Hannibal is a
2001 psychological thriller film directed by
Ridley Scott, adapted from the
Thomas Harris novel of the same name. Set ten years after
The Silence of the Lambs, the premise is that
Hannibal Lecter's only surviving victim, the extremely wealthy
Mason Verger, is determined to capture,
torture, and kill him. The film's locations alternate between
Italy and the
United States.
Hannibal was the highly anticipated sequel to 1991's
Academy Award-winning
The Silence of the Lambs, which introduced Hannibal Lecter to mainstream moviegoing audiences (though the character was first portrayed by
Brian Cox in the 1986 film,
Manhunter, based on Harris' novel,
Red Dragon).
became only the third film in history to receive Academy Awards for Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and screenplay adaptation.
The
character of
Hannibal Lecter became a household name and part of popular culture.
The "bumpy"
development of
Hannibal drew a large amount of attention, with
Silence of the Lambs director Jonathan Demme,
screenwriter Ted Tally and actress
Jodie Foster all eventually declining involvement.
Upon release,
Hannibal broke
box-office records in the United States, Australia, Canada and the UK in February 2001.
Plot
The film takes place 10 years after the events depicted in
The Silence of the Lambs.
FBI Agent
Clarice Starling (
Julianne Moore) is disgraced after a botched drug raid resulting in the deaths of five people, including
HIV-positive drug dealer Evelda Drumgo (
Hazelle Goodman), who was shot by Starling while holding a baby—and threatening Starling with a "whispering death" (
MAC-10). Though Starling had tried to abort the raid before a violent situation developed, another officer charged ahead and precipitated the gun battle with Drumgo and her bodyguards, and Starling is unjustly blamed for the bloodbath by
Justice Department official
Paul Krendler (
Ray Liotta), whose romantic advances Starling had rejected years earlier.
As a result of the publicity surrounding the drug raid, Starling and her past connection to escaped
serial killer Hannibal Lecter come to the attention of one of Lecter's victims,
Mason Verger (
Gary Oldman), a wealthy,
sadistic pedophile. Verger, who was left horrifically disfigured and
paralyzed by his encounter with Lecter, still seeks revenge for what occurred. He uses his political influence to have Starling assigned to the Lecter case once again in the hope that this will draw Lecter out of hiding.
Verger claims to have new information about Lecter (an
X-ray) which he is willing to disclose only to Starling, and she is sent to his estate to collect it and interview him. Upon her arrival, Verger tells Starling about his history with Lecter. They met when Lecter was assigned by a court as Verger's therapist after Verger's conviction on multiple counts of
child molestation. Verger, the only one of Lecter's victims to survive, is now bedridden and confined to his secluded mansion, but with the assistance of his personal physician Cordell (
Zeljko Ivanek) and other minions he is pursuing an elaborate scheme to capture, torture and kill Lecter.
In
Florence,
Italy, Chief Inspector
Rinaldo Pazzi of the Questura (
Giancarlo Giannini) is investigating the disappearance of the curator of the Capponi Library, a Renaissance palace that serves as a repository of rare books, historical documents and art treasures. In the course of his investigation, Pazzi meets the new curator: "Dr. Fell," who is actually Hannibal Lecter.
As Verger surmised, Lecter soon learns of Starling's public disgrace and of her reassignment to his case, and sends her a letter that is at once sympathetic and mocking. The letter contains no apparent clue to Lecter's whereabouts, but Starling detects a strange fragrance on it. She takes it to a perfume company, where the experts inform her that the writer used a skin cream that could have been made by only a few shops in the world, one of which is in Florence.
Starling contacts the police departments of the cities where the shops are located, including Pazzi's department, asking for copies of any surveillance tapes made by cameras installed in the shops. When Pazzi sees one of his men making a copy of such a tape for Starling, he recognizes "Fell" in the tape and decides to find out why the FBI is interested in him. Pazzi accesses the FBI's database of fugitive criminals and learns that "Fell" is Hannibal Lecter. He also learns that Verger is offering a reward of $3 million to anyone who assists him in capturing Lecter rather than turning him over to the FBI (who offer a $250,000 reward). Hoping to collect the larger bounty, Pazzi makes contact with Verger's people and agrees to help them kidnap Lecter. Starling, meanwhile, has received the surveillance tape from Florence, recognized Lecter, and learned that Pazzi has been using the FBI's database to check on Lecter. She calls Pazzi and warns him against trying to capture Lecter himself, but Pazzi ignores her warning.
Pazzi and Verger's men try to kidnap Lecter after his scheduled evening lecture on the poetry of
Dante to a group of scholars at the
Palazzo Vecchio, but their plan goes badly awry. Instead, Lecter murders Pazzi by hanging him and cutting out his intestines. He then escapes, deciding to return to the United States to renew his acquaintance with Starling.
Frustrated by the failed attempt to kidnap Lecter, Verger tries to draw him out of hiding once again by getting Starling into more trouble. He bribes Krendler to accuse her of withholding a note she received from Lecter. The ploy works, and Starling is suspended from duty. Verger's men keep her under surveillance in the hope that Lecter will contact her. Lecter, meanwhile, has been watching her and also watching Krendler. Lecter then buys china and crystal for an elaborate meal—and also steals surgical equipment from a hospital. He takes everything to a secluded lakefront house that he has learned belongs to Krendler.
Lecter then contacts Starling, luring her to Washington's Union Station for a meeting. Verger's men follow her there. As Starling looks for Lecter among the crowd of travelers and shoppers at the station, she and Lecter converse by
cell phone. He expresses his admiration for her and sympathy for the shabby treatment she has received from the FBI, at one point suggesting that he might force the people who have disrespected her to "scream apologies."
Having spotted Lecter, Verger's men capture him in the station's parking lot despite Starling's efforts to stop them. Starling makes a fruitless attempt to expose Verger's scheme to the FBI. Meanwhile, Verger's men transport Lecter to the Verger estate. Verger plans to watch Lecter being eaten alive by a herd of vicious wild pigs that Verger, an expert at swine breeding from his days in the family meatpacking business, has prepared especially for the purpose.
When the FBI refuses to act on her report that Verger has kidnapped Lecter, Starling goes alone to Verger's estate. She intervenes as Verger's henchmen are about to unleash the pigs on Lecter, shooting the men and freeing him—but she is shot and wounded in the process. Lecter then rescues her from the animals. When a furious Verger orders his physician Cordell to shoot Lecter, Lecter persuades Cordell (who has always hated his master) to throw Verger into the pen with the pigs instead, and Verger dies in the very manner in which he had hoped to kill Lecter, Lecter having assured Cordell he will take the blame for the deed.
Lecter takes Starling to Krendler's lakefront house and treats her bullet wound. She awakens in an upstairs bedroom, dressed for a formal occasion. On her way downstairs, she finds a phone and calls the police. Instead of taking their advice and leaving the house to wait for their arrival, she tries to find Lecter downstairs. She finds him in the dining room where he has set the table as if for an elegant dinner party, watched by the seated Krendler, who has been drugged. As Starling looks on, horrified, Lecter removes the top of Krendler's
skull, cuts out part of his
brain, sautees it in a pan by the table, and feeds it to the dazed Krendler.
When Lecter wheels Krendler back to the kitchen to clear up after the "meal", Starling attacks him with a silver candlestick but is quickly overpowered. Lecter traps her in the kitchen by trapping her hair in the fridge. He asks her "Tell me Clarice, would you ever say to me, 'Stop...if you loved me, you'd stop'?" To which Starling replies "Not in a thousand years." Lecter replies with, "That's my girl," then kisses Starling. Just as he is about to leave, thinking he'd won, he hears a click and sees that Starling has handcuffed his wrist to hers. When she refuses to provide the key, Lecter pins her wrist to a table and brandishes a meat cleaver. He raises it and says, "This is really going to hurt."
Next we see Starling outside the house, looking for Lecter, who escaped just before the police cars arrived. Both her hands are intact.
The last scene is of Lecter on an airplane. One of his arms is in a sling. His hand is not visible. He is preparing to eat the boxed meal he has brought with him, and the small boy sitting next to him asks about the food. Lecter opens a container to reveal several kinds of food among whose is what appears to be part of Krendler's brain, cooked and sliced. The boy asks to try some of the food, and Lecter allows him to, after saying that his mother always told him to try new things. It is not shown if the boy chooses the brain or not...
Cast
Development
Background
The Silence of the Lambs director,
Jonathan Demme was asked in 1994 about a possible
sequel in
Rolling Stone magazine. Demme said that
Thomas Harris, author of
The Silence of the Lambs, had been working on the follow-up for "seven or eight years." Demme had an idea even at that time that it would not be a straight follow up. Harris told Demme: "I imagine Doctor Lecter going somewhere in Europe...strolling round the streets of
Florence or
Munich, gazing in the windows of watchmakers..."
Demme stated his intention to be involved in the cinematic adaptation of
Hannibal in 1998, less than a year before the
novel was published.
[ Hannibal DVD "Making of feature"]
Dino De Laurentiis produced the film
Manhunter in 1986, featuring the first appearance of
Hannibal Lecter, played by
Brian Cox. The film was directed by
Michael Mann. It was based on the Thomas Harris novel
Red Dragon. De Laurentiis did not like Mann's version of
Manhunter: "Manhunter was no good...it was not Red Dragon", he said. De Laurentiis and his wife Martha (also his co-producer) had no direct involvement in the film
The Silence of the Lambs, a decision De Laurentiis came to regret. They did, however, own the rights to the "Lecter character" and reportedly allowed Orion Pictures, which produced
Silence of the Lambs, to use the character of Lecter for free, not wishing to be "greedy." When
Silence of the Lambs became a
commercial and
critical success in 1991, winning five
Academy Awards, both Dino and Martha De Laurentiis found themselves sitting on a valuable
asset and eager for a follow-up novel they could adapt. After a lengthy wait, De Laurentiis finally received a call from Thomas Harris telling him he had finished the sequel to
Silence of the Lambs and De Laurentiis purchased the
rights for a record $10 million.
The
Los Angeles Times reported in April 1999, that the
budget for an adaptation of
Hannibal could cost as much as $100 million. It speculated that both
Jodie Foster and
Anthony Hopkins would receive $15 million each to reprise their roles and "$5 million to $19 million for director
Jonathan Demme." The newspaper further reported that, although
Silence of the Lambs cost only $22 million, this would not deter the
studio from going ahead with
Hannibal. Mort Janklow, Thomas Harris's
agent at the time, told the
Los Angeles Times that
Jodie Foster,
Anthony Hopkins and
Jonathan Demme would soon receive
manuscripts of the novel, claiming it would make an unbelievable movie.
The book sold out of its initial 1.6 million
print run in the summer of 1999.
went on to sell millions of copies following its release in mid-1999.
Jonathan Demme informed (via fax) the producers of
Hannibal that he would pass on
directing Hannibal.
It has been claimed Demme turned down the project because he found the material "lurid"
and was averse to the book's "gore".
Dino De Laurentiis said on Demme's decision to decline: "When the pope dies, we create a new pope. Good luck to Jonathan Demme. Good-bye."
He has since added that Demme felt he could not make a sequel as good as
The Silence of the Lambs.
Ridley Scott
De Laurentiis visited
Ridley Scott on the set of
Gladiator and suggested to Ridley he read the novel he had bought the rights to.
Scott was in the third week before
principal photography was due to finish on
Gladiator.
became a commercial and critical success, earning 12
Academy Award nominations.
De Laurentiis asked Scott if he would like to direct the film version of
Hannibal. Scott misunderstood which Hannibal he meant, thinking De Laurentiis was speaking of the
general and historical figure from Carthage who nearly brought down the
Roman Empire back around 200 B.C., so he replied: "Basically Dino, I’m doing a Roman epic right now. I don’t wanna do
elephants coming over the
Alps next, old boy."
Scott read the
manuscript in four sittings within a week, believing it to be a "
symphony", and expressed his desire to do it.
Scott further explains how he got involved: "I was shooting
Gladiator in
Malta and one day, for the hell of it, I went for a walk for half a mile down the road to the Malta Film Studio to see my old buddy Dino. I had not seen him since I’d worked on a version of
Dune. This was pre-
Blade Runner. Dino had pursued me to direct
Dune and another film. He's always enthusiastic and aggressive and came after me when I did both
Blade Runner and
Alien, but I couldn’t do the films. Anyway, we had an espresso together and a few days later, he called me to ask if he could visit the
Gladiator set. He arrived with a manuscript of
Hannibal, about a month before it was published in book form. He said: ‘Lets make this one.’ I haven’t read anything so fast since
The Godfather. It was so rich in all kind of ways."
Although Scott had accepted the job
Jonathan Demme had rejected, he said: "My first question was: ‘What about Jonathan?’ and they said: ‘The original team said it's too violent.’ I said, 'Okay. I’ll do it.'" Scott did, himself, have some uncertainty with the source material. He had difficulties with the ending of the novel in particular—"I couldn’t take that quantum leap emotionally on behalf of Starling. Certainly, on behalf of Hannibal—I’m sure that's been in the back of his mind for a number of years. But for Starling, no. I think one of the attractions about Starling to Hannibal is what a straight arrow she is." (In the novel Lecter and Starling end up an actual couple on the run together.) He also, "didn’t buy the book from the
opera scene onwards, which became like a
vampire movie." He asked author
Thomas Harris if he was "married to his ending". Harris said no, so he changed it.
Script development
Ted Tally, the
screenwriter for
The Silence of the Lambs, was another key member of the original team to decline involvement in
Hannibal (he won an
Oscar for his
Silence adaptation). Tally, like Demme, had problems with the novel's "excesses".
(writer of (
Schindler's List) was offered the chance to write the adaptation after Tally passed but he also declined. He explained that "I was busy. And I wasn’t sure I was interested. You can almost never win when you do a
sequel."
was the first
screenwriter to produce a draft, which, according to
Ridley Scott and the producers, needed major revisions.
Stacey Snider, co-chairman of
Universal Pictures (a co-production deal was struck between Universal and
MGM) said on the rejection of Mamet's screenplay: "There's no way David was going to read 15 pages of our notes and then be available to work on the script day-to-day."
Mamet was preparing to direct his own film.
A script review at ScreenwritersUtopia.com describes the Mamet draft as "stunningly bad" but found Zaillian's rewrite to be "gripping entertainment".
Zaillian, who had already passed, reconsidered and became involved in the project, saying: "It's hard to say no to Dino once and it's almost impossible to say no to him twice."
This question (regarding the script development) was put to Ridley Scott by
Total Film magazine: "There were lots of rewrites on 'Hannibal'—what was the main problem with the original material?" Scott replied: "That's inaccurate, because there were very few rewrites once I brought in Steve Zaillian. If you were to ask who were the best three screenwriters in the business, Steve Zaillian would be one of them. We discussed
Hannibal endlessly."
Asked if he had read Mamet's draft, he said: "Yes. He is very fast, very efficient, but he was off doing a film. 'Hannibal' was green lit and his first draft only took about a month. But I was scared that he would not be able to give me enough attention, because that draft needed a lot of work. So I moved on basically."
Scott has said there were writing and "structural problems" as to what they would do with parts of the movie.
A key objective of Zaillian, an Academy Award winner, was to revise the script by David Mamet until it pleased all parties—meaning the "love" story would need to be done by suggestion instead of by "assault".
Scott worked through the script with Zaillian for 28 days making him "sweat through it with him and discuss every inch of the way with him." After 25 days Scott suddenly realized that Zaillian was "exorcising the 600 pages of the book. He was distilling through discussion what he was gonna finally do...Frankly I could have just made it."
Casting
It was unclear if
Jodie Foster (
Clarice Starling) and
Anthony Hopkins (
Dr. Hannibal Lecter) would
reprise their respective roles for which they won
Academy Awards in
The Silence of the Lambs (best actress/actor).
It became apparent that the producers and the
studio could do without one of the original "stars" (and
would go on to find a replacement). The withdrawal of both—Foster and Hopkins, could possibly have been terminal for the project, however. Producer De Laurentiis confirmed this after the film's release: "First and foremost, I knew we had no movie without Anthony Hopkins."
Involvement of Jodie Foster
Jodie Foster confirmed to
Larry King (on her potential involvement in
Hannibal), in 1997, that she "would definitely be part of it".
She told
Entertainment Weekly in 1997 that "Anthony Hopkins always talks about it. I mean, everybody wants to do it. Every time I see him, it's like: 'When is it going to happen? When is it going to happen?'"
Producer
Dino De Laurentiis thought Foster would decline once she read the book (
Hannibal), even believing the final movie was better for it.
also had doubts Foster would be involved, saying he had a "hunch" she would not be.
Foster did turn it down, confirming this in late December 1999.
This would cause problems for the studio,
Universal and partner
MGM.
"The studio is just back from the holiday and is regrouping based on the news, and has no cohesive game plan at the moment." Said Kevin Misher, Universal's president of production.
Misher added that, "It was one of those moments when you sit down and think, ‘Can Clarice be looked upon as
James Bond for instance? A character who is replaceable?' Or was Jodie Foster Clarice Starling, and the audience will not accept anyone else?"
Foster said in December 1999 that the part of
Clarice Starling in
Hannibal had "negative attributes" and "betrayed" the original character.
Yet there is still uncertainty as to why Foster declined. Some say she had "sequel-itis". Others contended that she didn’t want to do it without Demme or was slated herself to direct another film.
Her spokeswoman said the reason was because
Claire Danes had become available in Foster's own project
Flora Plum.
demands may also have played a part in Foster's non-participation. De Laurentiis said: "I call the agent of Judy Foster. He say to me ‘I have instruction. She no want to read the script if you no give her an offer of $20m and 15% of the gross.’ And I say, ‘Give my love to Judy Foster, goodbye.’"
(The article makes clear that "Dino comically mispronounces the actress's name")
described the project as becoming "a bloody mess, hemorrhaging talent and money" even despite Hopkins being on-board.
talked about
Hannibal in an interview with
Total Film magazine in late 2005. She said: "The official reason I didn’t do
Hannibal is I was doing another movie,
Flora Plum. So I get to say, in a nice dignified way, that I wasn’t available when that movie was being shot...Clarice meant so much to Jonathan and I, she really did, and I know it sounds kind of strange to say but there was no way that either of us could really trample on her."
Julianne Moore as "Clarice Starling"
When it became clear that Foster would skip
Hannibal, the
production team considered several different actresses,
including
Cate Blanchett,
Angelina Jolie,
Gillian Anderson,
Hilary Swank,
Ashley Judd,
Helen Hunt and
Julianne Moore.
asked his agent if he had any "power" over casting. He informed De Laurentiis that he knew Julianne Moore, with whom he had worked on
Surviving Picasso, and thought her a "terrific actress".
Although Hopkins' agent told him he had no contractual influence on casting, Scott thought it correct to discuss who would be Hopkins' "leading lady".
Scott said he was "really surprised to find that I had five of the top actresses in
Hollywood wanting it."
Moore would eventually secure the part. Scott said his decision was swayed in favor of Moore because: "She is a true chameleon. She can be a lunatic in
Magnolia, a vamp in
An Ideal Husband, a
porn star in
Boogie Nights and a romantic in
The End of the Affair "
"Julianne Moore, once Jodie decided to pass was always top of my list." said Scott on his female lead.
[ Hannibal DVD "Ridley Scott commentary"] Moore talked about stepping into a role made famous by another actress: "The new Clarice would be very different. Of course people are going to compare my interpretation with that of Jodie Foster's...but this film is going to be very different."
The two actresses are similar in appearance, which helped make the change in actress less jarring.
Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter
Hopkins was generally expected to reprise his
Academy Award-winning role. Hopkins did say in June 1999 that he would only be interested if the script was "really good".
Hopkins says on the making-of feature on
DVD that he couldn’t make up his mind to commit. "I was kind of surprised by this book,
Hannibal. I thought it was really overreaching and so bizarre. So I couldn’t make up my mind about it all. Some of it I found intriguing, some I was a little doubtful about."
When the producers confirmed that they were going to film Harris' novel, Hopkins told them yes, but added: "It needs some condensing."
The
Hollywood Reporter would confirm that Hopkins had agreed to reprise his role in late December 1999, saying he had approved the latest
draft of the
script by
Steven Zaillian.
Hopkins said he had no difficulty moving back into "Lecter's mind". "I just learned the lines and showed up and walked around as Hannibal Lecter. I thought, 'Do I repeat that same performance, or do I vary it?' Ten years had passed so I changed a bit."
In the book, Lecter has had
plastic surgery in an attempt to disguise himself. This was left out of the film because Scott and Hopkins agreed to leave the face alone.
Hopkins explains why: "It's as if he's making a statement - 'catch me if you can'. With his big hat, he's so obvious that nobody thinks he's Hannibal Lecter. I've always thought he's a very elegant man, a
renaissance man."
In the film, Lecter is first seen in
Florence "as the classical Lecter, lecturing and being smooth", according to Hopkins.
When the film moves to the US, Hopkins changed his appearance by building up muscle and cropping his hair short "to make him like a
mercenary, that he would be so fit and so strong that he could just snap somebody in two if they got... in his way".
Further casting
Other stars subsequently cast included
Ray Liotta as corrupt
Justice Department official Paul Krendler (a character that appeared in
Silence of the Lambs, though original actor
Ron Vawter died before the production of
Hannibal) and
Italian screen legend
Giancarlo Giannini as the opportunistic Detective Rinaldo Pazzi.
Francesca Neri won the role of Pazzi's wife, Allegra.
Frankie R. Faison signed on to reprise his role as former hospital orderly Barney Matthews. (The actor had appeared in
Silence of the Lambs in the same role. He also appeared in the film,
Manhunter as another character, Lt. Fisk).
Gary Oldman was cast as Mason Verger, one of Lecter's two surviving victims. Co-producer Martha De Laurentiis said they had a "funny situation" with Oldman wanting a prominent "credit".
She said: "Now how can you have a prominent credit with
Hannibal? The characters are Hannibal and Clarice Starling. So we really couldn’t work something out (at first)."
Oldman was apparently "out" of the movie for while, but then came back in, asking to go "unbilled".
Oldman would become transformed and "unrecognizable as himself" to play the part of Verger. He would have no lips, cheeks or eyelids. Make-up artist Greg Cannom said: "It's really disgusting... I’ve been showing people pictures
Oldman as Verger, and they all just say ‘Oh my God,’ and walk away, which makes me very happy."
Oldman said that having his name completely removed from the billing and credits allowed him to "do it anonymously" under that heavy make-up.
[IGN.com: Interview with Gary Oldman]
Key production crew
Scott recruited key production crew whom he had worked with previously. Production designer Norris Spencer had worked on
Thelma & Louise,
Black Rain and
1492 Conquest of Paradise. Cinematographer
John Mathieson, editor
Pietro Scalia and composer
Hans Zimmer had all worked on Scott's previous film,
Gladiator.
[ Official Hannibal production notes]
Production and post production
Background
Hannibal was filmed in 83 working days over 16 weeks.
[Official Hannibal Journal] The film began
production on May 8, 2000 in
Florence.
A
press conference was also held before shooting began in Florence to promote the movie.
The film visited key locations in Florence, (Italy) and various locations around the US in Washington, D.C., Richmond, Virginia and North Carolina.
Martha De Laurentiis said the movie has almost a hundred locations and that is was a: "constant pain of moving and dressing sets. But the locations were beautiful. Who could complain about being allowed to shoot in Palazzo Vecchio in Florence? Or President James Madison's farm in Montpelier or the amazing Biltmore Estate in Asheville?"
Eighty million dollars and a year and a half in production were spent before director Ridley Scott got his first look at
Hannibal in the editing room.
Filming locations
- Florence The whole second act of Hannibal takes place in Florence. Ridley Scott had never filmed there before, but described it as "quite an experience...It was kind of organized chaos...We were there at the height of tourist season."
- Washington, D.C. After leaving Florence and Italy on June 5, 2000, the production moved to Washington, D.C. Filming took place over six days at Union Station for a scene which would appear later in the movie.
- Richmond, Virginia Filming would last for seven weeks in Richmond, Virginia.
- Montpelier, Virginia The production visited a barn, which was situated on the estate of President James Madison. It was used to house 15 "performing hogs".
- Asheville, North Carolina Asheville, in North Carolina is home to the biggest privately owned dwelling in the U.S., the Biltmore Estate.
Special make-up effects
Make-up artist Greg Cannom was pleased to be involved in
Hannibal as it offered him the chance to produce "incredible and original make-ups".
For Mason Verger the make-up team would initially produce 20 different "heads" which looked like "
zombies" and did not reflect the vision director
Ridley Scott had of the character—Scott wanted Verger to look real with hideous scarring, and not something from the "House of Wax".
Scott himself would actually call up the help of expert doctors in an effort to get the look of the character as realistic as possible.
Scott showed the make-up team pictures of "foetal things", which he thought "touching"—he wanted to make Mason Verger more "touching" than "monstrous", as he thought the character of Verger as being "someone who hadn’t lost his sense of humour...almost sympathetic."
Oldman would spend six hours a day in make-up to prepare for the role.
For one of the final and infamous scenes of the movie an exact "duplicate" was created of the character
Paul Krendler, played by
Ray Liotta, a scene which blended make-up,
puppet work and
CGI in a way which director Ridley Scott called "seamless".
Title sequence
The main titles were designed by Nick Livese a graduate of the
Royal College of Art who worked for one of Scott's production companies in London. The
sequence, shot in
Florence by Livesey himself was intended as the second promotional trailer for the film.
The studio thought it not "quite right" however, but it remained on Scott's mind and would eventually end up as the main
title sequence.
Livesey would gather footage of
pigeons in an empty square in Florence early one morning which, in the final cut, would
morph into the face of
Hannibal Lecter.
Scott believed it a good idea as it fundamentally asked the question: Where is Hannibal Lecter? Scott explains: "And of course this story tells it, with pigeons in the cobblestones of somewhere, where you wonder where that is...and there he is his face appears."
The titles are said to have been influenced by the film
Se7en.
Music
Ridley Scott worked very closely with
composer Hans Zimmer, during
post-production on
Hannibal.
Scott believes the music to a film is as important as
dialogue—"It is the final adjustment to the screenplay, being able to also adjust the performance of the actors in fact."
Zimmer and Scott sat in during the editing process with
editor Pietro Scalia to discuss scenes in the film and "not music".
Zimmer used a
symphony orchestra for the
opera sequence, but would mostly use what he described as a "very odd orchestra...only cellos and basses all playing at the extreme ends of their range." This was done to emphasise the character of Hannibal Lecter. He explains: "Anthony's character is for me somebody at the extreme range of whatever is humanly imaginable somehow." Zimmer also did not want the score to sound like a "modern day orchestra".
The character of
Mason Verger, had his own "theme", which become more "perverted" as the movie progressed according to Zimmer.
Dante's sonnet was put to music by Zimmer and
Patrick Cassidy for the
opera scene in
Florence.
Tracksounds.com wrote positively of Zimmer's score. "Zimmer truly crafts a score worthy of most fans' full attention...the classical elements, and yes, even the monologue combine to make this an intense listening experience."
In a poll by
Classic FM (UK) listeners to find the greatest
movie soundtrack of all-time,
Hannibal ranked at 59.
Themes
Romance
Scott has said he believes the underlying emotion of the film
Hannibal is "affection". "In some instances, you might even wonder or certainly from one direction—is it more than affection?"
"It is dark, because the story is of course essentially dark, but it's kind of romantic at the same time." He added.
Scott openly admits to a "romantic thematic" running though the film.
He told
CNN that: "
Hannibal was quite a different target, essentially a study between two individuals. Funny enough, it's rather romantic and also quite humorous, but also there's some quite bad behaviour as well."
During the
opera scene in
Florence, the wife of "Pazzi" asks Hannibal (upon Hannibal giving her "Dante's first sonnet"): "Do you believe a man could become so obsessed by a woman after a single encounter..." Hannibal replies: "Yes I believe they could..." This scene, in the movie, is one which Scott claims most people "missed" the meaning of. It was in reference to "Clarice" - to their encounter in
The Silence of the Lambs in its
review of the film, said
Hannibal, "toys" with the idea of: "love that dare not speak Its name"
Composer
Hans Zimmer believes there to be "many" messages and subtext in each scene of the film.
He says "I can score this movie truly as a
Freudian archetypal beauty and the beast
fairy tale, as a
horror movie, as the most elegant piece, on corruption in the American police force, as the loneliest woman on earth, the beauty in renaissance..."
Zimmer ultimately believes it to be a dark love story, centering on two people who should never be together—a modern day
Romeo and Juliet.
During
post-production of the film, Scott, Zimmer and the editor passionately argued about what a single shot meant, where a tear slides down Starling's cheek during a confrontation with Lecter. They could not agree if it was a tear of "anguish", "loneliness" or "disgust".
Scott told the
New York Post that, the affair of the heart between Lecter and Starling is "
metaphorical".
even said in their
review: "Scott offers a sly parody of relationships—think "When Hannibal met Sally."
Hopkins said: "It's not exactly a romance there is that element. There's that erotic element in the story. I'm told. Ridley says it comes across very clearly."
Retribution and Punishment
Ridley Scott has said that he believes Lecter, in his own way, to be "pure" - one of the key motivating factors for the character is the search for "retribution and punishment".
"There is something very moral about Lecter in this film", said Scott in his audio commentary. "The behaviour of Hannibal is never
insane—didn’t want to use that excuse. Is he insane? No, I think he's as sane as you or I. He just likes it."
Scott did say, however, "In our normal terms, he's truly
evil."
Scott also brings up the notion of
absolution in reference to the Lecter character towards the end of the film.
The
antagonist character of
Mason Verger has one overriding objective in life: to capture Lecter and subject him to a slow, painful death.
Corruption
Part of the story, which involves the character Rinaldo Pazzi (
Giancarlo Giannini) a Florentine policeman, who becomes corrupted by the prospect of financial gain when he learns "Dr. Fell"'s true identity. His escalating abandonment of morality allows him to countenance and facilitate the death of a gypsy pickpocket, egged on by the desire to have the best for his much younger wife.
There is a moment in the film when Pazzi becomes "corrupted", despite being what Scott describes as "very thoughtful...loves his wife".
Paul Krendler also succumbs to greed and corruption. Starling however does not, and perseveres to the end even refusing to release Lecter when she believes he is about to cut off her hand in order to free himself.
Promotion
Upon the films release,
Hannibal was met with significant media attention,
with the movie's stars and director making serial appearances on television, newspapers and magazines.
claimed in early February 2001 that "the long-awaited sequel to the grisly 1991 thriller
Silence of the Lambs is cooking up the hottest Internet and media buzz since the 1999
Star Wars 'prequel'."
Stars Anthony Hopkins and Julianne Moore made the covers of a number of magazines, including
Vanity Fair,
Entertainment Weekly,
Premiere (magazine) and
Empire magazine. Hopkins' portrayal of Hannibal Lecter would be chosen as the "
unique selling point" of
Hannibal, a choice made by the
Marketing Department of the studio as being "extremely exploitable" and a "no-brainer."
The Lecter character was the key pulling factor to make people pay to see the movie.
There was no risk in taking this key marketing decision: he had been seen before, millions of copies of a book with his name for a title has been bought and the actor portraying the character on-screen had won an
Academy Award for his first time in the role.
"Mr Hopkins is the draw here", said
The New York Times.
"Hannibal" was a household name
and a "brand".
The first
teaser trailer was released in cinemas and made available via the official website in early May 2000.
As the first teaser trailer was released over nine months before the film was released, and the film had only just begun production, footage was used from
The Silence of the Lambs. It used the
tagline line "Never forget who he is". The first official art-work was also released at the same time as a "teaser one-sheet".
It featured the tagline "Break the silence", a direct reference to
The Silence of the Lambs, and would only feature the character of Hannibal Lecter.
A further trailer, which featured footage from the new movie, was released in late November 2000.
A poster released in the UK to promote
Hannibal featured Lecter with a "skin mask" covering the right side of his face—a reference to the escape scene in
The Silence of the Lambs. The poster was quickly removed from circulation as it was deemed "too shocking and disturbing for the public."
While the film was on location in
Washington, D.C., Hopkins visited
President Bill Clinton for dinner at the
White House.
The film was released, by no coincidence, on the 10th anniversary of the release of
The Silence of the Lambs.
It was released in February 2001 in the US, UK and Australia.
Reception
Hannibal grossed $58 million (USA) in its opening weekend (from 3,230 screens). At the time (February 2001) this was the third-biggest debut ever—only 1997's
The Lost World: Jurassic Park and 1999's
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace grossed more in an opening weekend.
It was also, when it was released, the biggest opening
box office for an
R-rated movie ever.
Final domestic box office gross (USA) reached $165,092,268 with a worldwide gross of $351,692,268.
The film spent three weeks at number one in the US box office chart, and four weeks at number one in the UK.
was the tenth highest grossing movie of the year worldwide,
in a year which also saw the blockbuster releases of the
first Harry Potter and
Lord of the Rings films.
Hannibal also made over $87,000,000 in US
video rentals following release in August 2001.
The reviews for
Hannibal were mixed.
wrote: "A banquet of creepy, gory or grotesque incidents is on display in
Hannibal. But this superior
sequel has romance in its dark heart."
Empire Magazine gave it two out of five stars, calling it "...laughable to just plain boring,
Hannibal is toothless to the end." David Thomson, writing in the
British Film Institute magazine
Sight & Sound, praised the film. "It works. It's smart, good-looking, sexy, fun...dirty, naughty and knowing."
Thomson does make clear, however, he is a great fan of
director Ridley Scott's work.
He adds: "It is, literally, that Hannibal Lecter has become such a household joke that he can't be dreadful again. It seems clear that
Anthony Hopkins and Scott saw that, and planned accordingly. That's how the movie was saved."
in its review said "
Hannibal is not as good as "Lambs"... ultimately more shallow and crass at its heart than its predecessor,
Hannibal is nevertheless tantalizing, engrossing and occasionally startling."
A negative review in
The Guardian claimed that what was wrong with
Hannibal the film was carried over from
Hannibal the book: "The result is an inflated, good-looking bore of a movie.
The Silence of the Lambs was a marvelous thing. This, by contrast is barely okey-dokey."
gave the film a "Thumbs up" rating on the television program
Ebert & Roeper and gave the film a 2.5 out of 4 stars rating in his print review in which he open with the following: "Ridley Scott's "Hannibal" is a carnival masterpiece. We must give it credit for the courage of its depravity; if it proves nothing else, it proves that if a man cutting off his face and feeding it to his dogs doesn't get the
NC-17 rating for violence, nothing ever will."
[[1] - Review by Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, February 9, 2001.]
Hannibal currently has an overall
Metacritic rating of 57 out of 100 from 36 reviews, and a
Rotten Tomatoes rating of 38 percent, with an average rating of five out of ten from 160 reviews.
Home release
Hannibal is available as a one-disc and two-disc
DVD. The two disc DVD contains an array of special features including:
Commentary by director
Ridley Scott, deleted and alternate scenes, five making-of featurettes and a "marketing gallery" which contains trailers, production stills and unused
poster concepts.
A special "steel-book" edition of Hannibal was released in 2007. There are no significant changes made to the DVD itself; only the package artwork was changed.
Differences from the novel
According to
Variety the script for
Hannibal was: "...for better or worse, quite faithful to the Harris blueprint; fans of the tome may regret the perhaps necessary excision of some characters, most notably Mason Verger's muscle-bound macho sister
Margot, as well as the considerable fascinating academic detail, but will basically feel the book has been respected (yes, even the climactic dinner party is served up intact, with the only surprise twists saved for its wake."
in its review of
Hannibal noted: "The weight-watchers script sensibly dispenses with several characters to serve a brew that's enjoyably spicy but low on substance. So much story is squeezed into 131 minutes that little time's left for analysis or characterization."
Producer
Dino De Laurentiis was asked why some characters were left out of the film: "I think if you get a book which is 600 pages, you have to reduce it to a
script of 100 pages. In two hours of film, you cannot possibly include all the characters. We set ourselves a limit, and cut characters which weren't so vital."
In the book, Mason Verger runs an orphanage, from which he calls children to verbally abuse as a substitute for his no longer being able to
molest them. He also has a sister, Margot, whom he
raped when they were children and who is a
lesbian. When she disclosed her
sexual orientation to her family, their father disowned her. As she herself is sterile due to
steroid abuse, Verger exerts some control over her by promising her a
semen sample with which to impregnate her lover, who could then
inherit the Verger fortune. Also, in the novel, Verger literally has no face and has to be kept in a sterile room at all times to keep
bacteria from affecting exposed muscle and tissues. At the end of the book, Margot and Starling both help Lecter escape during a shootout between Starling and Verger's guards. Margot, at Lecter's advice, stimulates her brother to ejaculate with a
cattle prod, and then kills him by ramming his pet
Moray eel down his throat. Following up on Krendler's fate in the book, the crooked
FBI official is killed when Lecter shoots him with an arrow.
The book's controversial ending has Lecter presenting Starling with the exhumed bones of her father, which he "brings to life" by
hypnotizing Starling, allowing her to say goodbye. This forges an odd alliance between Starling and Lecter, culminating in their becoming lovers and escaping to
Argentina. At the end of the novel, Barney (the hospital orderly) sees them at the
Teatro Colón of
Buenos Aires.
Also gone from the film were the flashbacks to Lecter's childhood, in which he sees his younger sister, Mischa, eaten by German deserters in 1944. These flashbacks formed the basis for the 2007 film
Hannibal Rising which portrays Lecter as a young man who eventually becomes the killer of the prior films.
The character of
Jack Crawford, while in the book, does not appear in the film.
Hopkins was asked in an interview on the subject of whether or not he believed the idea of Starling and Lecter heading off in to the sunset as lovers (as happens in the book). "Yes, I did. Other people found that preposterous. I suppose there's a moral issue there. I think it would have been a very interesting thing though. I think it would have been very interesting had she gone off, because I suspected that there was that romance, attachment there, that obsession with her. I guessed that a long time ago, at the last phone call to Clarice, at the end of
SotL, she said, 'Dr. Lecter, Dr. Lecter...'."
See also
