I miss the days
When you were in my world...
It seems like
It was a lifetime ago...
We said our goodbye with tears
And promised not to let the years go away...
But that's something...
You just have to say...
In my pain
Is where I've tattooed your name...
Was it a dream...?
Was it a dream...?
Goin' round an' round
An' round an' round...
My heart...
Hannibal, the brilliant third book in Thomas Harris' Hannibal Lecter trilogy, is now in movie theatres worldwide. So far its' gross is, at the very least, $230 million, making it the year's first major Hollywood blockbuster.
The primary raves are for Academy Award-winner Sir Anthony Hopkins' performance as the film's title character, the onetime psychiatrist, notorious gourmet, and even more notorious serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter. It's a role that was originated by Brian Cox in Manhunter, a Miami Vice-style reworking of Harris' Red Dragon. However, Hopkins made the role his own in the 1991 masterpiece The Silence of the Lambs, winning him his first Academy Award and making him the hottest Welsh performer this side of Richard Burton.
Hannibal the book differs in many ways from Hannibal the motion picture, especially in the ending and in the way one of the film's central villians, Dept. Asst. Attorney General Paul Krendler (portrayed by Ray Liotta), was transformed from a malicious, borderline sociopath who wanted to do more than destroy Agent Clarice Starling's career and reputation into a Beavis and Butt-Head-esque, blithering idiot. The sexual harassment is still there, but Krendler has been defanged somewhat from the book. And I'm not the only one who feels that way...but more on Krendler later.
There is also villian number two, pedophile-turned-would-be-murderer Mason Verger (an unrecognizable, unbilled Gary Oldman, reuniting with Dracula costar Hopkins here), who's put up a $3 million bounty for the Doctor's head and isn't above using Clarice Starling (Julianne Moore, replacing Jodie Foster) for bait. Nor is he above bribing Mr. Krendler to throw Clarice off the trail.
Verger's disfigurement is far different from the book's, though he's still one ugly mother...
And then we come to the person who's changed the most since Silence...Clarice herself. No longer the idealistic, vulnerable trainee who bonded, however tenuously, with Dr. Lecter during the Jame Gumb case, her straight-arrow approach to life has made her more enemies in the Bureau than friends, and has prevented her from getting in touch with her emotions and feelings...specifically, the drift of insanity that first surfaced in Silence.
She is even blind to the fact that Dr. Lecter has been in love with her since the day they met, that everything he has done ever since has been for her. Far from being "a nut with a crush," Dr. Lecter has tried desperately to protect her, to make her open her eyes to the corruption and filth around her.
When she will not allow herself to confront her feelings...when she will not acknowledge the attraction that was first forged between them in the hospital in Baltimore...this is the end result...
'Cause if I find
If I find my own way
How much will I find...?
Lyrics from Tattoo and In The Sun by Joseph Arthur.
Clarice...
...do you ever wonder...
...why the Philistines don't understand you...?
It is because you...
...are the answer to Samson's riddle...
You...
...are the honey in the lion...
Sounds like a love letter to me!
