Of all the many villains we’ve made space for in our brains the one who perhaps stands tallest is the good doctor himself, Hannibal Lecter. Equal parts cannibalistic sadist who views his victims as livestock and sophisticated gentleman and scholar that prizes manners and social etiquette above all else, he’s a special kind of monster. One whom both fits into most categorical descriptions of villainy and yet simultaneously defies classification. The legend of Dr. Hannibal Lecter has been built over a series of books, movies and one particularly fantastic TV show. First introduced to the world as a supporting character in the 1981 Thomas Harris novel “Red Dragon”, his brief but chilling appearance instantly captured the imaginations of readers that found his smarmy but sublime form of terror fascinating.
Red Dragon was initially adapted into the movie “Manhunter” with Succession actor Brian Cox playing the first on-screen incarnation of everyone’s favorite cannibal. Manhunter eventually went on to become a cult classic but at the time it was released to little fanfare. Cox’s portrayal, albeit more brief than either Hopkins or Mikkelson’s, set the mood for the way the character would be perceived on screen. Using only subtle charms and intense stares (with more than a little crazy eye), Cox’s take on Dr. Lecter had more of an influence on future Hannibal steward Mad Mikkelson then the Anthony Hopkin performance that most people associate with the character. Cox’s portrayal has mostly been discarded from the collective memories of moviegoers, disappointingly so, but it served as a litmus test for audience’s future interest in the character.
The success of the book series led to the sequel novel being adapted into an award winning film, replete with a new cast and rebooted vision of Hannibal the Cannibal. For most people Anthony Hopkins’ award winning performance in Silence of the Lambs is now and always will be the definitive portrayal. Hopkins won the best actor Oscar despite only 25 minutes of total screen time by chewing through every inch of every scene, introducing audiences to a character both vulgar and refined, profane but sophisticated. Hopkins played Lecter with a charismatic menace that over 30 years later is still affecting to watch. He was one of the first villians that I found more interesting than the hero, the perfect foil for Jodie Foster’s wide-eyed wallflower trainee Clarice Starling.
The performance defined Hannibal Lecter for a generation. A villain equal parts charmingly erudite and menacingly psychopathic, a macabre allure surrounds the character. I would wager to bet that most people see the Lecter character in Silence of the Lambs as more of an anti-hero than villain, an evil character but not an antagonist per se, something entirely other than the monster at the heart of the movie, Buffalo Bill. The movie almost (but not quite) suggests a curious dichotomy: Buffalo Bill is the bad monster, Hannibal Lecter is the good monster.
Like all shining stars, however, overexposure through several sequels and an ill-conceived prequel began to lead to diminishing returns. It wasn’t until the story of Hannibal Lecter was adapted for long form TV by Bryan Fuller, known for quirky characters and sumptious cinematography, that Hannibal Lecter, at least for me, truly reached his latent potential. Now Hannibal Lecter was portrayed by Danish actor Mads Mikkelson, who navigates the perils of being Hannibal behind nearly imperceptible facial expressions and subtle gestures that are a masterclass in character acting. Gone is the scene chewing malefactor, replaced with something perhaps even more terrifying: an alien and inhumanly depraved character hiding comfortably amongst the intelligentsia, elegantly tailoring a metaphorical person suit to present to the world.
Framed as a pre-Red Dragon origin story, the show focuses on the partnership between Hannibal and FBI investigator Will Graham, the protagonist of the novel Red Dragon (played brilliantly by a twitching Hugh Dancy). Expanding upon the small bits of narrative from the beginning chapters of the book, the show (simply titled Hannibal) recasts Will Graham in the Clarice Starling role. One of the more interesting aspects of the show is this very reimagining of the Will Graham character.
Will is a talented but troubled FBI profiler trying to navigate the murky waters of a relationship with Hannibal as a means to catch killers. His characterization changed from the fearless but scarred investigator of the novel to a broken man with a pure empathy disorder that hitches his wagon along the autism spectrum somewhere near Asperberger’s. In this world Lecter isn’t just creating a ruse to avoid detection or doing reconnaissance on the FBI’s methods of investigation, he finds Will’s unique ability to put himself in the shoes of the killer he’s tracking to be both fascinating and the perfect construct for a deep and depraved game of cat and mouse.
As with Clarice, the cost of this partnership is perhaps the erosion of Will’s very soul as the central question morphs from ‘Will Hannibal be caught’ to the far more interesting ‘Is Will going to be his accomplice’. Some of the romantic overtures that ultimately defined the final (and controversial) narrative of the Clarice/Hannibal relationship are transferred here to Will Graham, as the show explores a psychosexual connection between Will as the damaged specimen and Hannibal as the savage custodian of his sanity.
In the novel “Hannibal”, Hannibal uses psychoactive drugs on Clarice to help heal her from her trauma and the result is they end up as a lovers. She acquiesces to Lecter’s lifestyle and together they live with an almost bacchanalian abandon. Some readers hated this ending, so much so that Jodie Foster refused to return to the role and the ending of the film was changed to reflect a more “standard” relationship between Clarice and Hannibal. The show remixes this concept with Will Graham, insinuating that this was Lecter’s endgame all along, to find a kindred spirit that could know him, that could live with him behind the veil.
The show also elevates Hannibal’s cunning to near-mythic proportions. Instead of Will catching Hannibal by a stroke of luck (bad book keeping, dumb luck) Hannibal instead turns himself in so that Will would always know where he is. In doing so he transfers some of the agency he has in the world to Will, in the hopes that Will shall eventually fulfill the dark promise of his tortured mind and join Hannibal at the dinner table of his own accord (the way Clarice does at the end of Hannibal).
The show also provides insights into the complicated, if thoroughly deranged, thought process of Dr. Lecter. During a particularly wonderful story arc featuring the indomitable Eddie Izzard as fellow serial killer Abel Gideon that Hannibal has captured and is carving up inch by inch and preparing as epicurean cuisine, he’s asked by Abel about why he engages in cannibalism with his victims. Lecter shares a brief by meaningful insight into his mind as he explains it’s only cannibalism if they are equals.
This frames a notion that permeates the narrative in spoke and unspoken ways: Lecter is operating from a narcissistic viewpoint in which he perceives himself as a hyper-rational and supremely intelligent being that has evolved beyond the inanity of normal human existence. A new, dangerous incarnation of the Nietzschean Ubermensch that has evolved beyond moral and ethical concerns and only need triffle with the aesthetical concern of keeping the person suit on, as to avoid unnecessary conflict. Even a Morlock must be cautious of too many Elois. The show goes so far as to suggest that Hannibal, as an evolved consciousness, is simply doing what evolution itself has equipped him to do.
But perhaps the biggest triumph of this characterization is in the backtracking of Hannibal Lecter’s origin. In the Thomas Harris novel “Hannibal”, it is implied that he was forced to eat his sister Mischa to survive as a child, a sister whom he loved, and that in someways cannibalizing people has come to symbolize a pure form of expression and acceptance for Hannibal. The show expands this concept. After being betrayed by Will at a pivotal moment in their relationship, Hannibal acknowledges that eating him is the only way he could truly forgive him.
Unfortunately, author Thomas Harris attempted to provide an origin story as a means of explaining what hellfires Hannibal was forged in, to the detriment of the character and the audience. The prequel “Hannibal Rising” revisits the Mischa incident with far more detail, insinuating that the Beast was created in this crucible of pain and loss. The late Gaspard Ulliel does a yeoman’s job of taking up the Hannibal mantle from Hopkin’s, showing a more restrained and cunning version of Hannibal than we had seen to that point. This was Hannibal Lecter before he became entwined with all the machinations we would later come to know him for. Regrettably both the book and the movie are let down by just the mere attempt of demystifying Hannibal’s motives. The show wisely steers away from such a hackneyed diagnosis, outright stating that what happened to his sister wasn’t the calcifying event responsible for his monstrous creation. He was born a beast, an unknowable thing, something that existed from an early age and manifested according to its own conception of morals and ethics.
In this way Hannibal Lecter shares some qualities with another famous villain, DC Comic’s The Joker. The Joker infamously has several versions of a backstory, all of which insinuate that his recollection of events are unreliable. Thus the character could be viewed not as a tragic figure but as an agent of chaos, a pure form of malice that reared its ugly head to mirror the dark soul of the world back unto itself. Hannibal Lecter also participates in this paradigm. What ultimately makes Hannibal Lecter such a fascinating character is that he exists beyond the confines of rational explanation. He’s a demonic entity of sorts, walking out of our eyeline on a darkling plane, choosing his next meal with all the care of a butcher wandering through a herd of cows.
Many viewers, myself included, typically gravitate to towards the tortured genius archetype in both our heroes and our villains. Hannibal Lecter takes that archetype a step further. He’s doesn’t plan on eating you because he’s insane or because he’s out for something as petty and distasteful as revenge, or because he seeks to gain some sort of power from the experience. He eats you because he’s better than you, and like the whole of human existence before him, he feeds on the flesh of lesser beings.
Hannibal Lecter remains an iconic villain as new generations of fans continue to discover him through various media. You have to wonder if Thomas Harris had an inkling of the avalanche he was starting when the Red Dragon was first published. At any rate, now is as good a time as any to get reacquainted with one of the best villains (or anti-heros depending on your point of view) that literature and cinema has to offer. So pull out a bottle of your favorite Chianti, cook some liver and fava beans and have an old friend for dinner. Rewatch Silence of the Lambs or dive into the TV show. Maybe treat yourself to something decadent while viewing. As Hannibal himself says, “I never feel guilty eating anything”.