Oh this is brilliant! I have a post brewing about the way we treat real life villains as if they're movie villains, and this point about smart versus stupid is just it. Evil masterminds are ultimately not as interesting because they're not real. But regular human hubris is quite real and relatable — and gets us into far more trouble in the long run.
:: Lecter horror is about how smart evil is—and how smart the director is for thinking up something this smart. I can admire the mechanism. But it’s too glib for me to quite trust it.::
This is the problem with people not Thomas Harris trying to write their own Hannibal Lecter, and it's a problem we've been seeing a LOT in movies! Lecter was never written to be the Master Supervillain, the Professor Moriarty/Dr. Mabuse/Fu Manchu/Lex Luthor/Ernst Stavro Blofeld who was out to destroy the hero. Kind of the opposite, in fact, because Hannibal Lecter, in his own Apex Predator way, is the hero's ally—not Moriarty, but STAR TREK's Q.
This reminded me of Voldemort in the Harry Potter books, whose motives are to 1) Destroy Harry, 2) Conquer the Wizarding World, 3) Destroy Harry, 4) Burn Down the Muggles' World Altogether, and 5) Destroy Harry. After he's accomplished all that, then what's he going to to do with his life—take up a piracy franchise?
While the hero might hunt Lecter, that's always alongside her's/his's main objective, which is usually to save somebody's life. I think you don't like Lecter because you're not seeing Lecter, you're seeing the cheapo store brand knockoffs written to ultimately destroy the hero because...reasons! You might like the character better if he (and I'm using "he" because as far as I can tell, this character is always a man) wasn't really destroying the hero's life, but...helping her/him in a way the hero never asked for.
Thomas Harris never wrote Lecter to be a realistic villain, he wrote him to be a fantasy helping the hero hunt far more realistic evil—all of whom are, as you said ,"petty and foolish, as likely to do harm through fucking up as through successfully concocting elaborate schemes." (I kind of liked how Sherlock Holmes in ELEMENTARY described serial killers as "onanists and mouth breathers", but that could be because of the withering contempt Jonny Lee Miller's Holmes gave it.) This Azrael is the writer taking a lazy shortcut because, well, "the movie has to happen"....
No, I read the Silence of the Lamb book. I think I like it even less than the movie if that's possible; the author's big crush on lecter is even more obvious and even more irritating.
I didn't get that from SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, though in retrospect it was pointing in that direction. I take it you didn't read HANNIBAL or HANNIBAL RISING at all, because that's where Harris went off the deep end with Lecter! I'm not normally a fan of movie adaptations over the book, but the film version of HANNIBAL was a marked improvement over Harris novel....
Noah, by first one do you mean SILENCE? Your comment doesn't really describe Lecter's position in RED DRAGON, the oft-forgotten first novel. For me, it's by far the best of the books. That's largely because the killer is more than a plot device but also because Lecter appears in only a few short scenes.
Mr. Darke, Lecter certainly isn't trying to help Will Graham. He only agrees to assist Graham because it offers an opportunity to punish the man who stopped his fun. Lecter doesn't even qualify as the deuteragonist, although his role in the story overlaps with some traditional functions.
In SILENCE and HANNIBAL he definitely was the deuteragonist. One could argue that Lecter was the protagonist of HANNIBAL, or at least shared that role with Starling.
Based on my very limited viewing, I'd say Lecter and Graham were shared protagonists of much of the TV show, or alternated protagonist-deuteragonist as the producers thought useful. I admit to disliking the program greatly, which is why I've read more about it than seen it. Stories get reinterpreted, yes, but they might as well have introduced a new FBI agent, for all the changes made to Graham — and to Hannibal! I suppose the producers realized that many viewers barely knew Graham existed, even with two movie versions of RED DRAGON.
Having mentioned the movies, I will urge anyone who reads this to watch MANHUNTER, Michael Mann's 1986 adaptation. It has many flaws, but Brian Cox's Lecter is a huge virtue. He is written and played true to the novel. He's not a spooky genius who fascinates the hero. He's a petty individual, a malignant narcissist who just happens to be quite intelligent and cultured. His affected casual manner barely conceals his hatred. The audience wouldn't want to talk about opera or cooking over "a nice chianti." Like William Petersen's Graham, they'll just want to get the fuck away.
Nov 5, 2023·edited Nov 5, 2023Liked by Noah Berlatsky
You might want to dip into RED DRAGON. In my opinion, it's a solid thriller. Will Graham is more interesting and complex than Clarice Starling. He's less sympathetic, for one thing. Also, the killer is written as a person.
"Buffalo Bill" is a boogeyman. We're given his thoughts on occasion, but he's a cipher. Jame Gumb overidentifies with his mother and wants to look like her, so he skins women to make a suit. Lecter says he's not really trans. That's it.
Francis Dolarhyde, the Red Dragon, is the point of view character for perhaps a quarter of the book. We get significant memories from his past and he grows as a character in the present-day narrative. Will Graham even sympathizes with the child Dolarhyde, wondering what must have happened to create such a twisted mind.
Good book. MANHUNTER is a good movie hampered by Mann's inexperience. It has great performances by Petersen and Cox. Joan Allen is very good, as is Tom Noonan. RED DRAGON the movie is dull. Some good work from most of the cast, although Edward Norton just seems tired and Hopkins is cartoonish. And it was directed by Brett Ratner.
Mr. Darke, it would almost have to be an improvement, wouldn't it? Harris spends half the book breaking Starling while Lecter ascends to anti-villain avenger status. Completely bonkers. The ending was a giant one-finger salute to everyone who loved or admired Starling.
Oh this is brilliant! I have a post brewing about the way we treat real life villains as if they're movie villains, and this point about smart versus stupid is just it. Evil masterminds are ultimately not as interesting because they're not real. But regular human hubris is quite real and relatable — and gets us into far more trouble in the long run.
:: Lecter horror is about how smart evil is—and how smart the director is for thinking up something this smart. I can admire the mechanism. But it’s too glib for me to quite trust it.::
This is the problem with people not Thomas Harris trying to write their own Hannibal Lecter, and it's a problem we've been seeing a LOT in movies! Lecter was never written to be the Master Supervillain, the Professor Moriarty/Dr. Mabuse/Fu Manchu/Lex Luthor/Ernst Stavro Blofeld who was out to destroy the hero. Kind of the opposite, in fact, because Hannibal Lecter, in his own Apex Predator way, is the hero's ally—not Moriarty, but STAR TREK's Q.
This reminded me of Voldemort in the Harry Potter books, whose motives are to 1) Destroy Harry, 2) Conquer the Wizarding World, 3) Destroy Harry, 4) Burn Down the Muggles' World Altogether, and 5) Destroy Harry. After he's accomplished all that, then what's he going to to do with his life—take up a piracy franchise?
While the hero might hunt Lecter, that's always alongside her's/his's main objective, which is usually to save somebody's life. I think you don't like Lecter because you're not seeing Lecter, you're seeing the cheapo store brand knockoffs written to ultimately destroy the hero because...reasons! You might like the character better if he (and I'm using "he" because as far as I can tell, this character is always a man) wasn't really destroying the hero's life, but...helping her/him in a way the hero never asked for.
Thomas Harris never wrote Lecter to be a realistic villain, he wrote him to be a fantasy helping the hero hunt far more realistic evil—all of whom are, as you said ,"petty and foolish, as likely to do harm through fucking up as through successfully concocting elaborate schemes." (I kind of liked how Sherlock Holmes in ELEMENTARY described serial killers as "onanists and mouth breathers", but that could be because of the withering contempt Jonny Lee Miller's Holmes gave it.) This Azrael is the writer taking a lazy shortcut because, well, "the movie has to happen"....
No, I read the Silence of the Lamb book. I think I like it even less than the movie if that's possible; the author's big crush on lecter is even more obvious and even more irritating.
I didn't get that from SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, though in retrospect it was pointing in that direction. I take it you didn't read HANNIBAL or HANNIBAL RISING at all, because that's where Harris went off the deep end with Lecter! I'm not normally a fan of movie adaptations over the book, but the film version of HANNIBAL was a marked improvement over Harris novel....
Yeah I just read the first one and wasn't tempted to read more.
Noah, by first one do you mean SILENCE? Your comment doesn't really describe Lecter's position in RED DRAGON, the oft-forgotten first novel. For me, it's by far the best of the books. That's largely because the killer is more than a plot device but also because Lecter appears in only a few short scenes.
Mr. Darke, Lecter certainly isn't trying to help Will Graham. He only agrees to assist Graham because it offers an opportunity to punish the man who stopped his fun. Lecter doesn't even qualify as the deuteragonist, although his role in the story overlaps with some traditional functions.
In SILENCE and HANNIBAL he definitely was the deuteragonist. One could argue that Lecter was the protagonist of HANNIBAL, or at least shared that role with Starling.
Based on my very limited viewing, I'd say Lecter and Graham were shared protagonists of much of the TV show, or alternated protagonist-deuteragonist as the producers thought useful. I admit to disliking the program greatly, which is why I've read more about it than seen it. Stories get reinterpreted, yes, but they might as well have introduced a new FBI agent, for all the changes made to Graham — and to Hannibal! I suppose the producers realized that many viewers barely knew Graham existed, even with two movie versions of RED DRAGON.
Having mentioned the movies, I will urge anyone who reads this to watch MANHUNTER, Michael Mann's 1986 adaptation. It has many flaws, but Brian Cox's Lecter is a huge virtue. He is written and played true to the novel. He's not a spooky genius who fascinates the hero. He's a petty individual, a malignant narcissist who just happens to be quite intelligent and cultured. His affected casual manner barely conceals his hatred. The audience wouldn't want to talk about opera or cooking over "a nice chianti." Like William Petersen's Graham, they'll just want to get the fuck away.
Yes; silence was the novel I’d read. I’d thought that was the first one; guess not!
You might want to dip into RED DRAGON. In my opinion, it's a solid thriller. Will Graham is more interesting and complex than Clarice Starling. He's less sympathetic, for one thing. Also, the killer is written as a person.
"Buffalo Bill" is a boogeyman. We're given his thoughts on occasion, but he's a cipher. Jame Gumb overidentifies with his mother and wants to look like her, so he skins women to make a suit. Lecter says he's not really trans. That's it.
Francis Dolarhyde, the Red Dragon, is the point of view character for perhaps a quarter of the book. We get significant memories from his past and he grows as a character in the present-day narrative. Will Graham even sympathizes with the child Dolarhyde, wondering what must have happened to create such a twisted mind.
Good book. MANHUNTER is a good movie hampered by Mann's inexperience. It has great performances by Petersen and Cox. Joan Allen is very good, as is Tom Noonan. RED DRAGON the movie is dull. Some good work from most of the cast, although Edward Norton just seems tired and Hopkins is cartoonish. And it was directed by Brett Ratner.
I'll stop now.
Mr. Darke, it would almost have to be an improvement, wouldn't it? Harris spends half the book breaking Starling while Lecter ascends to anti-villain avenger status. Completely bonkers. The ending was a giant one-finger salute to everyone who loved or admired Starling.