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Tivo picked up Red Dragon for me overnight. I remember this when it came out and thought it might be interesting -- Edward Norton is one of my favorite actors working these days, and Hopkins is an old pro (period, but this role in particular). I'm glad that I didn't. I'm also glad that I watched it at home, because I could do other things while it was on.
Why am I glad? One very simple reason: Manhunter. The 1986 film, directed by Michael Mann, is superior to Red Dragon in almost every way. The production is less slick (in a good way), the main character (portrayed by William Peterson, best known today from CSI) brooding and effective, the primary villian far more frightening and -- bear with me for the heresy -- Brian Cox's Hannibal Leckter is more chilling. And the difference in last names is not accidental; the spelling for the name was changed between movies.
Hopkins' Lecter is frightening in its perversion of a high class, urbane sophisticate who is also completely sociopathic and amoral. Cox's Lecktor is brilliant, arrogant (in that abrasive way of people who are really smart, expect other people to be just as smart and are sorely disappointed in every one of them that they are not) and completely commands attention even though he is never seen outside of the confines of his cell. Hopkins seems like a professor that was a little out there -- the kind of guy when you hear that he kills and eats people, you'd cock your head and say, I could see that. Not Cox; he'd be a complete shock.
If you happen to go and catch Manhunter (and disagree with me), first -- how dare you disagree with me! (I kid; I kid!) and second, bear in mind that I saw it years before Silence Of The Lambs, so it's the yardstick by which I compared Silence. Silence has a psychological battle between Lector of the Lambs and Jodie Foster's FBI agent and it dominates the movie -- their toe-to-toe gave the film energy and made it compelling to watch. Manhunter is a more straight-ahead crime flick, but the appreciation for both the criminal and cop gets the energy moving.
And, as a complete side note, I don't think that Michael Mann ever really felt that his film got the appreciation it deserved. So, he recycled large swathes of the plot, the characters, the mannerisms -- the whole thing, actually -- into a Miami Vice episode (which Mann was writing at the time).
Posted by Casper at July 13, 2004 08:33 PM