Hopkins Hannibal
Saturday, July 19th, 2008
Sir Anthony Hopkins has played a lot of roles in his time, but there is no one character he is better known for than Hannibal Lecter.
Appearing in three out of five movies featuring the villain, Hopkins has become inextricably linked to Lecter. He managed to win an Oscar for his first appearance in Silence of the Lambs despite the fact that Lecter only appears in the movie for less than twenty minutes.
In the fiction Lecter is a genius killer and (as his name might hint) a cannibal. Originally a psychologist, Lecter is revealed in Red Dragon and captured; however he aids the police in hunting down another killer by analyzing the killer’s actions. He does so again in Silence of the Lambs, though by the end of this movie Lecter manages to escape his incarceration. He is nearly captured again in the next book and movie, Hannibal, though he manages to escape from Agent Starling, the same officer whom he’d worked with in Silence of the Lambs.
But the book and movie separate from one another on the ending of Hannibal. In the movie Starling is captured but spared by Lecter, and she gives chase once again as the movie ends. In the novel, however, Lecter attempts to turn Starling into a twisted version of his dead sister, and even though he fails she nevertheless becomes his lover in order to repress his cannibalistic tendencies.
It might be a bit understandable why they didn’t use that ending in the movie. Either way, though, Lecter endures as one of the most endearing and grotesque villains to come along in a while.