Hannibal Lecter is introduced in the 1981 novel Red Dragon as a brilliant psychiatrist who is incarcerated after having been revealed to be a cannibalistic serial killer. In the backstory, FBI special agent Will Graham, who investigated Lecter's murders but was unaware of his involvement, initially consulted Lecter about the case before realizing he was the culprit; Lecter nearly killed Graham when he was captured. The plot finds Graham consulting Lecter in order to catch another serial killer, Francis Dolarhyde, known by the nickname "The Tooth Fairy". Through the classifieds of a tabloid, The National Tattler, Lecter provides Dolarhyde with Graham's home address, enabling him to disfigure Graham and attempt to kill his family.
In the 1988 sequel The Silence of the Lambs, Lecter assists an FBI agent-in-training named Clarice Starling in catching a serial killer known 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 had previously met Buffalo Bill, the former lover of his patient (and eventual victim) Benjamin Raspail; he keeps this information to himself, however, preferring to give Starling information in the form of clues and riddles designed to help her figure it out for herself. Lecter eventually stages a dramatic, bloody escape from captivity and disappears.
In the third novel, 1999's Hannibal, Lecter lives in Florence, Italy, under an assumed name, while Mason Verger, his surviving victim, attempts to capture Lecter with the intention of feeding him to wild boars. Verger enlists the help of Rinaldo Pazzi, a disgraced Italian police inspector, and Paul Krendler, a corrupt Justice Department official. Lecter kills Pazzi and returns to the United States to escape Verger's Sardinian henchmen, only to be captured. After helping kill Verger, Lecter rescues Starling and takes her to his rented lake house to treat her, after she was shot with several tranquilizer darts. During her time there he keeps her sedated, attempting to transform her into his dead sister Mischa through a regimen of classical conditioning and mind-altering drugs. One day, he invites her to a formal dinner where the guest and first course is Paul Krendler, whose brain they consume together. On this night, Starling tells Lecter that Mischa's memory can live within him instead of taking her place. She then offers him her breast, and they become lovers. The novel ends three years later with the couple living in Argentina.
Subsequently, 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 1941 when a German Stuka bomber attacks the Soviet tank that was in front of their forest hideaway, collecting water. Shortly thereafter, Lecter and Mischa are captured by a band of Nazi collaborators turned deserters, who murder and cannibalize Mischa before her brother's eyes. Lecter is so traumatized that he is rendered temporarily mute and later becomes fixated on cannibalism. Lecter escapes from the deserters and takes up residence in an orphanage (where he is bullied by the other children and abused by the dean) until he turns 16, when he is adopted by his uncle Robert and his Japanese wife, Lady Murasaki. After his uncle dies, 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. During this period, he is tutored 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. He kills for the first time as a teenager, brutally murdering a fishmonger who insults Murasaki; he then methodically tracks down, tortures and murders each of the men who killed 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.
[edit] In film
Brian Cox as Hannibal "Lecktor" in Manhunter. Cox was the first actor to play the character.
Gaspard Ulliel as young Lecter in Hannibal Rising.
Red Dragon was first adapted to film in 1986 as the Michael Mann film Manhunter. Due to copyright issues, the filmmakers changed the spelling of Lecter's name to "Lecktor". He was played by Scottish actor Brian Cox.[2]
In 1991, Orion Pictures produced a Jonathan Demme-directed 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 2002, Red Dragon was adapted again, this time under its original title, with Hopkins 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.[3]
In the 1988 sequel The Silence of the Lambs, Lecter assists an FBI agent-in-training named Clarice Starling in catching a serial killer known 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 had previously met Buffalo Bill, the former lover of his patient (and eventual victim) Benjamin Raspail; he keeps this information to himself, however, preferring to give Starling information in the form of clues and riddles designed to help her figure it out for herself. Lecter eventually stages a dramatic, bloody escape from captivity and disappears.
In the third novel, 1999's Hannibal, Lecter lives in Florence, Italy, under an assumed name, while Mason Verger, his surviving victim, attempts to capture Lecter with the intention of feeding him to wild boars. Verger enlists the help of Rinaldo Pazzi, a disgraced Italian police inspector, and Paul Krendler, a corrupt Justice Department official. Lecter kills Pazzi and returns to the United States to escape Verger's Sardinian henchmen, only to be captured. After helping kill Verger, Lecter rescues Starling and takes her to his rented lake house to treat her, after she was shot with several tranquilizer darts. During her time there he keeps her sedated, attempting to transform her into his dead sister Mischa through a regimen of classical conditioning and mind-altering drugs. One day, he invites her to a formal dinner where the guest and first course is Paul Krendler, whose brain they consume together. On this night, Starling tells Lecter that Mischa's memory can live within him instead of taking her place. She then offers him her breast, and they become lovers. The novel ends three years later with the couple living in Argentina.
Subsequently, 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 1941 when a German Stuka bomber attacks the Soviet tank that was in front of their forest hideaway, collecting water. Shortly thereafter, Lecter and Mischa are captured by a band of Nazi collaborators turned deserters, who murder and cannibalize Mischa before her brother's eyes. Lecter is so traumatized that he is rendered temporarily mute and later becomes fixated on cannibalism. Lecter escapes from the deserters and takes up residence in an orphanage (where he is bullied by the other children and abused by the dean) until he turns 16, when he is adopted by his uncle Robert and his Japanese wife, Lady Murasaki. After his uncle dies, 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. During this period, he is tutored 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. He kills for the first time as a teenager, brutally murdering a fishmonger who insults Murasaki; he then methodically tracks down, tortures and murders each of the men who killed 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.
[edit] In film
Brian Cox as Hannibal "Lecktor" in Manhunter. Cox was the first actor to play the character.
Gaspard Ulliel as young Lecter in Hannibal Rising.
Red Dragon was first adapted to film in 1986 as the Michael Mann film Manhunter. Due to copyright issues, the filmmakers changed the spelling of Lecter's name to "Lecktor". He was played by Scottish actor Brian Cox.[2]
In 1991, Orion Pictures produced a Jonathan Demme-directed 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 2002, Red Dragon was adapted again, this time under its original title, with Hopkins 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.[3]
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