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Thursday, August 16, 2012

MY 2ND FAVORITE MOVIE VILLAIN

HANNIBAL LECTER(ANTHONY HOPKINS)
FROM "THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS"

This is the villain that won the Oscar against Robert De Niro as Max Cady, and to be honest he deserves the Oscar because he's an iconic villain. Every scene you see him in is an epic win and to me is scarier than the films main villain Buffalo Bill. Why is he so scary, lets take a look.

WARNING: THERE WILL BE SPOILERS


Before we meet the villain we get incredible scary build up to him. The FBI supervisor Jack Crawford tells the main character Clarice to not let Hannibal get inside her head and Doctor Chilton tells her that "He's a monster" and it's rare to capture him alive. After giving Clarice the rules of meeting Hannibal, he tells her a story about Hannibal complaining about chest pains and was taken to the dispensary. When the nurse looked at him, he nearly killed her by eating her flesh. Clarice then takes a slow terrifying walk down a dark hallway while passing psychopaths in bared jail cells and as the intense just builds and builds, we then finally meet Hannibal.



He's in a glass cell with air holes and he's already standing up in the middle of his cell smiling, with his eyes in the darkness as he politely greets the agent. Man what a creepy introduction because instead of sitting down like most people do in prison, he's already standing as if he can smell her coming in. Lecter then asks to see her ID credentials and tells her to move closer and closer until we can see it clearly and once we do, Hannibal moves forward and we see is bright blue evil eyes. Hannibal feels insulted that an FBI trainee is testing him and refuses to take the test but he decides to talk to Clarice. He tells her to sit down and then smells her through the air holes, telling the frightened agent what she's wearing on her skin and what she wore previously, which is plain just scary. He then shows her drawings of places he remembers and tells her that memory is all he has. After asking a question about the killer Buffalo Bill, he then decides to look at the profile questionnaire and than tells Clarice about him knowing her Hillbilly roots and asks about her father. Hannibal then gives back the test to Clarice through a sliding food tray and tells her that he ate a guy who tested him and slithers at Clarice. He then tells her to "Fly back to school" and turns his back to her whispering in his eerie voice” fly fly fly". After Clarice is harassed by an inmate an angry Lecter who just developed Clarice as his love interest tells Clarice to come back. He apologizes for the inmate’s action and instead of taking a test, he decides to make Clarice happy and tells her to "look deep within yourself" and look up a woman named Miss Moffet. After the first encounter with Lecter we see a frightened Clarice run out of the asylum, has a flashback of her father, and cries after meeting Lecter. This whole encounter is scary because not only is the character scary and can smell things that not many people can smell but he also tries to get into Clarices mind, that alone is just petrifying.



Clarice looks up Miss Moffet and finds a separate head of a man with make up on in an old storage garage called "Within Yourself" and after this event, we then go to our second encounter with Hannibal. After Clarice asks him a few questions, he responds by sliding a food tray with a rag on it and Clarice accepts it which causes her to break one of the rule. As he sits in the darkness, he tells her, that her bleeding has stopped from her scratch. Wow, how the heck does he know all these things? He then tells her who Miss Moffet really is and assures her that he didn't kill him. After asking her how she felt when she saw the head, he then asks if Jack Crawford wants her sexually. After that, the lights in his cell comes on and it appears that his drawings are gone as punishment for killing the inmate who harassed Clarice and also has to watch a gospel program on a TV in front of his cell. Hannibal then looks up at the lights symbolizing the light of the sun and tells Clarice that he can help her catch the killer if she can have him transported to an asylum with a window, a library and to be far way from Dr.Chilton. This whole scene is another scary sequence. Hannibal sitting in the darkness is scary as hell and it hints that he killed the inmate as revenge for harassing Clarice and that he might be jealous of Crawford who maybe hitting on his love.



Our third encounter with him is when Clarice lies to him about transporting him to an asylum so she can get him to give her information about Buffalo Bill. Hannibal agrees but decides to play a little game of "Quid Pro Quo" with Clarice. He'll give her information about Buffalo Bill but only if Clarice tells him about her past and deepest darkest secrets. Clarice agrees and as you watch their conversation, you see Hannibal’s reflection on the glass where Clarice is, which shows that he's succeeded with getting inside her mind.



Later we then see Hannibal strapped onto a rolling hand truck in a strait jacket with a hockey mask on his mouth so he won't bite a piece of someone's flesh. Chilton taunts Hannibal and tells him that Clarice has lied to him about transporting him to another asylum which makes a heartbroken Lecter whisper to himself "Clarice". Chilton however, designed a deal for him to be transported but while he's telling him that, Hannibal just stares at Chiltons Pen that's lying on his bed. A few minutes later, we see Lecter strapped on a hospital stretcher wearing a strait jacket and wearing a monstrous looking face mask. As Chilton is about to sign him in he forgot his Pen and the guards give him a pen, as Chilton signs him in, we get a close up on Lecters face and that face hints that he has something planned. Hannibal gives the senator information of Buffalo Bill but also plays a little game of "Quid Pro Quo" with her as well. As a disgusted senator leaves, he comments on her suit which is referring to what Buffalo Bill does to his victims.



Hannibal is sitting in a temporary a cage until they can give him a cell with a view and he's reading a book and as Clarice enters he greets her without even turning around. Clarice came to give him his drawings and also because she wanted too. This whole scene plays as horrific perverted parody of a love film. As Hannibal plays "Quid Pro Quo" with her, she constantly circles around the cage to keep him in view and when he's finally in view the camera zooms in closer and closer to their faces in each shot which might show a love between them. When it's Lecter’s turn to tell Clarice about the killer, he lets the guards take her away because her time is up, Hannibal gives her the case file and strokes her finger.



After this scene, Hannibal makes one of the best escapes to ever be put on cinema. Before the escape we see a drawing of Clarice with a lamb in her arms while Lecter listens to classical music as he takes out a shiny silver metallic clip from Chilton's missing pen. As the guards are about serve him extra rare lamb chops, they hand cuff him to the bars of the cage and as they serve him, he picks the lock of the cuffs with the clip. He then handcuffs a guard to the bars of the prison and bites off a piece of flesh from the other guard and then smashes his head on the iron bars and sprays mace in the guards eyes. As for the guard that's handcuffed, he brutally beats the cop to death with a riot baton. He then gets lost in the classical music, picks up a knife, and cuts off the wounded guards face off screen. He ties up one dead guard on the cage of the cell, which symbolizes Jesus Christ and Hannibal puts on the guards face like a mask pretending to be a wounded guard, while the real dead guard is on top of the elevator face down with Lecters prison clothes on. As Hannibal is put in the ambulance, he takes off the mask, kills the people in ambulance off screen and it is mentioned in dialogue that he killed a tourist and stole his clothes and cash.


The last and final time we see Lecter is he calls Clarice telling her he won't go after but cuts the conversation short because he's "having an old friend for dinner". After he hangs up the phone, we find out that he's in a tropical Island and the person that he's "having for dinner" is Dr.Chilton who has just arrived on the island. Hannibal puts on his hat and disappears into the crowd. Man what a great exit for a great villain.

Some people find Hannibal over the top or out of place but that's how he was written. Instead of seeing a criminal you'd meet on the street or in the darkness, he's a criminal you'd meet in a library or a fancy restaurant. What's also great about Hannibal is he's a classy psychopath. His well manners; intelligence to get inside peoples minds; eerie voice; cannibalistic instinct; villainous smile; and the fact that he can sense you and read you like a book is what makes him so scary. This villain not only won the Oscar but is also number 8 on The Nostalgia Critic's "Top 11 Scariest Performances"; number 7 on "Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments"; and is the number one villain the American Film institute list of top 50 Film villains.

"I ATE HIS LIVER WITH SOME FAVA BEANS AND A NICE CHIANTI (SLITHER)"
-Hannibal Lecter

Tune in next week for my number 1 favorite villain and my next top list!

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