Hannibal Lecter

Character created by Thomas Harris
This article is about the character. For the franchise, see hannibal Lecter ( franchise )
Hannibal Lecter is a fictional character created by novelist Thomas Harris. Lecter is a consecutive killer who eats his victims. Before his capture, he was a respect forensic psychiatrist ; after his captivity, he is consulted by FBI agents Will Graham and Clarice Starling to help them find other serial killers. Lecter first appeared in a small character as a villain in Harris ‘ 1981 thriller novel Red Dragon. The fresh was adapted into the film Manhunter ( 1986 ), with Brian Cox as Lecter ( spelled “ Lecktor ” ). Lecter had a larger function in The Silence of the Lambs ( 1988 ) ; the 1991 film adaptation starred Anthony Hopkins as Lecter, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. Hopkins reprised the function for the 2001 adaptation of the 1999 novel Hannibal, which sees Lecter evading recapture, and for a second adaptation of Red Dragon in 2002.

Reading: Hannibal Lecter

The fourth novel, Hannibal Rising ( 2006 ), explores Lecter ‘s childhood and development into a serial killer. He was played in the 2007 film adaptation by Gaspard Ulliel. In the NBC television series Hannibal ( 2013 – 2015 ), which focuses on Lecter ‘s relationship with Graham, Lecter was played by Mads Mikkelsen, who won the Saturn Award for Best Actor on Television for his performance. In 2003, Lecter, as portrayed by Hopkins, was named the greatest villain in american film by the American Film Institute. [ 1 ] In 2010, Entertainment Weekly named him one of the 100 greatest characters of the preceding 20 years. [ 2 ] In 2019, Lecter, as portrayed by Mikkelsen, was named the 18th greatest villain in television history by Rolling Stone. [ 3 ]

inspiration [edit ]

Convicted murderer Alfredo Ballí Treviño, the real-life divine guidance for Lecter Working as a journalist for Argosy in the 1960s, Thomas Harris interviewed mental patient Dykes Askew Simmons, who was on death course in Nuevo León State Prison, Monterrey, for killing three people. Simmons had been shot by a prison guard and treated by a skilled prison doctor whom Harris referred to as “ Dr. Salazar ”. Harris interviewed Salazar, who spoke about Askew ‘s facial disfigurements, his victims ‘ physical attractiveness, and the nature of curse. Harris described him as a “ small, lissome homo with night bolshevik hair ” who “ stood very still ” with “ a sealed elegance about him ”. The prison guard late told Harris that Salazar was a murderer who could “ package his victim in a amazingly little box ”. [ 4 ] Salazar inspired Harris to create a character with a “ peculiar agreement of the criminal mind ”. [ 4 ] Salazar is believed to be Alfredo Ballí Treviño, the last criminal to be condemned to death in Mexico, in 1959. [ 4 ] Ballí was a doctor from an upper-class Monterrey family who murdered his supporter and lover Jesus Castillo Rangel and mutilated his body. He was besides suspected of killing and dismembering several hitchhikers in the countryside during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Harris incorporated some of these details into Buffalo Bill ‘s development as a killer in The Silence of the Lambs. Ballí ‘s prison term was commuted to 20 years and he was released in 1981. After his release, Ballí continued working as a doctor in an austere office until his end in 2009. [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ] In her record Evil Serial Killers, Charlotte Greig asserts Lecter was inspired at least in part by the series killer whale Albert Fish. [ 8 ] Greig besides states that, to explain Lecter ‘s pathology, Harris borrowed the possibly apocryphal floor of serial killer whale and cannibal Andrei Chikatilo ‘s brother Stepan being kidnapped and eaten by starving neighbors. [ 9 ] The location of the record Hannibal was inspired by the Monster of Florence. While preparing the book, Harris traveled to Italy and was present at the test of the chief distrust, Pietro Pacciani, where he was seen taking notes. [ 10 ]

character [edit ]

Hannibal Lecter is a cannibalistic series killer. He is highly intelligent and cultured, with refined tastes and faultless manners. He is profoundly offended by discourtesy, and often kills people who exhibit bad manners ; according to the novel Hannibal, he “ prefers to eat the ill-bred ”. [ 11 ] Hopkins described Lecter as the “ Robin Hood of killers ”, who kills “ the terminally crude ”. [ 12 ] In the fresh Red Dragon, protagonist Will Graham says that psychologists refer to Lecter as a sociopath “ because they do n’t know what else to call him ”. Graham claims that “ he has no compunction or guilt at all ”, and anguished animals as a child, but he does not exhibit any of the early criteria traditionally associated with sociopathy. Asked how he himself would describe Lecter, Graham responds, “ he ‘s a monster ”, implying that Lecter ‘s mind is somehow “ incomplete ” in the like way that some babies are born with missing limbs or non-functioning organs. [ 13 ] In The Silence of the Lambs, Lecter ‘s custodian, Dr. Frederick Chilton, claims that Lecter is a “ pure sociopath ” ( “ pure sociopath “ in the movie adaptation ). In the movie adaptation of The Silence of the Lambs, protagonist Clarice Starling says of Lecter, “ They don ’ t have a name for what he is. ” Lecter ‘s pathology is explored in greater detail in Hannibal and Hannibal Rising, which explains that he was traumatized as a child in Lithuania in 1944 when he witnessed his beloved sister, Mischa, being murdered and cannibalized by a group of deserting lithuanian Hilfswillige, one of whom claimed that Lecter unwittingly ate his sister equally well. All media in which Lecter appears impersonate him as intellectually bright, culture and sophisticate, with refine tastes in art, music and cuisine. He is frequently depicted preparing epicure meals from his victims ‘ flesh, the most celebrated example being his admission that he once ate a census taker ‘s liver “ with some fava beans and a dainty Chianti “ ( a “ big Amarone “ in the novel ). Prior to his capture and captivity, he was a member of Baltimore, Maryland ‘s sociable elect, 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 : “ She could see that he was minor, streamlined ; in his hands and arms she saw stringy lastingness like her own. ” The novel besides reveals that Lecter ‘s leave hired hand has a rare condition called mid-ray duplicate polydactyly, i.e. a double middle finger. [ 14 ] In Hannibal, he performs formative surgery on his own confront on several occasions, and removes his extra digit. Lecter ‘s eyes are a shade of maroon, and reflect the abstemious in “ pinpoints of red ”. [ 15 ] He has minor white teeth [ 16 ] and dark, slicked-back hair with a widow ‘s vertex. He besides has a keen smell of smell ; in Red Dragon, he immediately recognizes Will Graham by his brand of aftershave, and in The Silence of the Lambs, he is able to identify through a plexiglas window with small holes the stigmatize of perfume that Starling wore the day before. He has an eidetic memory with which he has constructed in his thinker an elaborate “ memory palace “ with which he relives memories and sensations in ample detail. Anthony Hopkins, the actor most close identified with the character, said he played Lecter as “ extremist reasonable, very hush … He has such terrifying physical ability, and he does n’t waste an ounce of department of energy. He ‘s sol contain. He ’ s all genius. ” [ 17 ] His performance was inspired by HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick ‘s 2001: A Space Odyssey. critic Roger Ebert elaborated on this comparison : “ He is a dispassionate, brilliant machine, brilliant at logic, deficient in emotions. ” [ 18 ] In the same essay, Ebert theorized :

One key to the film ‘s appeal is that audiences like Hannibal Lecter … He may be a cannibal, but as a dinner party guest he would give value for money ( if he did n’t eat you ). He does not bore, he likes to amuse, he has his standards, and he is the smartest person in the movie … He bears comparison, indeed, with such other movie monsters as Nosferatu, Frankenstein … King Kong and Norman Bates. They have two things in common : They behave according to their natures, and they are misconstrue. nothing that these monsters do is “ evil ” in any ceremonious moral feel, because they lack any moral smell. They are hard-wired to do what they do. They have no choice. In the areas where they do have choice, they try to do the right thing. [ 19 ]

According to The Guardian, before The Silence of the Lambs, films portrayed psychopathic killers as “ claw-handed bogeymen with melty faces and rubber masks. By contrast, Lecter was highly intelligent with impeccable manners. ” [ 11 ]

Appearances [edit ]

Novels [edit ]

Red Dragon [edit ]

In the backstory of the 1981 novel 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 perpetrator ; he sees the antique medical diagram “ Wound Man “ in Lecter ’ sulfur office, and remembers that the victim suffered the lapp injuries depicted in the string. Realizing that Graham is on to him, Lecter creeps up behind Graham and stabs him with a linoleum knife, closely disemboweling him. Graham survives, but is sol 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 cause of insanity. He is institutionalized in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane under the care of Dr. Frederick Chilton, a pompous, incompetent psychiatrist whom he despises, and who subjects him to a series of petit larceny cruelties. Some years former, Graham comes out of retirement and consults Lecter in order to catch another series killer whale, Francis Dolarhyde, known by the nickname “ the Tooth Fairy ”. Through the classifieds of a yellow journalism called The National Tattler, Lecter provides Dolarhyde with Graham ‘s home address ; Dolarhyde later uses this information to break into Graham ’ s home, stab him in the expression, and threaten his kin before Graham ’ s wife Molly shoots him dead. At the end of the novel, Lecter sends Graham a letter, saying that he hopes Graham “ won ’ thyroxine be very atrocious ” .

The Silence of the Lambs [edit ]

In the 1988 sequel The Silence of the Lambs, Lecter assists FBI agent-in-training Clarice Starling in catching a serial killer whale, Jame Gumb, known by the dub “ Buffalo Bill “. Lecter is fascinated by Starling, and they form an strange relationship in which he provides her with a profile of the killer whale and his modus operandi in exchange for details about her dysphoric childhood. Lecter had previously met Gumb, the erstwhile fan of his patient ( and eventual victim ) Benjamin Raspail. He does not reveal this information directly, rather giving Starling undefined clues to help her figure it out for herself. In return key for Lecter ‘s aid, the FBI and Chilton arrange for him to be transferred to a federal initiation with better living conditions. Lecter escapes while in transit, however, killing and mutilating his guards and using one of their faces as a mask to fool police and paramedics before killing the latter and escaping. While in hiding, he writes one letter to Starling wishing her well, a second to Barney ( his primary orderly at the mental hospital ), thanking him for his courteous treatment, and a third to Chilton, promising ghastly revenge ; Chilton disappears soon subsequently .

Hannibal [edit ]

In the third gear novel, 1999 ‘s Hannibal, Lecter lives in a palazzo in Florence, Italy, and works as a museum curator under the alias “ Dr. Fell ”. One of Lecter ’ s two surviving victims, Mason Verger —a affluent, sadistic pedophile whom Lecter had brutalized during a court-ordered therapy session, leaving him a horrifically disfigured quadriplegic —offers a huge reward for anyone who apprehends Lecter, whom he intends to feed to wild boars particularly bred for the function.

Hannibal Rising [edit ]

Harris wrote a 2006 prequel, Hannibal Rising, after film manufacturer Dino De Laurentiis ( who owned the cinematic rights to the Lecter character ) announced an mean film project depicting Lecter ‘s childhood and development into a consecutive killer with or without Harris ‘ serve. Harris would besides write the movie ‘s screenplay. The novel chronicles Lecter ‘s early life, from his give birth into an aristocratic syndicate in Lithuania in 1933, to being orphaned, along with his beloved younger sister Mischa, in 1944 when a Nazi Stuka bomber attacks a soviet tank in front of their forest hideout. shortly thereafter, he and Mischa are captured by a band of nazi collaborators, who murder and cannibalize Mischa before her brother ‘s eyes ; Lecter by and by learns that the collaborators besides fed him Mischa ‘s remains. irreparably traumatized, Lecter escapes from the deserters and wanders through the forest, dazed and ineffective to speak. He is found and taken back to his family ‘s previous castle, which had been converted into a soviet orphanage, where he is bullied by the other children and abused by the dean. He is adopted by his uncle Robert and Robert ‘s japanese wife, Lady Murasaki, who nurses him back to health and teaches him to speak again. Robert dies soon after adopting Lecter, who forms a finale, pseudo-romantic relationship with Murasaki. During this time he besides shows great intellectual aptitude, entering aesculapian school at a new long time and distinguishing himself. Despite his apparently comfortable biography, Lecter is consumed by a savage obsession with avenging Mischa ‘s death. He kills for the inaugural time as a adolescent, 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 apparently loses all traces of his humanity. The novel ends with Lecter being accepted to Johns Hopkins Hospital .

In film [edit ]

The Silence of the Lambs Anthony Hopkins as Lecter in Red Dragon was inaugural adapted to film in 1986 as the Michael Mann film Manhunter, although the spell of Lecter ‘s name was changed to “ Lecktor ”. He was played by actor Brian Cox. [ 20 ] Cox based his operation on scots serial killer Peter Manuel. [ 21 ] 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 picture. In 2001, Hannibal was adapted to film, with Hopkins reprising his function. 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 master title, with Hopkins again as Lecter and Edward Norton as Will Graham. Hopkins wrote a screenplay for another sequel, ending with Starling killing Lecter. [ 22 ] In 2016, Hopkins said, “ I made the mistake of doing two more [ Hannibal Lecter movies ] and I should have alone done one. ” [ 23 ] In deep 2006, the novel Hannibal Rising was adapted into a film, which portrayed Lecter ‘s exploitation into a consecutive killer. In the movie, 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 fresh and film, a well as Ulliel ’ sulfur performance as Lecter, received broadly negative reviews. [ 24 ]

In television [edit ]

Mads Mikkelsen portrayed Hannibal for the television receiver series. In February 2012, NBC gave a serial order to Hannibal, a television adaptation of Red Dragon to be written and executive-produced by Bryan Fuller. [ 25 ] Mads Mikkelsen plays Lecter, [ 26 ] opposite Hugh Dancy as Will Graham. [ 27 ] Fuller commented on Mikkelsen ‘s version of Lecter :

“ What I love about Mads ‘ set about to the quality is that, in our beginning suffer, he was diamond that he did n’t want to do Hopkins or Cox. He talked about the character not thus much as ‘Hannibal Lecter the cannibal psychiatrist ‘, but as Satan – this fallen angel who ‘s enamoured with world and had an affinity for who we are as people, but was decidedly not among us – he was other. I thought that was a in truth cool, matter to overture, because I love science fiction and repugnance and – not that we ‘d ever do anything intentionally to suggest this – but having it subtextually play as him being Lucifer feel like a in truth matter to crick to the series. It was slightly different than anything that ‘s been done before and it besides gives it a slightly more epic quality if you watch the testify through the prism of, ‘This is Satan at work, tempting person with the apple of their mind ‘. It appealed to all of those writing style things that get me arouse about any sort of entertainment. ” [ 28 ]

In other media [edit ]

Lecter is the subject of the 1998 sung “ Hannibal ( Se ) Lectah ” by The Skalatones. [ 29 ] Lecter is parodied in the 2005 musical Silence! The Musical, with the character being originated by actor Brent Barrett. [ 30 ] Lecter was depicted by Epic Rap Battles of History in the episode “ Jack the Ripper Vs. Hannibal Lecter “, in which Lecter ( Lloyd Ahlquist ) raps against Jack the Ripper ( Dan Bull ). [ 31 ] Lecter is often mentioned in songs by Detroit rapper Eminem such as “ Medicine Ball “ and “ Underground “. In the music video recording for “ You Do n’t Know “, he references Lecter by wearing the character ‘s iconic straitjacket and gag, and making lip-licking noises .

reception and bequest [edit ]

In 2003, Lecter ( as portrayed by Hopkins ) was named the greatest villain in american film by the American Film Institute. [ 1 ] In 2010, Entertainment Weekly named him one of the 100 greatest characters of the preceding 20 years. [ 2 ] In 2019, Lecter ( as portrayed by Mikkelsen ) was named the 18th greatest villain in television receiver history by Rolling Stone. [ 3 ] His line, “ A census taker once tried to test me ; I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti “, was voted the 21st greatest movie quotation of american cinema by the American Film Institute .