Red Dragon mini-review (no spoilers)
Last night there was a free showing of Red Dragon at DOC, our campus film theater. Red Dragon, for those of you not in the know, is the prequel to Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal. I’d say Red Dragon was better than Hannibal, but not as good as Silence of the Lambs. It was very entertaining, and well worth the $0.00 (but 2 hours standing on line) I paid to see it.
One question: In Hannibal, Hannibal Lecter is portrayed as a vigilante killer; someone who only kills people with serious moral flaws. In Red Dragon, he twice tries to kill Ed Norton’s character, which has no obvious character flaws (to me anyway). If somebody wants to clarify that for me, I’d appreciate it.
In my book, the difference between a good and awesome movie is a University of Chicago reference. Indiana Jones is awesome. Red Dragon, likewise, is awesome, since at one point Hannibal hacks the jail’s telephone system to make a call to a Dr. Bloom at the University of Chicago. That was quite excellent. Everyone in the theater applauded.
See also: NY Times article on Anthony Hopkins’ portrayal of Hannibal Lecter
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October 3rd, 2002 at 2:54 pm
i agree with you on almost all the points. he tried to kill norton only because norton was the only one who could put him behind bars.
October 8th, 2002 at 6:11 pm
Good question, actually. My take is that in Hannibal (the novel, at least - I haven’t yet seen the movie version), we find out that Lecter’s flesh fetish goes back to the last days of WWII, when his family estate was co-opted by starving Nazis retreating from the Russian front. There’s no food, so they eat Lecter’s sister. True to Thomas Harris’s grotesque sensibilities, little Hannibal finds out in the most horrifying way possible: he finds her teeth in the bottom of the latrine pit. This experience is the acorn for his professional life (as brain doc) and his pathological life (the intertwining of intimacy and consumption - physical consumption). Lecter feels an intimacy of sorts with Will - he says something to the effect of “you caught me because you’re LIKE me, we’re cut from the same cloth, blah blah.” Lecter’s beef (no pun intended) with Will is really the pinnacle of cannibalism - the urge to eat one’s own flesh.