Hannibal Lecter

Dr. Hannibal Lecter is a character in a series of suspense novels by Thomas Harris.

Lecter was introduced in the 1981 thriller novel Red Dragon as a forensic psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer. The novel and its sequel, The Silence of the Lambs, feature Lecter as one of the primary antagonists after the two serial killers in both novels. In the third novel, Hannibal, Lecter becomes a protagonist. His role as the antihero occurs in the fourth novel, Hannibal Rising, which explores his childhood and development into a serial killer.

The first film adapted from the Harris novels was Manhunter (based on Red Dragon) which features Brian Cox as Lecter, spelled "Lecktor". In 1991, Anthony Hopkins won an Academy Award for his portrayal of the character in The Silence of the Lambs. He would reprise the role in Hannibal in 2001 and in a second adaptation of Red Dragon made in 2002 under the original title.

The NBC television series Hannibal debuted in 2013, and focuses on the development of the relationship between Lecter and Will Graham, an FBI profiler. In the series, Lecter is portrayed by Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen, who won a Saturn Award for his performance.

In 2003, Hannibal Lecter (as portrayed by Hopkins) was chosen by the American Film Institute as the #1 movie villain.^[1] In June 2010, Entertainment Weekly named him one of the 100 Greatest Characters of the Last 20 Years.^[2]

Character overview

Red Dragon firmly states that Lecter does not fit any known psychological profile. In The Silence of the Lambs, Lecter's keeper, Dr. Frederick Chilton, claims that Lecter is a "pure sociopath" ("pure psychopath" in the film adaptation). In the novel Red Dragon, protagonist Will Graham says that Lecter has no conscience and tortured animals as a child, but does not exhibit any other of the criteria traditionally associated with psychopathy; Graham explains that psychiatrists refer to Lecter as a sociopath because "they don't know what else to call him". In the film adaptation of The Silence of the Lambs, protagonist Clarice Starling says of Lecter, "They don't have a name for what he is." In the novel The Silence of the Lambs, Barney Matthews, an orderly at the facility where Lecter is imprisoned, claims that the only thing Lecter fears is boredom.

Lecter's pathology is explored in greater detail in Hannibal and Hannibal Rising, which explain that he was traumatized as a child in Lithuania in 1944 when he witnessed the murder and cannibalism of his beloved sister, Mischa, by a group of deserting Lithuanian Hilfswillige, one of whom claimed that Lecter unwillingly ate his sister as well.

All media in which Lecter appears portray him as intellectually brilliant, cultured and sophisticated, with refined tastes in art, music and cuisine. He is frequently depicted preparing gourmet meals from his victims' flesh, the most famous example being his admission that he once ate a census taker's liver "with some fava beans and a nice Chianti" (a "big Amarone" in the novel). He is well-educated and speaks several languages, including Italian, German, Russian, Polish, French, Spanish, and, to some extent, Japanese.^[3] He is deeply offended by rudeness, and frequently kills people who have bad manners. Prior to his capture and imprisonment, he was a member of Baltimore, Maryland's social elite, and a sitting member of the Baltimore Philharmonic Orchestra's board of directors.

In The Silence of the Lambs, Lecter is described through Starling's eyes: "small, sleek, and in his hands and arms she saw wiry strength like her own". The novel also reveals that Lecter's left hand has a condition called mid ray duplication polydactyly, i.e. a duplicated middle finger.^[4] In Hannibal, he performs plastic surgery on his own face on several occasions, and removes his extra digit. Lecter's eyes are a shade of maroon, and reflect the light in "pinpoints of red".^[5] He has small white teeth^[6] and dark, slicked-back hair with a widow's peak. He also has a keen sense of smell; in The Silence of the Lambs, he is able to identify through a plexiglass window with small holes the brand of perfume that Starling wore the day before. He has an eidetic memory and a fondness for the method of loci: he has constructed in his mind an elaborate "memory palace" with which he relives memories and sensations in rich detail.

Appearances

Novels

Red Dragon

In the backstory of 1981's Red Dragon, FBI profiler Will Graham interviews Lecter about one of his patients who was murdered by a serial killer, before intuiting that Lecter is the culprit. Realizing that Graham is on to him, Lecter creeps up behind Will and slashes him with a linoleum knife, nearly disemboweling him. Graham survives, but is so traumatized by the incident that he takes early retirement from the FBI. Lecter is charged with a series of nine murders, but is found not guilty by reason of insanity. He is institutionalized in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane under the care of Dr. Frederick Chilton, a pompous, incompetent psychologist whom he despises. Some years later, Graham comes out of retirement and consults Lecter in order to catch another serial killer, Francis Dolarhyde, known by the nickname "The Tooth Fairy". Through the classifieds of a tabloid called The National Tattler, Lecter provides Dolarhyde with Graham's home address, enabling Dolarhyde to disfigure Graham and attempt to kill his family. At the end of the novel, Lecter sends Graham a taunting note saying that he hopes Graham isn't "too ugly".

The Silence of the Lambs

In the 1988 sequel The Silence of the Lambs, Lecter assists FBI agent-in-training Clarice Starling in catching a serial killer known as "Buffalo Bill". Lecter is fascinated by Starling, and they form an unusual relationship in which he provides her with a profile of the killer and his modus operandi in exchange for details about her unhappy childhood. Lecter had previously met Buffalo Bill, the former lover of his patient (and eventual victim) Benjamin Raspail. He does not reveal this information directly, instead giving Starling vague clues to help her figure it out for herself. In return for Lecter's assistance, the FBI and Chilton arrange for him to be transferred to a lower security facility. He escapes while in transit, however, killing and mutilating his guards and using one of their faces as a mask to fool paramedics. While in hiding, he writes a letter to Starling wishing her well, and another to Chilton swearing gruesome revenge: Chilton disappears soon afterward.

Hannibal

In the third novel, 1999's Hannibal, Lecter lives in a palazzo in Florence, Italy, and works as a museum curator under the alias "Dr. Fell". The novel reveals that one of Lecter's victims survived: Mason Verger, a wealthy, sadistic pedophile whom Lecter had drugged, paralyzed and persuaded to mutilate his own face during a therapy session. Verger offers a huge reward for anyone who apprehends Lecter, whom he intends to feed to feral pigs specially bred for the purpose. Verger enlists the help of Rinaldo Pazzi, a disgraced Italian police inspector, and Paul Krendler, a corrupt Justice Department official and Starling's boss. Lecter kills Pazzi and returns to the United States to escape Verger's Sardinian henchmen, only to be captured. Starling follows them, intent on apprehending Lecter personally, but is instead also taken captive. After escaping the trap, Lecter convinces Verger's sister Margot to kill her brother as revenge for the years of sexual abuse she suffered at his hands, and leaves a voice mail message taking responsibility for the crime. He then rescues the wounded Starling and takes her to his rented lake house to treat her. During her time there he keeps her sedated, attempting to transform her into his long dead sister Mischa through a regimen of classical conditioning and mind-altering drugs. One day, he invites her to a formal dinner where Krendler is the guest and first course. She joins him in eating the still-living Krendler's brain, but refuses to allow Lecter to turn her into Mischa; she says that Mischa can instead live within him. She then offers Lecter her breasts, and they become lovers. Three years later, Lecter's former guard, Barney Matthews, sees the pair together in Argentina, and flees the country, fearing for his life.

Hannibal Rising

Harris wrote a 2006 prequel, Hannibal Rising, after film producer Dino De Laurentiis (who owned the cinematic rights to the Lecter character) announced that he was going to make a film depicting Lecter's childhood and development into a serial killer with or without Harris' help. Harris would also write the film's screenplay. The novel chronicles Lecter's early life, from birth into an aristocratic family in Lithuania in 1933, to being orphaned, along with his beloved sister Mischa, in 1944 when a German Stuka bomber attacks a Soviet tank in front of their forest hideaway. Shortly thereafter, he and Mischa are captured by a band of Nazi collaborators, who murder and cannibalize Mischa before her brother's eyes; Lecter later learns that the collaborators also fed him Mischa's remains. Irreparably traumatized, Lecter escapes from the deserters and wanders through the forest, robbed of the ability to speak. He is found and taken in by an orphanage, where he is bullied by the other children and abused by the dean. He is adopted by his uncle Robert and his Japanese wife, Lady Murasaki, who nurses him back to health and teaches him to speak again. After his uncle's death, Lecter forms a close, pseudo-romantic relationship with his step-aunt. During this time he also shows great intellectual aptitude, entering medical school at a young age. Despite his seemingly comfortable life, Lecter is consumed by a savage obsession with avenging Mischa's death. He kills for the first time as a teenager, beheading a racist fishmonger who insulted Murasaki. He then methodically tracks down, tortures, and murders each of the men who had killed his sister. In the process of taking his revenge, he forsakes his relationship with Murasaki and seemingly loses all traces of his humanity. The novel ends with Lecter being accepted to the Johns Hopkins Hospital.

In film

Anthony Hopkins as Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs.

Red Dragon was first adapted to film in 1986 as the Michael Mann film Manhunter, although the spelling of Lecter's name was changed to "Lecktor". He was played by actor Brian Cox.^[7] Cox based his performance on Scottish serial killer Peter Manuel.^[8]

In 1991, Orion Pictures produced a Jonathan Demme-directed adaptation of The Silence of the Lambs, in which Lecter was played by actor Anthony Hopkins. Hopkins' Academy Award–winning performance made Lecter into a cultural icon. In 2001, Hannibal was adapted to film, with Hopkins reprising his role. In the film adaptation, the ending is revised: Starling attempts to apprehend Lecter, who escapes after cutting off his own hand to free himself from her handcuffs. In 2002, Red Dragon was adapted again, this time under its original title, with Hopkins again as Lecter and Edward Norton as Will Graham. Unlike the previous film, Red Dragon received very positive reviews from critics and audiences. Hopkins wrote a screenplay for a Hannibal sequel, ending with Starling killing Lecter, but it was never produced.^[9]

In late 2006, the novel Hannibal Rising was adapted into the film of the same name, which portrayed Lecter's development into a serial killer. In the film, which was finished by 2007, eight-year-old Lecter is portrayed by Aaran Thomas, while Gaspard Ulliel portrays him as a young man. Both the novel and film received generally negative critical reviews.^[10]

In television

In February 2012, NBC gave a series order to Hannibal, a television adaptation of Red Dragon to be written and executive-produced by Bryan Fuller.^[11] Mads Mikkelsen plays Lecter,^[12] opposite Hugh Dancy as Will Graham.^[13]

Fuller commented on Mikkelsen's version of Lecter: "What I love about Mads' approach to the character is that, in our first meeting, he was adamant that he didn't want to do Hopkins or Cox. He talked about the character not so much as 'Hannibal Lecter the cannibal psychiatrist', but as Satan – this fallen angel who's enamoured with mankind and had an affinity for who we are as people, but was definitely not among us – he was other. I thought that was a really cool, interesting approach, because I love science fiction and horror and – not that we'd ever do anything deliberately to suggest this – but having it subtextually play as him being Lucifer felt like a really interesting kink to the series. It was slightly different than anything that's been done before and it also gives it a slightly more epic quality if you watch the show through the prism of, 'This is Satan at work, tempting someone with the apple of their psyche'. It appealed to all of those genre things that get me excited about any sort of entertainment."^[14]

Season 1

The first season amends the series' continuity so that Graham and Lecter first work together during the hunt for Garrett Jacob Hobbs (Vladimir Jon Cubrt), the "Minnesota Shrike", a serial killer who preys on college girls. During the investigation, Lecter secretly calls Hobbs to tip him off that Graham is on to him. As a result, Hobbs turns on his own family, killing his wife and trying to kill his daughter Abigail (Kacey Rohl) as Graham charges in and shoots him dead.^[15] Killing Hobbs weighs on Graham's conscience and gives him nightmares, so his boss Jack Crawford (Laurence Fishburne) sends him to Lecter for counseling.^[16] Throughout the first season, Lecter acts as Graham's unofficial psychiatrist, and they form a tenuous friendship. Lecter and Graham also become father figures to Abigail, and cover for her when they discover that she was her father's accomplice. Lecter is fascinated by Graham's ability to empathize with psychopaths, and he spends much of the series trying to undermine Graham's fragile sanity and push him into becoming a killer. To this end, Lecter prevents Graham from learning that he has advanced encephalitis, just to see how Graham would function under the circumstances.^[17] In the first-season finale, Lecter reluctantly frames Graham for a series of murders that he himself committed throughout the season – including, apparently, Abigail's – but not before Graham realizes that Lecter is the Chesapeake Ripper, the very serial killer he has been trying to catch.^[18]

Season 2

Throughout the beginning of the second season, Graham, who is now institutionalized, attempts to convince his skeptical former colleagues that Lecter is the real killer and begins pulling strings from within his cell in order to expose him. Meanwhile, Lecter begins to manipulate evidence from the outside, exonerating himself after the FBI's initial investigations into Graham's claims. Eventually, Graham persuades his friend and colleague Beverly Katz (Hetienne Park), a forensic scientist, to investigate Lecter in exchange for help on a case. She breaks into Lecter's house, where she find evidence of his guilt; Lecter catches her, however, and kills her. Angry and vengeful, Graham convinces a deranged hospital orderly (Jonathan Tucker) to try to kill Lecter, but the attempt fails.^[19] Lecter retaliates by taking as his lover Alana Bloom (Caroline Dhavernas), a psychologist for whom Graham has romantic feelings.^[19] Lecter then exonerates Graham by planting forensic evidence of Graham's alleged victims at the scene of one of his own murders, resulting in Graham's release. He also frames his colleague Frederick Chilton (Raul Esparza) by planting a mutilated corpse in his house and "influencing" his surviving victim Miriam Lass (Anna Chlumsky), into believing that Chilton had abducted and tortured her.^[19]

Graham resumes therapy with Lecter as an attempt to entrap him. Lecter quickly becomes aware of the ruse, but finds the experience fascinating and allows it to continue in order to explore the connection he feels with Graham. In an attempt to push Graham into becoming a serial killer, Lecter sends his psychotic former patient Randall Tier (Mark O'Brien) to kill Graham, but Graham kills and mutilates Tier instead – just as Lecter hoped he would.^[20] Later, Graham attacks tabloid reporter Fredericka "Freddy" Lounds (Lara Jean Chorostecki), who is investigating him and Lecter. Graham shares a meal with Lecter of what is implied to be her flesh, but it is soon revealed that Lounds is still alive and conspiring with Graham and Crawford to draw Lecter into their trap.^[21]

Lecter and Graham acquire a common enemy in Mason Verger (Michael Pitt), whom they both despise for emotionally and sexually abusing his sister Margot (Katharine Isabelle). Verger has them both kidnapped and prepares to feed them to his prize pigs; however, Lecter escapes and takes Verger hostage in Graham's house. He gives Verger a hallucinogenic drug cocktail, and tells him to cut off pieces of his own face and feed them to Graham's dogs. With Graham's tacit approval, Lecter then breaks Verger's neck with his bare hands, paralyzing him.^[22]

In the second-season finale, Graham and Crawford move to arrest Lecter against the orders of the FBI. In the ensuing struggle, Lecter seriously wounds Graham and Crawford, while a very much alive Abigail Hobbs pushes Bloom out of a window. Lecter then cuts Abigail's throat in front of Graham and leaves them to die as he flees before the police arrive. He is shown in a post-credits scene aboard a flight to France with his psychiatrist, Bedelia Du Maurier (Gillian Anderson).^[23]

Season 3

The third season amends the series' continuity to incorporate events from the novel Hannibal. It also changes Lecter's origin story: in this continuity, Lecter's sister Mischa was murdered, cannibalized, and fed to him by a peasant in his native Lithuania, who would eventually become his prisoner.^[24] Certain episodes also suggest that, in his youth, Lecter was the unidentified serial killer known as "The Monster of Florence".^[25]

Months after his escape, Lecter is living in Florence with Du Maurier, working as a museum curator under the alias "Dr. Fell" – having murdered the original curator and stolen his identity.^[26] Disgraced Italian detective Rinaldo Pazzi (Fortunato Cerlino) tries to apprehend him to collect a bounty placed by Mason Verger (Joe Anderson), who is also consulting with Bloom to capture Lecter. Lecter kills Pazzi and tries to flee the country, but is accosted by Crawford, who engages him in brutal hand-to-hand combat.^[27]

Lecter manages to escape from Crawford and meet up with Graham. When Graham pulls a knife, Lecter's family servant Chiyoh (Tao Okamoto), who had helped him find Lecter, shoots, and wounds Graham. Lecter takes Graham back to his villa and tries to perform a craniotomy on him in front of Crawford, but is interrupted by Italian detectives on Verger's payroll, who deliver them both to Verger's estate in Maryland.^[28] Verger's physician Cordell Doemling (Glenn Fleshler) tells Lecter that he will mutilate him until he dies, and prepare gourmet cuisine from his flesh for Verger to eat. Bloom frees Lecter, who suggests that Margot kill her brother, promising to take the blame. Lecter then kills Doemling, who is about to surgically remove Graham's face and graft it onto Verger's, and later instructs Margot and Bloom on how to milk the unconscious Verger's prostate to give Margot the sperm she needs to conceive a child. After Margot kills her brother, Lecter goes to Graham's house with a wounded and unconscious Graham in tow. When Graham wakes up, he allows Lecter to escape, but later that evening Lecter surrenders to Crawford, who takes him into custody.^[29]

Lecter is found insane at his trial, and incarcerated in the Baltimore Hospital for the Criminally Insane, under Chilton and Bloom's care. Three years later, Graham visits him at the hospital and asks for help profiling a serial killer dubbed "The Tooth Fairy", who murders entire families.^[30] Lecter helps Graham recover his gift for empathizing with psychopaths, and also begins communicating with the killer, Francis Dolarhyde (Richard Armitage). He gives Dolarhyde Graham's address, and Dolarhyde attacks and wounds Graham's wife, Molly (Nina Arianda). Bloom and Crawford threaten to take away Lecter's hospital privileges unless he lets them listen in on his conversations with Dolarhyde. Lecter complies, but then suddenly tells Dolarhyde they are listening. Bloom punishes him by taking away his books and toilet, and confining him in a straitjacket and muzzle.^[31] After Dolarhyde burns and disfigures Chilton, he sends Lecter Chilton's severed lips, one of which Lecter eats.^[32]

In the series finale, "The Wrath of the Lamb", Lecter and Graham develop a plan to catch Dolarhyde, using Lecter as bait. Lecter goes with Graham on a police convoy, pretending to be transferred to another facility in order to draw the killer out. Dolarhyde attacks the convoy, killing the guards but letting Lecter and Graham live. Lecter then takes Graham to a secluded clifftop cottage where he previously brainwashed Abigail Hobbs and Miriam Lass. Dolarhyde tracks them down and attacks them, shooting Lecter in the back and stabbing Graham in the face. Though they are both badly wounded, Lecter and Graham manage to get the better of Dolarhyde and kill him together: Graham slices open Dolarhyde's chest, while Lecter tears out his throat with his teeth. Lecter and Graham then embrace, before Graham throws them both off a cliff. Their ultimate fate is left ambiguous; a post-credits scene shows Du Maurier dining on her own leg at a table set for three, which series creator Bryan Fuller has said is meant to suggest that Lecter and Graham survived and that Graham has joined Lecter. Fuller has stated that Season 4 would have covered Lecter and Graham on the run from the FBI in Argentina, mirroring Lecter and Starling's storyline from the novels.^[33][34]

Relationship between Will and Hannibal

The emotional relationship between Will and Hannibal forms the foundation of the series. In season 3, their developing romance has been taken from subtext into text, ^[35] and to the question of whether it was a part of the initial plan, Bryan Fuller stated: "No, it naturally evolved because I guess I was absorbing so much of Mads and Hugh's performance, which felt like it was growing in intimacy, and it would have been inauthentic not to address it. Because all of these characters, and particularly Bedelia, was able to call out what she had witnessed [between Hannibal and Will], it seemed like a natural conclusion. I remember when I turned in the rewrite pages where Will asks Bedelia if Hannibal is in love with him, I got a note from Don Mancini, one of our writers who was always pushing for more homosexual text – not just context or subtext but text, text, text – and he was like, "I'm so glad you put that in there! They said it! They said it!"" ^[36] Discussing what motivated him to verbally aknowledge the romance between Will and Hannibal, Fuller mentioned: "It felt like we had to s–t or get off the pot, ultimately, because there had been so much going on between these two men that when Will asks, “Is Hannibal Lecter in love with me?” it is very much about death and the romance between these two men. There is a quality to connections that go above and beyond sexuality. You can have this intimate connection with somebody that then causes you to wonder where the lines of your own sexuality are. And we didn’t quite broach the sexuality. It was certainly suggested, but the love is absolutely on the table." ^[37] Remembering how the song for the finale of the series was created, Fuller said: "It was interesting. She [Siouxsie Sioux] was like, “I want to write this song, and what are the things I should really be thinking about?” And I was like, “this is a love story. A love story between a full-fledged psychopath and someone who has nascent psychopathic abilities.” Actually, Hannibal Lecter is not a psychopath; he’s something else entirely. But it’s a love relationship between two men: one of them is a cannibal, and one of them understands those cannibalistic instincts all too well." ^[38]

In other media

Hannibal Lecter is parodied in the 2005 musical, SILENCE! The Musical, with the character being originated by actor Brent Barrett.

Real-life models

Thomas Harris has given few interviews, and did not explain where he got inspiration for Hannibal Lecter until mid-2013. Harris revealed that the character was inspired by a real-life doctor and murderer he met while visiting a prison in the city of Monterrey during a trip to Mexico in the 1960s when he was a 23-year-old reporter.^[39] The doctor was serving a life sentence for murdering a young man, supposedly a "close friend", mutilating his body into several body parts and putting them in a very small box. Harris, who would only refer to the surgeon by the fake name "Dr. Salazar", described him as a "small lithe pale man with dark red hair". He added: "There was certain intelligence and elegance about him."^[40] Harris had gone to Mexico to interview Dykes Askew Simmons, a US citizen on death row for murdering three young people in the country, but he ended up also speaking to "Salazar", who saved Simmons' life after a guard shot him during an escape bid. "Salazar" revealed his dark side as he began discussing Simmons’ disfigured face, tormented upbringing and how attractive his victims had been.

Dr. Alfredo Ballí Treviño, the real-life inspiration for Lecter, according to Thomas Harris.

Several reporters and investigators have traced the records and whereabouts of the Mexican prison doctor in later years and discovered that "Salazar" was in reality Alfredo Ballí Treviño, a physician from an upper-class Monterrey family who was found guilty of murdering a close friend (and lover) and mutilating his body; he was also suspected of killing and dismembering several hitchhikers in the city outskirts during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Treviño was initially condemned to death, but his sentence was later commuted to 20 years and he was released in 1981. After his release, Treviño continued working as a physician in an austere office until his death by natural causes in 2009.^[41][42][43]

In her book Evil Serial Killers, Charlotte Greig asserts that the serial killer Albert Fish was the inspiration, at least in part, for Lecter.^[44] Greig also states that to explain Lecter's pathology, Harris borrowed the story of serial killer and cannibal Andrei Chikatilo's brother Stepan being kidnapped and eaten by starving neighbors (though she states that it is unclear whether the story was true or whether Stepan Chikatilo even existed).^[45] The location of the book Hannibal was inspired by The Monster of Florence. While preparing the book, Harris traveled to Italy and was present at the trial of the main suspect, Pietro Pacciani, where he was seen taking notes.^[46]

See also

• List of horror film antagonists

References

External links

• Hannibal Lecter on IMDb
• Information about Hannibal Lecter, with a focus on Manhunter (1986)
• NPR broadcast on Lecter
• Brian Cox interview about portraying Hannibal Lecter