TMY's Most Influential Movies - No.7

No.7
The Hannibal Lecter trilogy, of sorts


Silence of the Lambs
Directed by Jonathan Demme
Starring Anthony Hopkins, Jodie Foster and Scott Glenn


Hannibal
Directed by Ridley Scott
Starring Anthony Hopkins, Julianne Moore, Gary Oldman, Giancarlo Giannini, Ray Liotta


Red Dragon
Directed by Brett Ratner
Starring Anthony Hopkins, Edward Norton, Ralph Fiennes, Harvey Keitel, Emily Watson, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Mary Louise Parker

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If there's one villain in my moviegoing experience that I respect, fear, and am inspired by more than Darth Vader, it's Hannibal Lecter. Now that's saying something. Hannibal Lecter is basically this psychologist who actually has a thing about eating human flesh. All three movies
display his brilliance in assisting cops in solving murder cases, while at the same time plotting his own business.

In term of storyline, the sequence of movies is actually Red Dragon, Silence of the Lambs, and finally Hannibal. In terms of film release, Silence of the Lambs was made in 1990, Hannibal 2001, and Red Dragon 2002. In terms of popularity, Silence of Lambs won many Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and cemented Lecter as a fan favorite villain. Hannibal many people hated, and Red Dragon was just another thriller.


Anthony Hopkins as the seductive Hannibal Lecter. The face mask is to stop him from biting people's ears or eyes off, or something like that.

I'll give the summary of the story in the sequence of the movies made. In Silence, young FBI agent Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) was assigned to investigate a murder case involving a n aspiring transvestite and his really gross way of killing people. In order to be able to figure out the murderer's next move, and understand him psychologically, Starling was set up to meet a highly guarded prisoner, Hannibal Lecter (Hopkins), a brilliant psychologist who was jailed for homicide as well as cannibalism.

Story goes to tell of their relationship, of how Starling handles the delicate balance of getting the right information from Lecter, and avoid falling prey to his psychological attacks on her during her visits.

Hannibal takes place ten years after Silence, and tells the tale of Lecter on the loose. One of the key plot is one of Lecter's highly deformed former victim, Mason Verger (Oldman) tries to track down Lecter for revenge. This movie also features a disgraced Starling, who by now is in the "guiness book of records for most persons killed by a cop", who tries to redeem her career by tracing Lecter.

Finally, Red Dragon is er... just another thriller featuring Will Graham (Norton), who is like the male version of Clarice Starling, seeking Lecter's psycho help to catch the Red Dragon (Fiennes),


Jodie Foster, Julianne Moore and Edward Norton...

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Interestingly, I actually love Hannibal the most. I think it has got a lot to do with me watching it when I was 19. At that age I started to absorb films rather than just watch them, and I absorbed the Hannibal Lecter philosophy of violence. Lecter in general is a villain that is so soft spoken, so gentlemenly, and so intellectual, one would mistake him for an ordinary passer by. That's what makes him so scary to many people. He could be your next door neighbour.

Hannibal was the most influential film during my college years. This is so for a few reasons. Firstly, for some reason, he was the icon I chose to emulate. Everyone has heroes they want to be, and Lecter was mine. Over that two years, I tried writing like him, sometimes tried speaking like him, tried thinking like him. Some of my friends would remember that I talked about cannibalism a whole lot.

Now I don't understand why people hate Hannibal so much. I think it's mostly because the fear that they got out of the claustrophobic environment in Silence did not show through, and that Lecter's tendencies seemed to have become less menacing when placed on the world map... I don't know. But I found the film as whole stylish. Hannibal Lecter was stylish in the way he conducted himself as a librarian in Venice, as a man on the run in the United States, and as the cannibal in his own mansion. And it wasn't just him that was stylish, it was the film's technique, the cinematography, and the editing (by my favorite editor, Pietro Scalia). The atmosphere of the film was just vastly dark. The level of goth and religious inspiration is always looming, but never surfaces, leaving my mind perpetually on guard.

The style is important because today, when I think of films I want to make, and when I think of the word stylish, I think of Hannibal. It's my benchmark.


Lecter about to bite off body parts of Clarice Starling...

Finally Finally, this must be stated. The soundtrack for Hannibal, by Hans Zimmer, is one of the best soundtracks that I've ever bought in my entire life. It's one of the rare instances where you get to hear Zimmer employ a full orchestra instead of his usual synthesizers. The music alone is rich and broody. For some reason, everytime I am stuck with an assignment, I would play Hannibal, and I would type and type away, following the beat of the music. It was my lifesaver in CIMP as well as Monash.

Of course there are times when I get carried away and just let my mind wander with the dark themes of the score. Now that's unhealthy, but it's that powerful.

If I made this list a few years back, The Hannibal trilogy would be in the top 3, and is probably the only show that ever stood a chance in knocking Star Wars off the top. It's number 6 now because, at the moment, the remaining 5 have greater influences on me in mind now. But ask again in a few years, it might bump itself back up.



Tata. H.