Red Dragon?...gimme Manhunter

I wasn't really going to get drawn into this debate until I read this line...

Originally posted by dagerbil
RE Manhunter, enjoyable as it was/is, it cannot compare to the slickness of the big budget production.

To this I must ask: why not?
Let me tell you what I saw that the 'big budget production' brought to the party.
1. Big-name actors
Anthony Hopkins, Edward Norton, Ralph Fiennes, Harvey Keitel, Emily Watson and Philip Seymour Hoffman!? Certainly a large proportion of the budget was spent on securing the ensemble cast. This was, for the most part, wasted. Every one of those listed above (apart from Philip Seymour Hoffman) spent the film trying desperately to deliver a performance. So much so, it was almost distracting at times - Charlton Heston's acting legacy lives on, even if his own memory does not.

The advantage of casting little-known actors (as opposed to established, Big-Name Movie Stars) is that it puts the audience on edge - they do not know what to expect. Because people are used to seeing established Big-Name Movie Stars play not-wildly-dissimilar roles, they are somewhat prepared when entering a movie. When you cast relative unknowns, or even someone unexpected (as is the case in Manhunter, and Silence of the Lambs), the audience is unprepared. Score one for the low-budget movies.

2. A 'Glossy' Appearance
Coating every single thing in Red Dragon was a beautiful, expensive, big-budget sheen. Don't get me wrong - this is not necessarily a bad thing. A lot of mediocre films have been saved by this very same wonderful veneer. Unfortunately, for a film dealing with such an issue as Red Dragon, this is a bad thing, in my opinion. It undermines everything the movie is dealing with - Ooh, isn't that man evil, but ooh - doesn't it look pretty?

With a lower-budget film, you almost always end up with a gritty look. This has ruined many low-budget films, and is the number one cause of Hollywood remakes. In the case of Manhunter (and, again, Silence of the Lambs), it suited the subject matter perfectly.

3. A pointless, greedy exercise in cinematic prostitution
I am not alone in thinking that Anthony Hopkins' portrayal of Hannibal Lector was at its best in Silence of the Lambs. This comes down to the fact that across numerous sequels, recurring characters tend to become more and more exaggerated - none more so than in the horror genre. This can ruin whatever seriousness a film is trying to establish. By the time 'Hannibal' was released, the character of Hannibal Lector had been assimilated by popular culture, all of his traits from Silence of the Lambs had been consumed into everyday speech. Who can buy a bottle of Chianti without thinking of liver and fava beans? The makers of the movie 'Hannibal' knew this, and we saw the Lector of that film become a caricature of the Lector from Silence of the Lambs - very few things were brought to the character in this film. In Red Dragon, Lector has become almost farcical. I wholly expect the next step will be for the filmmakers to follow in the footsteps of Friday the 13th, and have Lector cryogenically frozen, only to be rewoken and cause havok on a space station in the twenty-fifth century. In Silence of the Lambs, we saw a complex, multi-faceted character, with a fascinating history. In Red Dragon, certainly, we got to learn some of this history (but nothing we didn't already know from Manhunter), but what happened to the character? Two sequels failed to bring much to the character of Hannibal Lector that hadn't already been established in the first film. Perhaps the writers are 'pacing themselves', so as not to reveal everything about this character too soon - but the character we glimpsed in Silence of the Lambs could surely stand up to close inspection across many films. Perhaps, instead, the filmmakers are pulling a fast one, taking the money and running before too many people realise they're being presented with half of what they've already been given, but ooh - doesn't it look pretty?

Which brings me to another point - The very fact that you are talking about an entire Lector 'genre' is incredibly depressing to me, for the simple reason that the character of Hannibal Lector was once a truly inspired character, one of the most memorable in cinematic history. To see him streched out like this, across two pointless sequels, is disappointing, to hear of an entire 'genre' verges on disheartening.

Never saw Manhunter.

Thoroughly enjoyed Red Dragon.

Thought it filled the role of "prequel" very well.