The Hannibal Lecter Collection (Manhunter / The Silence of the Lambs / Hannibal)
by Jonathan Demme, Michael Mann, Ridley Scott
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Anthony Hopkins, Jodie Foster, Julianne Moore, Kim Greist, William PetersenDirector: Jonathan Demme, Michael Mann, Ridley Scott
Writer: Michael Mann
Writer: David Mamet
Writer: Steven Zaillian
Writer: Ted Tally
Writer: Thomas Harris
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; Italian (Original Language); Japanese (Original Language); English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Black & White, Box set, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 369 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-01-30
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Movie Reviews of The Hannibal Lecter Collection (Manhunter / The Silence of the Lambs / Hannibal)
Movie Review: An inexpensive way to fill out the series
Summary: 4 Stars
This box is an inconsistent, though very good deal for fans of the movies taken from Thomas Harris' crime novels. But continuity is an issue, if you look at the whole picture.
I have to admit, before getting this set I have never seen the 1986 film "Manhunter," and where it is a very good suspense film, it clashes with the rest of the series. A different Will Graham, a different Hannibal, a different Jack Crawford, et cetera, but it was the first installment to be adapted into a feature-length film, and it stands up nicely on its own. But to the completionist, one who watches a series in order (me, cough, cough), it is recommended to watch this version independently, to suck it up and use the other one with Hopkins and company in conjunction with the other two in this set.
"Manhunter" is the story of retired detective Will Graham, trying to rebuild his life after nearly being killed while apprehending Doctor Hannibal Lecktor (note the different spelling), and being called into another extremely dangerous investigation, which police officers jokingly call the "Tooth Fairy" case. This story doesn't cover the back story of Francis Dollarhyde ("Dolarhyde" in the book and other movie), his psyche, or how tortured his relationship was with fellow employee, Reba, a blind woman he dated at the time, it just dives right in to what looks like the later stages, and his attempt at killing her. But it does cover, extensively, Graham's relationship with his family, and particularly his young son. Overall, it is a good movie, as earlier stated, just not consistent with the others in the saga.
The aforementioned two others, of course, would be "Silence Of The Lambs," and its follow-up, "Hannibal."
"Silence," of course, is the most popular and best-made in the series, and the debut of Anthony Hopkins' portrayal of Doctor Lecter. It isn't Lector's first part in the story, just Hopkins first, setting a new standard for film world's most charismatic villian. Long since put away, he is accosted by FBI trainee Clarece Starling in an attempt to help find a serial killer who is killing young victims for a truly macabre undertaking: he is making a body suit, out of human skin. "Quid Pro Quo." She is letting him (Lecter) into her psychological make-up, in exchange for his almost clairvoyant insight into the case, he is that good at summing up people. If she lets him see what she's made of, maybe he'll help her catch him.
"WHEN THE FOX HEARS THE RABBIT SCREAM, HE COMES RUNNING...BUT NOT TO HELP." I love that line...
"Hannibal" is the finale of the series, with Julianne Moore in the role of Agent Starling this time, but Clarece is a good ten years older now, so Moore has a fresh perspective; she doesn't have to follow Foster's role to a tee. But she does a remarkable job, easily accepted by the audience as an older Starling, and the film follows her very public fall from grace as orchestrated by one Mason Verger, a hideously disfigured early victim of Doctor Lecter's toying with people he sees as vulgar and expendable. Graphically described in the novel, and only hinted upon in the movie, Verger's disfigurement is compounded with a broken neck, as he was, under the influence of a "popper" laced with PCP and who knows what else, demonstrating for the good doctor his practice of autoerotic asphyxiation, which is hanging oneself during self-stimulation, to heighten the experience, but Lecter gave him a piece of broken glass to see if he would, while high on PCP, peel his face off, and feed it to his dogs. The book is WAY more hideous, as Verger says in the book, "...they pumped the dog's stomach to retrieve my nose, but the graft didn't take..."
Backstories and several characters have been sacrificed from the books to streamline the narrative of the movies, but they hold up well, and make for some of the best suspense to cross the big and small screen; and these films do hold up very, very well.
More The Hannibal Lecter Collection (Manhunter / The Silence of the Lambs / Hannibal) reviews:
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Summary of The Hannibal Lecter Collection (Manhunter / The Silence of the Lambs / Hannibal)
Disc 1: HANNIBAL Disc 2: THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS Disc 3: MANHUNTERManhunter:Though it will always be remembered as the movie featuring the "other" Hannibal Lecter, Michael Mann's 1986 thriller Manhunter is nearly as good as The Silence of the Lambs, and in some respects it's arguably even better. Based on Thomas Harris's novel Red Dragon, which introduced the world to the nefarious killer Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lecter, the film stars William Petersen (giving a suitably brooding performance) as ex-FBI agent Will Graham, who is coaxed out of semiretirement to track down a serial killer who has thwarted the authorities at every turn.
Graham's approach to the case is a perilous one. First he seeks counsel with Lecter (Brian Cox) in the latter's high-security prison cell--an encounter that is utterly horrifying in its psychological effect--and then he begins to mold his own psyche to that of the killer, with potentially devastating results. As directed by Mann (who was at the acme of his success with TV's Miami Vice), this sophisticated cat-and-mouse game never resorts to the compromise of cheap thrills. Predating Anthony Hopkins's portrayal of Lecter by four years, Cox plays the character closer to Harris's original, lower-key conception, and he's no less compelling in the role. Petersen is equally well cast, and as always Mann employs rock music to astonishing effect, using nearly all of Iron Butterfly's heavy-metal epic "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" to accompany the film's heart-stopping climactic sequence. All of this makes Manhunter one of the finest films of its kind, as well as further proof that Harris's fiction is a blessing to any filmmaker brave enough to adapt it. --Jeff Shannon
The Silence of the Lambs: Based on Thomas Harris's novel, this terrifying film by Jonathan Demme really only contains a couple of genuinely shocking moments (one involving an autopsy, the other a prison break). The rest of the film is a splatter-free visual and psychological descent into the hell of madness, redeemed astonishingly by an unlikely connection between a monster and a haunted young woman. Anthony Hopkins is extraordinary as the cannibalistic psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter, virtually entombed in a subterranean prison for the criminally insane. At the behest of the FBI, agent-in-training Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) approaches Lecter, requesting his insights into the identity and methods of a serial killer named Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine). In exchange, Lecter demands the right to penetrate Starling's most painful memories, creating a bizarre but palpable intimacy that liberates them both under separate but equally horrific circumstances. Demme, a filmmaker with a uniquely populist vision (Melvin and Howard, Something Wild), also spent his early years making pulp for Roger Corman (Caged Heat), and he hasn't forgotten the significance of tone, atmosphere, and the unsettling nature of a crudely effective close-up. Much of the film, in fact, consists of actors staring straight into the camera (usually from Clarice's point of view), making every bridge between one set of eyes to another seem terribly dangerous. --Tom Keogh
Hannibal: Yes, he's back, and he's still hungry. Ten years after The Silence of the Lambs, Dr. Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lecter (Anthony Hopkins, reprising his Oscar-winning role) is living the good life in Italy, studying art and sipping espresso. FBI agent Clarice Starling (Julianne Moore, replacing Jodie Foster), on the other hand, hasn't had it so good--an outsider from the start, she's now a quiet, moody loner who doesn't play bureaucratic games and suffers for it. A botched drug raid results in her demotion--and a request from Lecter's only living victim, Mason Verger (Gary Oldman, uncredited), for a little Q and A. Little does Clarice realize that the hideously deformed Verger--who, upon suggestion from Dr. Lecter, peeled off his own face--is using her as bait to lure Dr. Lecter out of hiding, quite certain he'll capture the good doctor.
Taking the basic plot contraptions from Thomas Harris's baroque novel, Hannibal is so stylistically different from its predecessor that it forces you to take it on its own terms. Director Ridley Scott gives the film a sleek, almost European look that lets you know that, unlike the first film (which was about the quintessentially American Clarice), this movie is all Hannibal. Does it work? Yes--but only up to a point. Scott adeptly sets up an atmosphere of foreboding, but it's all buildup for anticlimax, as Verger's plot for abducting Hannibal (and feeding him to man-eating wild boars) doesn't really deliver the requisite visceral thrills, and the much-ballyhooed climatic dinner sequence between Clarice, Dr. Lecter, and a third unlucky guest wobbles between parody and horror. Hopkins and Moore are both first-rate, but the film contrives to keep them as far apart as possible, when what made Silence so amazing was their interaction. When they do connect it's quite thrilling, but it's unfortunately too little too late. --Mark Englehart
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