as a mythic,
larger-than-life figure.
The promise of Hannibal is to bring us into the mind of the monster
who so petrified us in The Silence of the Lambs. The promise of Hannibal
is that the relationship between Hannibal and Starling will be deepened and
the conflict resolved, one way or another. But we never come to understand Hannibal.
Closure between Hannibal and Starling is never achieved. Promises go unfulfilled
in favor of providing stylish thrills. It's entertainment, but it's not terribly
profound.
A note about the ending:
The following includes major spoilers.
Do not read if you have not seen the film and intend to do so.
During pre-production, there was a lot of coverage in the entertainment media
about the fact that studio and stars were deeply dissatisfied with the ending
of Thomas Harris' book. The movie's ending was therefore substantially rewritten.
Here is a synopsis of the novel's original ending, written by AboutFilm's Alison
Tweedie-Perry:
In the book, Hannibal takes Clarice to
his mansion on the Bay (the rightful owner of which he has killed), keeping
her drugged, but not to the point of constant unconsciousness. Knowing that
Clarice's deepest psychological need is to please her father, Hannibal engages
in some therapy, I suppose is the word for it, involving the bones of her
father that he has dug up in West Virginia. Clarice has a conversation with
her father wherein she lets go all the angst she's been holding onto relating
to him. At the same time, we're learning that Hannibal is a cannibal because
his sister was killed and eaten by deserting soldiers in Germany during the
war. Hannibal seems to be engaged in some transference-type thing where Misha
(his sister) will come back to take Starling's place in the world. Whatever
that means.
Anyway, Clarice is in a heavily drugged
state where she's highly suggestible, which is why a pile of bones can seem
to be her actual living father. Hannibal and she have many candlelit dinners
where they discuss all manner of things. One evening, Clarice (still drugged)
comes down for dinner all dressed up, and Lecter reveals Krendler there. Things
progress pretty much as they do in the movie, except that Clarice goes along
without batting an eye, up to and including eating Krendler's brain along
with Hannibal. Once Krendler finally stops babbling and is dead, Hannibal
and Clarice retire to the drawing room where it's still not clear whether
Hannibal is going to kill her. In fact, it seems that he will, until she realizes
that his deepest psychological need has something to do with his mother and
sibling rivalry and Hannibal being weaned too soon to make room for his sister.
Clarice pours wine all over her chest, invites Hannibal to suckle her, and
in so doing, becomes closer to him than he has allowed anyone to be since
Misha was killed.
The book then skips ahead a few months
with Hannibal and Clarice living the high life in South America. They have
a seemingly sophisticated and committed relationship, though Clarice still
has some reservations as to whether her lover has truly left behind his cannibalistic
ways. They are, however, in love, and she feels freer and less troubled than
she ever has before. The end.
Admittedly, I haven't read it, but the novel's ending sounds just awful to
me. And yet, it still sounds better than the movie's ending. At least the novel's
ending explores the psyche of both characters. At least Starling asserts some
power, as preposterous as her therapeutic techniques may sound.
Writers, of course, have no obligation to adhere too closely to an original
work when adapting it to the screen. In most cases they shouldn't, given the
differences between literary and cinematic media–so long as they remain true
to the spirit of it the original work. The idea of reworking the novel's
ending is not a bad one, particularly because the idea of Hannibal suckling
Starling's breasts is more than most of us can wrap our minds around, or care
to try.
But the movie doesn't just deviate from the plot of the novel. It deviates
from the essence of it, fundamentally altering the protagonists and avoiding
the psychological examination that Harris had the courage at least to attempt.
The movie gives us no clue to the inner workings of Hannibal's mind, and without
that, I personally don't believe that the Hannibal we knew in The Silence
of the Lambs would cut off his own hand to free himself from anybody,
not when he can cut off her hand instead. I can see even the more protective,
loving Hannibal we are given preferring to cut off Starling's hand instead of
his own, given that with advances in modern medicine and ambulances only minutes
away, her hand could probably have been reattached without too much permanent
damage. The calculating Hannibal would have thought of all this–at least, the
Hannibal of The Silence of the Lambs would have.
The gruesome brain scene is faithful to the book, but here the faithfulness
is misplaced. As discussed above, gore is not the same thing as horror. Furthermore,
some explanation of the drugs used by Hannibal would have been nice, too, because
I spent the entire scene wondering whether what Lecter was doing to Krendler
was even possible, instead of focusing on the movie. I've since learned that,
apparently, when people have brain surgery, they are given special drugs to
keep them lucid during the operation so the centers dealing with language won't
be accidentally affected. How difficult would it have been to write a two-sentence
monologue for Hannibal explaining that? After all, Hannibal likes to listen
to himself speak.
In the movie, Hannibal is Starling's self-appointed protector and is the same
person from beginning to end. But he's not the same person he was in The
Silence of the Lambs, nor is he the same person Harris portrays in his novel,
in which Hannibal is not so much trying to protect Starling as he is trying
to get her in his clutches. In the novel, as ludicrous as it may sound, we have
a transformation and a resolution. That's something we have a right to expect
at the end of a trilogy. However, in the movie, Hannibal just flies off into
the sunset. He is still an enigma. We're just set up for another sequel, and
perhaps another. Don't look now, but Hannibal IX: The Resurrection is
just around the corner.
Read why Dana Knowles gives HANNIBAL
an 'F.'
Review © February 2001
by AboutFilm.Com and the author.
Images © 2001 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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