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Hannibal Lecter, M.D. is a fictional character in a series of novels by author Thomas Harris. Lecter is introduced in the thriller novel Red Dragon as a genius psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer. This novel and its sequel, The Silence of the Lambs, feature Lecter as one of two primary antagonists. In the third novel, Hannibal, Lecter becomes the main character. His role as protagonist occurs in the fourth novel, Hannibal Rising, which explores his childhood and development into a serial killer. Lecter's character also appears in all five film adaptations. The first movie, Manhunter, was loosely based on Red Dragon, and features Brian Cox as Lecter, spelled as "Lecktor". In 2002, a second adaptation of Red Dragon was made under the original title, featuring Anthony Hopkins, who had previously played Lecter in the motion pictures The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal. Hopkins won an Academy Award for his performance of the character in The Silence of the Lambs in 1991 despite the fact that he only appeared on screen for 24 minutes in the entire film.[citation needed] In 2003, Hannibal Lecter (as portrayed by Hopkins) was voted by The American Film Institute to be the most memorable villain in film history.[2]
[edit] Origin and developmentThomas Harris has given few interviews, and has never explained where he got inspiration for Hannibal Lecter, but in a documentary for Hannibal Rising, Lecter's early murders were said by the filmmakers to be based on murders that Harris had covered when he was a crime scene reporter in the 1960s. In 1992, Harris also paid a visit to the ongoing trials of Pietro Pacciani, who was suspected of being the serial killer nicknamed the "Monster of Florence". Parts of the killer's modus operandi were used as reference for the novel Hannibal, which was released in 1999. According to David Sexton, author of The Strange World of Thomas Harris: Inside the Mind of the Creator of Hannibal Lecter, Harris once told a librarian in Cleveland, Mississippi, that Lecter was inspired by William Coyne, a local murderer who had escaped from prison in 1934 and gone on a rampage that included acts of murder and cannibalism. Red Dragon firmly states that Lecter does not fit any known psychological profile. However, Lecter's keeper Frederick Chilton claims that Lecter is a "pure sociopath." Lecter's pathology is explored in greater detail in Hannibal and Hannibal Rising, which explain that he was irreparably traumatized as a child in Lithuania in 1944 when he witnessed the murder and consumption of his beloved younger sister, Mischa, by Lithuanian Hilfswillige. One of the Hilfswillige members also claims that Lecter unwittingly ate his sister as well. [edit] AppearanceHannibal Lecter is described in the novels as being small and sleek, and with wiry strength in his arms.[3] In The Silence of the Lambs it is revealed that Lecter's left hand has the 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 is also said to have small white teeth[6] and dark, slicked-back hair with a widow's peak. [edit] In literatureHannibal Lecter is introduced in the 1981 novel Red Dragon. He is a brilliant psychiatrist who is incarcerated after he is revealed to be a cannibalistic serial killer. Red Dragon depicts FBI Special Agent Will Graham consulting Lecter to catch serial killer Francis Dolarhyde, known only to law enforcement and media by the pseudonyms "The Tooth Fairy" and later, "The Dragon." In the novel, it is revealed that Graham is actually the man who originally captured Lecter. While questioning the doctor at his practice about the "Chesapeake Ripper" series of murders, Graham realizes that Lecter is the killer upon noticing old medical books on Lecter's bookshelf. (He later concludes that he had subconsciously made a connection between the old books and the diagram "Wound Man" — the ripper had inflicted similar wounds on one of his victims.) As Graham is phoning for backup, Lecter sneaks up on him and attacks him with a linoleum knife, nearly disemboweling him. Years later, after receiving a letter from Dolarhyde, Lecter sends Graham's home address to the murderer via a coded letter. Dolarhyde later attacks Graham and his family at home, disfiguring Graham before being shot dead by Graham's wife. Lecter appears in the 1988 sequel to Red Dragon, The Silence of the Lambs, where he assists a rookie FBI agent named Clarice Starling in catching a serial killer known only as "Buffalo Bill". Lecter and Starling 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 later stages a dramatic, bloody escape from captivity and disappears. Following the success of The Silence of the Lambs and the immense popularity of the character, Harris wrote a third Lecter novel titled Hannibal, which was released in 1999 and took place seven years after the end of Silence of the Lambs. At the start of the novel, Lecter is residing in Florence, Italy, while Mason Verger, one of his surviving victims, attempts to capture him, intending to feed him to his pigs. Fleeing Verger's Sardinian henchmen, Lecter returns to the United States but is subsequently captured by them, however Starling comes to rescue Lecter and though she becomes incapacitated Lecter is able to carry her to safety and the two escape. Having figured out Krendler's role in the conspiracy, Lecter recruits Starling in avenging themselves on him. He kidnaps Krendler, drugs him, and performs a craniotomy upon him. Lecter, Starling and Krendler himself then feast upon the brains of Krendler. Lecter eventually shoots and kills Krendler with a crossbow. Then, in the novel's most controversial sequence, she opens her dress and offered her breast to Lecter. Lecter accepted her offer and the two became lovers. They disappear together, only to be sighted again three years later entering the Opera House in Buenos Aires by former orderly Barney Matthews, who had befriended and respected Lecter while he was incarcerated in Baltimore. Barney, fearing for his life, leaves Buenos Aires immediately, never to return. In the film adaptation of Hannibal Starling does not partake in the feast (she vomits when she sees Hannibal feed him his own brain) and Krendler bleeds to death. Lecter and Starling do not become lovers, and instead Lecter is forced to cut off his own hand to escape from Starling who handcuffs herself to him and a refrigerator. In 2006, Harris wrote a prequel to the Lecter books entitled Hannibal Rising. Harris undertook the project after Dino De Laurentiis (owner of the cinematic rights to the Lecter character since Manhunter) announced that he was going to make a film (with or without Harris' help) depicting Lecter's childhood and development into a serial killer. Harris also wrote the film's screenplay. The story explains that Lecter is born into an aristocratic family in Lithuania in 1933, and that he and his little sister Mischa are orphaned in 1944 when invading German and Soviet forces storm the family estate. Shortly thereafter, Lecter and Mischa are captured by a band of Nazi deserters, who murder and cannibalize Mischa before her brother's eyes. The death of his beloved sister is extremely traumatic for Lecter, rendering him temporarily mute and sparking his fixation with cannibalism. Lecter escapes from the deserters and takes up residence in an orphanage until he is adopted by his uncle Robert and his Japanese wife, Lady Murasaki. As Lecter grows into a young man he forms a close, pseudo-romantic relationship with the widowed Murasaki and shows great intellectual aptitude, entering medical school at a young age. During this period, he receives tutelage in the Japanese Martial Art of Kenjutsu by Murasaki, who descended from a house of Hiroshima Samurai. Despite his seemingly comfortable life, Lecter is consumed by a savage obsession with avenging Mischa's death. After gaining his first taste of murder (punishing the racist butcher by slaying him with Murasaki's Katana for publicly insulting her ethnicity), Lecter methodically tracks down, tortures and murders each of the men who ate his sister, in the process forsaking his relationship with Murasaki and seemingly losing all traces of his humanity. The novel ends with Lecter being accepted into the Johns Hopkins Medical Center. He enters Canada and kills the last of the deserters, a taxidermist, and is delivered to Johns Hopkins in the United States via train. [edit] In film Red Dragon was first adapted to film in 1986 as the Michael Mann film Manhunter. For reasons unknown, the filmmakers changed the spelling of Lecter's name to "Lecktor," who was portrayed by Scottish actor Brian Cox. In 1991, Orion Pictures produced a Jonathan Demme-directed film adaptation of The Silence of the Lambs, in which Lecter was played by Welsh 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. The ending for the film was changed from the novel due to the controversy that the novel's ending generated upon its release in 1999: in the film adaptation, Starling attempts to apprehend Lecter, who cuts off his own hand to free himself from her handcuffs. In the novel the pair become lovers, before eloping to Argentina.  In 2002, Red Dragon was adapted to film again under its original title Red Dragon instead of the previous title of Manhunter with Hopkins once again as Lecter and Edward Norton as Will Graham. In late 2006, the script for the film Hannibal Rising was adapted to novel format. The novel was written to explain Lecter's development into a serial killer. In the film, the young Lecter is portrayed by Gaspard Ulliel. Both the novel and the film received generally negative critical reception.[7] [edit] Film series[edit] Crew
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[edit] In other mediaHannibal Lecter has often been the subject of parodies and references in general media. In addition to making an appearance in MAD magazine, Hannibal Lecter has been the subject of parody for several television series and films such as The Simpsons, the Nickelodeon program Fairly OddParents, Austin Powers in Goldmember, Good Eats, Addams Family Values, NBC's The Office (U.S. TV series), South Park and Kevin Smith's Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, most of these parodies feature the character wearing Hannibal's infamous mask. The character has even been parodied in a musical, entitled SILENCE! The Musical. In 1992, Billy Crystal, while hosting the 64th Academy Awards, made his entrance in mask and straitjacket as Hannibal Lecter. In the 1993 comedy National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1, F. Murray Abraham plays "Harold Leacher," a Lecter-like character, who, when questioned by the police officers played by Emilio Estevez and Samuel L. Jackson as to what human flesh tastes like, replies "Like chicken." The character has also been parodied in the Eminem music video for the song "You Don't Know" in which Eminem reenacts the meeting between Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling. He also references Lecter in the songs "Forever", and "Medicine Ball". [edit] External links
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Categories: Characters in American novels of the 20th century | Characters in American novels of the 21st century | Fictional cannibals | Fictional Japanese swordsmen | Fictional martial artists | Fictional nobility | Fictional orphans | Fictional psychiatrists | Fictional serial killers | Horror film characters | Hannibal | Fictional socialites | Fictional characters with superhuman strength | Cannibalism | Fictional Lithuanians | Fictional mass murderers | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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