Hannibal Lecter
Hannibal Lecter is a fictional character in a series of novels by Thomas Harris . The psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer is one of the two antagonists in the novels Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs , in the sequel Hannibal he becomes the main character. The fourth part, Hannibal Rising , which was set before the Red Dragon , describes his childhood, youth and development into a serial killer. The figure also appears in all four film adaptations of the four novels as well as in a television series of the same name based on the characters in the novels.
biography
Hannibal Lecter VIII MD is a highly intelligent serial killer. He was born with an extra finger on his left hand ( polydactyly ), which he later has surgically removed. His eyes are maroon with small reddish dots. Lecter was born in Lithuania in 1933 . His parents belonged to the Lithuanian upper class, his mother came from the Milan Visconti family, his father was a count .
When Lecter was eleven years old (1944), Lithuanian collaborators and soldiers of the Wehrmacht attacked Lecter Castle and occupied it without any major resistance, as the family had recently withdrawn to a small hunting lodge near the castle. The family initially lived there unmolested. After the collapse of the Eastern Front during the Second World War , the Lithuanian collaborators attack the hunting lodge. Lecter's parents and relatives die in an air raid. The deserters keep him hostage with his younger sister Misha. When all the food supplies are finally used up during the cold winter, they kill his younger sister, make soup out of her and also feed it to young Hannibal; With this trauma , the cornerstone of his later addiction to cannibalism is laid.
After the chaos of the war and a stay in the orphanage , in which Hannibal had to endure a lot of humiliation, he finds care with the wife of his deceased uncle (Robert Lecter), the Japanese Lady Murasaki, in Paris . When he was 13, he committed his first murder of a butcher who insulted his aunt. During a police interrogation and a subsequent interrogation with the polygraph , the murderer shows no emotional reaction when asked about the dead butcher. He later kills all of the surviving men who were involved in the death of his sister Misha, and ultimately comes to Canada as a result of the persecution of his sister's murderers .
In 1973 Lecter moved to the United States , where he worked as a forensic psychiatrist in Baltimore . His work, his keen sense of aesthetics and his urbane education quickly made him a respected member of the upper class. He finances his dissolute lifestyle by persuading his patients to bequeath their wealth to him. If they agree, they are brutally killed by Lecter, certain parts of his victims such as liver or kidneys are prepared and eaten by him according to exquisite recipes or sometimes even served to the unsuspecting guests at a social dinner. The FBI -Agent Will Graham get him there in 1975 on the track after Lecter him as a psychologist in his investigation of a cannibal - has supported and curled on the wrong track - in fact, Hannibal. Graham is attacked with a knife by Lecter and sustained severe stab wounds, after which it takes a few months to recover and resigns from the service.
During the following trial against Lecter, the tabloids rushed to the case and nicknamed him Hannibal the Cannibal (German: Hannibal the Cannibal). The court arranges accommodation Lecter in the psychiatric clinic at the Baltimore State Hospital. There he is first - unsuccessfully - interrogated (under the influence of a truth drug , he gives the FBI agents a recipe for a soup instead of information about the murder of a student).
Dr. Lecter is very courteous during the first year of his imprisonment, so his security measures are relaxed. On July 8, 1976, he complained of chest pain and was taken to the hospital emergency room . While doing the EKG , for which the handcuffs are removed, he attacks a nurse there and eats her tongue. After this incident, the security measures in his environment are increased enormously - he is no longer allowed to leave his cell; When it needs to be cleaned, handcuffs and ankle cuffs are put on him and his face is covered with a leather mask to prevent him from biting. (In real life, this leather mask has now become a popular icon in pop culture .)
When Lecter helped the FBI apprehend two serial killers in the following years - once as an advisor to the young agent Clarice Starling, the other time with Will Graham - he managed to break out in Memphis (he kills two police officers in the process, pulls your skin off Face and lay it on his face). From then on he lived in Florence and was up to mischief there until an Italian commissioner, Rinaldo Pazzi, discovered his stealth and Clarice Starling found out about it. Lecter kills Pazzi and travels back to the USA because he fell in love with Clarice Starling. There he gets into a precarious situation: Mason Verger, multimillionaire and a former patient of Lecter, who cut his face because of drugs Lecter gave him, in order to feed it to his dogs, wants to take revenge and lets go Capture Lecter with the help of his extensive network of agents. He intends to feed it to very large wild boars specially imported from Italy .
Hannibal escapes with the help of Starling, who is seriously injured in this rescue operation. Hannibal takes care of her well in her house: As a precaution, he brought all the necessary utensils, including kitchen inventory, to her house for the last feast. In the novel, the two then become a couple. In the film adaptation, however, there is one major discrepancy: At the end of the film, Starling wants to arrest Lecter; But the latter jams her hair in the refrigerator so that Starling cannot attack him again. She doesn't want to run away. When he then asks her, “Would you ever say: will you stop? If you love me, stop it! ", Starling replies:" Not in a thousand years! "He smiles and says," This is my girl! "Then Lecter kisses Clarice Starling and is handcuffed to her by her. After threatening to chop off her hand, he chops off his own thumb instead in order to escape.
Appearances
Novels and their film adaptations
Red Dragon
The character of Hannibal Lecter first appeared in Thomas Harris' novel Red Dragon from 1981: FBI agent Will Graham narrowly escapes death when the dangerous psychopath and serial killer Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter is arrested. Reason enough for him to quit. But after a short time the FBI is again dependent on his help. A serial killer who haunts sleeping families on nights of the full moon leaves a ghastly trail of horror. Graham accepts the order and tried in the psyche of only the "Tooth Fairy" (the killer, Tooth Fairy is called), empathize. He depends on the help of a similarly ingenious and disturbed spirit in the form of Hannibal Lecter. But he pursues his own plans, which in the end come to light.
The novel was adapted for the first time by Michael Mann under the film title Blutmond (alternative German title: Roter Drache , English original title: Manhunter ) for the big screen. The film was released in 1986. Lecter's role was taken over by Brian Cox and William Petersen plays his opponent Will Graham. In 2002, Brett Ratner's remake Red Dragon appeared , in which Hannibal Lecter is played by Anthony Hopkins .
The silence of the Lambs
In 1988, The Silence of the Lambs, the second novel in the Hannibal-Lecter tetralogy, was published. In it, Dr. Lecter asked for help finding the serial killer "Buffalo Bill". This time, however, the young agent Clarice Starling is sent. You succeed with Dr. Lecter's help in finding the one wanted. The price for his help is information about Starling's past or her life. In this novel, Dr. Lecter from his captivity.
The film adaptation of the same name was released in 1990. Directed by Jonathan Demme , the main actors are Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster .
Hannibal
The serial novel Hannibal was published in 1999 and is set six years after Lecter's escape. Dr. Lecter now lives as the museum curator of the Capponi library under the false name of Dr. Fell in Florence . An Italian commissioner who is supposed to solve the mysterious disappearance of his predecessor recognizes Lecter in him and notices that one of his previous patients, the multimillionaire Mason Verger, offered him a high reward. The commissioner denounced Dr. Lecter at Verger's shop stewards in Switzerland. Verger sends his henchmen to help Dr. Capturing Lecter and feeding him to man-eating wild boars. There is a big showdown in the USA. Starling saves Dr. Lecter's life, but is seriously injured himself. Lecter takes them with him and nurses them back to health. The ending shows how Dr. Lecter feels for Starling. In the novel, Starling returns Lecter's love, and the two eventually become a couple.
The film adaptation of Ridley Scott of the same name was released in 2001. In this film Anthony Hopkins plays the cannibal again, the role of Clarice Starling plays Julianne Moore .
Hannibal Rising
The fourth and final novel Hannibal Rising (2006) reconstructs Hannibal Lecter's childhood, youth and development as a serial killer and explains the trauma- related reasons for his mental disorders , which Hannibal has already hinted at.
In the 2007 film adaptation of Hannibal Rising - How It All Began , Gaspard Ulliel can be seen in the role of Lecter.
Television series
The television series Hannibal , which begins after the events in Hannibal Rising and before the events in Red Dragon , focuses on the relationship between Lecter ( Mads Mikkelsen ) and FBI agent Will Graham ( Hugh Dancy ).
Psychopathology of the figure
When committing his deeds, Lecter is extremely unscrupulous, insensitive and unrestrained, and with an almost inhuman calmness of mind. For example, his pulse rose when a nurse was attacked, according to Dr. Chilton "not a moment over 85. Not even when he bit off her tongue." In the film The Silence of the Lambs , Dr. Chilton to Starling: “[Lecter] is a monster. A psychopath of the worst kind. You hardly ever get one alive. ”In the novel Red Dragon , Will Graham explains that Lecter is called a sociopath by psychiatrists because they don't know what else to call him. Lecter had no conscience and tortured animals as a child, but otherwise does not meet the criteria of sociopathy. Clarice Starling also says in the film The Silence of the Lambs about Lecter: “There is no name for what he is.” Udo Rauchfleisch describes Lecter's psychopathology as “ borderline personality organization of an antisocial kind with strongly narcissistic features”.
Real role models
Thomas Harris first revealed in 2013 that the character Hannibal Lecter was inspired by a real-life, incarcerated killer he met in a prison in Mexico in the 1960s . Harris, then 23, had traveled to Monterrey as a journalist to interview the condemned American and three-time murderer Dykes Askew Simmons. Simmons was shot and critically injured by a prison guard while trying to escape. Another inmate, a doctor convicted of murder, had saved his life and was therefore also interviewed by Harris. Harris used the pseudonym “Dr. Salazar ”and described him as a“ small, lithe man with dark red hair ”. According to Harris, “Dr. Salazar “stood very still, exuded a certain elegance and asked him to sit down. During her interview, the doctor asked him about Simmons, his disfigured appearance and his victims. Hannibal Lecter is not “Dr. Salazar ”, but by“ Dr. Salazar ”he was able to recognize“ his colleague Hannibal Lecter ”.
According to research by various journalists, “Dr. Salazar ”is about Alfredo Ballí Treviño , a doctor from an upper-class Monterrey family, who murdered and dismembered his lover and was also suspected of murdering several hitchhikers in the 1950s and early 1960s. Ballí was originally sentenced to death but was later commuted to 20 years in prison. After his release from prison, Ballí practiced again as a doctor. He died in 2009 (2010 according to other sources) at the age of 81.
The writer Charlotte Greig claims in her book Evil Serial Killers that Harris was at least partially inspired by the life stories of the serial killers and cannibals Albert Fish and Andrei Tschikatilo . Chikatilo's brother is said to have been kidnapped, killed and - like Lecter's sister - eaten by starving people during the Holodomor .
reception
In September 2004, Hannibal Lecter was voted "The Evilest Villain In Film History " by the American Film Institute .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Tobias Eichinger: Soul investigations of cannibals, psychiatrists and serial killers. In: Martin Poltrum, Bernd Rieken (Ed.): Soul connoisseur psycho-villains . Psychotherapists and psychiatrists in films and series. Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg 2017, ISBN 978-3-662-50485-7 , p. 184.
- ↑ Quoted from Tobias Eichinger: Soul investigations of cannibals, psychiatrists and serial killers. In: Martin Poltrum, Bernd Rieken (Ed.): Soul connoisseur psycho-villains . Psychotherapists and psychiatrists in films and series. Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg 2017, ISBN 978-3-662-50485-7 , p. 184.
- ↑ Quoted from Tobias Eichinger: Soul investigations of cannibals, psychiatrists and serial killers. In: Martin Poltrum, Bernd Rieken (Ed.): Soul connoisseur psycho-villains . Psychotherapists and psychiatrists in films and series. Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg 2017, ISBN 978-3-662-50485-7 , p. 181.
- ↑ Quoted from Tobias Eichinger: Soul investigations of cannibals, psychiatrists and serial killers. In: Martin Poltrum, Bernd Rieken (Ed.): Soul connoisseur psycho-villains . Psychotherapists and psychiatrists in films and series. Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg 2017, ISBN 978-3-662-50485-7 , p. 184.
- ↑ Udo Rauchfleisch: Cruel - ruthless - self-centered. Dissocial Personality Disorder (ICD-10: F60.2). In: Stephan Doering, Heidi Möller (eds.): Frankenstein and Belle de Jour. Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg 2008, ISBN 978-3-540-76879-1 , pp. 259-267.
- ^ The REAL Hannibal Lecter: Author Thomas Harris reveals for first time how killer doctor in Mexican prison inspired him to create most famous cannibal in history. In: The Daily Mail. July 27, 2013, accessed February 3, 2019.
- ↑ a b Rhys Blakely: Unmasked: doctor who was real life Hannibal Lecter. In: The Sunday Times. July 31, 2013, accessed February 3, 2019.
- ^ Diego Enrique Osorno: My Girlfriend and I Found the Real Hannibal Lecter for Thomas Harris. In: Vice. July 31, 2013, accessed February 3, 2019.
- ↑ Charlotte Greig: Evil Serial Killers: In the Minds of Monsters. Arcturus Publishing, London 2009, ISBN 978-1-84193-289-7 , pp. 27, 102.