Hannibal (film)

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Template:Infobox Film Hannibal is a 2001 film, directed by Ridley Scott, adapted from the Thomas Harris novel of the same name. Set ten years after The Silence of the Lambs, we find that one of Hannibal Lecter's surviving victims, the wealthy Mason Verger, is out to torture and kill him. The films begins in Italy and moves to the United States; one of the final scenes shocked audiences and critics alike.

1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Trivia
4 See also
5 External links

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Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

FBI Agent Clarice Starling is disgraced after killing five people in a botched drug raid. One of the people killed by Starling was a female drug dealer, Evelda Drumgo, who is HIV positive and was holding a child at the time she was shot. (Drumgo shoots Starling with a submachine gun; Starling is saved by her bulletproof vest.) Following a hearing on her conduct she is sent to interview Mason Verger, having learned that he has information regarding Hannibal Lecter.

Mason Verger--a faceless millionaire confined to a bed-- tells his story: he was under a court order to have therapy sessions with Lecter after being convicted of child sex abuse charges. During a social call, Dr. Lecter suggested that Mr. Verger inhale amyl nitrite fumes ("poppers"); once Verger was high, Lecter also suggested that Verger rip his own face off with a glass shard and then hang himself (Lecter fed the remains of Verger's face to Verger's dogs).

Meanwhile in Florence, Inspector Rinaldo Pazzi is investigating the disappearance of a library curator. Here he meets Dr. Fell, the interim curator, whom he discovers is none other than Dr. Lecter. Inspector Pazzi turns this information over to Verger for a reward, who prepares his revenge. After a discussion at the library, Dr. Lecter murders Pazzi by disemboweling and hanging him from the Palazzo Vecchio, a fate that Pazzi's ancestor, Francesco Di Pazzi, suffered 500 years before. Lecter escapes to America.

Starling learns that Justice Department employee Paul Krendler is also working with Verger, using Starling as bait to lure Dr. Lecter out of hiding. Lecter is captured by Verger's henchmen and is taken to a barn, where he is anxiously awaited by several large, man-eating boars. Starling tries to rescue Lecter and is shot by Verger's bodyguards; Lecter, however, has already freed himself of his confines and has been awaiting the last moment to escape. After saving Starling by killing Verger's bodyguards, Lecter convinces Verger's doctor that Verger doesn't deserve to live. Verger's doctor feeds him to the boars, with the assurance that Lecter will take the blame for the crime.

In the climax of the film, Lecter takes the wounded Starling to a lake-front house and performs surgery on her to remove the bullet. When she awakens, she finds that Lecter has dressed her in a cocktail gown. She comes downstairs, calling the police on the way, and discovers that she's in Paul Krendler's house. Lecter, incensed that Krendler tried to get Starling fired, has kidnapped and lobotomized him. As Starling watches in horror, Lecter removes the top of Krendler's skull and feeds him a small portion of his own brain after it has been sauteéd in butter and herbs.

Starling tries to apprehend Lecter, but is only successful in handcuffing him to herself. Lecter offers Starling the chance to run away with him, asking if there is any possibility that she would ever love him. Starling says no, which is the answer that Lecter had expected. Informing her "this is really going to hurt," he chops off his own hand with a meat cleaver and escapes.

In the final scene of the film, we see Lecter on a plane full of Asian people, with a small boy asking if he can have a taste of the meal Lecter brought along with him: Krendler's brains. Impressed with the boy's refusal to eat airline food, Lecter happily obliges.

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Cast

Anthony Hopkins: Dr. Hannibal 'The Cannibal' Lecter
Julianne Moore: Clarice Starling
Gary Oldman: Mason R. Verger
Ray Liotta: Paul Krendler
Frankie Faison: Barney Matthews
Giancarlo Giannini: Inpector Rinaldo Pazzi
Francesca Neri: Allegra Pazzi
Zeljko Ivanek: Dr. Cordell Doemling

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Trivia

Frankie Faison is the only person to appear in all four Hannibal Lecter films, having played Lt. Fisk in Manhunter and Barney, the orderly from Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs. The character Barney has a more significant role in the book than he does in the films.

Due to the length of the novel, a significant portion was left out of the film: In the book, Verger runs an orphanage, from which he culls children to verbally abuse as a substitute for his no longer being able to abuse them sexually. He also has a lesbian sister, Margot, whom he raped when they were children. When she discovered her sexual preference, their father disowned her. As she herself is sterile due to steroid abuse, Verger exerts some control over her by promising her a sperm sample with which to impregnate her lover, who could then inherit the Verger fortune. 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 Mason to ejaculate with a cattle prod, and then kills him by ramming a Moray eel down his throat. Following up on the fate of Krendler in the book, the crooked FBI official experiences a grisly fate when Lecter shoots him with an arrow. The book's now infamous ending has Lecter presenting Starling with the exhumed bones of her father, which he "brings to life" by hypnotising 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) sighted Clarice and Hannibal at the Opera house of Buenos Aries. A controversial reaction to the ending led the screenwriters to remove this ending from the film. Another reason was that Jodie Foster refused to appear in the film unless the ending was changed; by the time the re-write was done, she had moved on to another project.

The scenes set in Starling's apartment were filmed in a house on Grove Ave. in Richmond, Virginia. Also, some scenes were set at Biltmore House.

In the brain eating scene near the end of the film, the piece of brain Ray Liotta eats is actually a piece of cooked chicken.

The infamous brain eating scene was shot twice, once using Ray Liotta, and once using an animatronic of Ray Liotta. The best looking segments of both scenes were then edited together. Liotta maintains that, upon seeing the film, he could not tell when he was actually onscreen and when it was the animatronic. Animatronics were also used for the baby that Starling washes after the fish market shootout scene.

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