Hannibal Rising

My favorite movie is The Silence of the Lambs. My favorite film character is Hannibal Lecter. How can't you fall in love with someone so completely articulate, knowledgable, classy, well rounded, and twisted? My favorite thing about Hannibal, that makes him rise above other characters, is that contradiction -- he is a refined sadist.

With that refined quality, even his eating Ray Liotta's brain in Hannibal became an art form. He chose beautiful dishes, a wine that would pair well with brain, and high quality cooking utensils. Of course it's perverse, it's murder, but it is pre-meditated in a sense that alleviates the gross quality of the act. He doesn't plan how he's going to kill Ray Liotta because it's not the important part. The important part is what happens after he (in this case) disables him -- he cooks a gourmet meal. He invites the woman he loves to the table. She is wearing a designer dress. Hannibal is about the finer things in life -- an example of when the id and ego have been separated from the superego, in Freudian terms.

The big problem with Hannibal Rising, which I saw last night, was not the gore (even though it was the closest thing I've seen to a snuff film). It's a movie about a cannibal; I expect gore. The problem was that all sense of refinement and beauty was lost. Murder was not an art to young Hannibal -- it was murder for revenge. The cannibalism was an afterthought. Cannibalism should be the first thought. Or at least a greater purpose above himself. There was no art in his revenge killings. Just anger. Hannibal is not angry -- he is calm.

The one part of the movie that read as real in terms of Hannibal as a developing character (I'm talking about the Gallard Uspiel version, not the little boy) was when he killed the butcher because:

1. He killed for someone else, for her honor
2. He went about it calmly
3. There was a symbolism to his cuts on the butcher and the display of the head
   
4. The method of murder and the display of the head are according to a tradition valued by the woman he was protecting

Regardless of how interesting this is, I am of the opinion the movie and the book should never have come into being. It's about how they came into existence. Here's the chain of events as I see them:

1. "Hey Thomas Harris, I'll pay you a bajillion dollars to write another Hannibal Lecter book and adapt it into a movie!" Thomas Harris says, "Okay!"
   
2. Thomas Harris thinks, "Shit! I ended the book Hannibal with him and Clarice living happily ever after. I can't add on to that. What do I do? Oh yeah! I have like 100 pages of pre-writing on Hannibal's past lying around, I'll make that into a book." (A writer who wrote an entire character study book (Hannibal) would have a LOT of pre-writing around)

So that's how the book happened. But the thing about character pre-writing is that writers use it to get into the head of their characters. It's about understanding the motivations behind certain actions and how they came to be how they are. It's also typically boring and never meant to see the light of day. The rule of thumb is to write about the most crucial point in a character's life, not the events leading up to that. Harris already did that, and if he's going to write another book, might as well expound on something at the end of Hannibal.

Basically, Hannibal isn't Hannibal yet...he's just forming...and I miss my refined, old, patron of the arts. I'd rather have seen this movie where the main character wasn't Hannibal Lecter, but some new character. It might have been a little interesting, and if not, I at least wouldn't be wishing I was at home, with The Silence of the Lambs on so I could see Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter, and not that cheap imitation I saw last night.