John Leavitt’s previous work for The Toast can be found here.
I think remakes get a bad rap, I really do. We re-stage plays all the time, adding different time periods, costumes, and interpretations; why not movies? Movies are big complex things with many moving parts made by lots of people, why not open them up to a new take on the same material? The biggest problem modern remakes/adaptations have is hemming too close to the source material, having to hit-off a check list of “has to be in” moments and quotes until the movie becomes a game of Trope Bingo.
Red Dragon (2006, Brett Ratner ) vs. Manhunter (1986, Michael Mann) provides a wonderful example.
Because both movies were based on the same source material, Thomas Harris’ 1981 novel Red Dragon (re-titled Manhunter for fear audiences would think it was a kung-fu movie and changing Hannibal Lecter’s name to ‘Lecktor’ for license reasons, please take note Bryan Fuller.) They share not only the same basic story and characters, but whole chunks of dialogue. The meeting between Will Graham and Hannibal is almost identical in both movies, providing an opportunity to look at two sets of casts and crew working from (nearly) the same script ending up in different places.
It’s not just that Michael Mann is a better director than Brett “X3″ Ratner (although he is.) Mann, who wrote the screenplay, had much more freedom to create his version of the story. Ratner, even with his glaring limitations as a director, was still working under two decades of cultural cruft built up around the Hannibal Lecter mythos and dealing with a studio that desperately wanted to make people forget about 2001′s little-loved Hannibal. Manhunter could be whatever the hell Mann wanted it to be, Red Dragon had to remind people of Silence Of The Lambs until they screamed Bingo.
Now, please enjoy this shot-by-shot video comparison of the opening scenes that I made WITH MY OWN HANDS:
Some Notes:
In Red Dragon, Hopkins’ Lecter arrives encrusted with the mannerisms from previous movies, bits of iconic “Hannibal Lecter Stuff” – the glass walled cell, the slow rising movement, the soft gentle timber to his voice. The cell in Manhunter is spartan and alien, a quick shot of the journals is all you need establish character. Hopkins wants to draw you in, Cox is actively dismissive and antagonistic. He’s not even going to pretend he’s not better than you. His line readings are direct and rapid-fire, opposed to Hopkins’ bemused sing-song.
The mirroring of the first few shots, shifting the view from right to left, doesn’t seem to serve any purpose other besides making this split-screen look nice.
Not to rag on Ed Norton as he is one of my favorite living actors but man he just looks bored during this entire movie.
The lighting. Manhunter, for all it’s strangeness, tends to go for naturalistic lighting. The cell is white and over-lit. The lighting in Red Dragon, again cribbed from Silence Of The Lambs is moody and gothic, but without any of the realism outside the cell that SOTL had for contrast. it might as well be the “serial killer room” in a haunted house ride.
Mann holds shots longer, and repeats the pattern of the bars when framing Will and Lecktor. (cue NBC Hannibal fans screaming)
The biggest change is Will’s reaction. In Manhunter he leaves the cell and then runs like a bat out of hell down the hallway, stopping only to catch his breath once he’s damn sure there’s a long distance between him and Lektor. Norton’s Will only gets a shot of his sweat-drenched shirt while he waits for Lecter to interpret the case. He leaves the hospital much less fazed by the encounter.
Tags: hannibal, horror, manhunter, movies, one of nicole’s favourite franchises of all time, red dragon, silence of the lambs
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I don’t know why “Hannibal” (the movie, I mean, not the show) is so reviled! I actually quite enjoyed it. It was completely different than SOTL in tone and feel, which was entirely appropriate – it’s more cosmopolitan given the portions in Florence and D.C., whereas SOTL was quintessentially small-town America. I also thought Julianne Moore acquitted herself very well as Clarice. And the climax may have been a bit…much, but JESUS CHRIST IT WAS A BETTER ENDING THAN THE BOOK, so I can’t fault the writers there.
I feel like if you’ve never seen Silence Of The Lambs than Hannibal is a stronger movie cause you’re not comparing them but it’s still a weird baroque movie nobody really wanted, which fits how the book was written, under publisher fiat and Hariss trying to make it as unflimmable as possible. I think it’s been rehabilitated with time, but it’s still a frustrating movie working under a long shadow.
Yes, but most importantly – NBC Hannibal.
I mean, really.
This SHOW oh GOD. It’s personally corrupted both my cooking style and clothing choices
Also there has been the slow horrifying realization that I dress exactly like Dr. Chilton and own several of his blazers.
NO cane tho.
Yet.
I got dressed up in an outfit to watch the premier that’s how BAD it’s gotten
http://johnleavittlives.tumblr.com/post/781424017…
The last two episodes made me love Chilton and his puffy little face so much. He’s a weasel, but he also acts exactly like I would if I was got chloroformed, framed, and had my expensive suit stained with FBI agents’ blood – say “no, no, no” and hope the world/Hannibal stops being horrible.
Look at that precious face!
Helps that Raul Esparza plays the role so well. Would have never thought going into the show that Chilton would emerge as one of my favorites.
Definitely. His horrified eyerolls when he discovers the corpses in his kitchen – like he can’t believe it’s happening to him – he’s fantastic at comic relief.
Looooook.
I am so queasy just from twenty seconds of the opener. But, hey, it reinforced my decision never to go on a haunted house ride with a serial killer room!
Watching the series Fargo last night was interesting in this regard, too – the pull towards the original and seeming necessity of paying homage to it, while the show was simultaneously working against that in an attempt to be its own thing. (Which i think worked well, in the end, but man was that a lot of weight to shift at first!)
I’ll admit a predilection towards anything Bryan Fuller does and a certain lack of interest in most of the source material, but Hannibal is objectively an awesome show. (Although, Alanna! I am sorry you are not really a character. Might as well have Applesauce in that part for all the agency she has.)
Also, is now a good time to mention how I tried to take Silence of the Lambs out of the library once but somehow got confused and ended up with I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb?
That is a TRAGIC mistake.
Well, they both feature disturbing acts of mutilation? Cutting your own hand off isn’t quite the same as all the serial killer stuff, though.
Yeah, I was really hoping for Alana to improve this season — maybe she will in the second half? I know the show is constrained by time, but considering that Dhavernas is the top-billed actress on the show, you’d think they’d give her more to do.
I would not mind seeing more of Applesauce though, which is a fantastic name for a dog. Wouldn’t mind seeing more of all the dogs, really.
The thing is tho – Alana could like VANISH from the show tomorrow, go live in an island fortress in New Zealand, and when the news gets back to her of WHAT REALLY HAPPENED, it would still be enough to destroy her entire life.
Like we’re not even thinking how does Alana get out of this without a mental breakdown * it’s “how bad is the eventual breakdown going to be?”
*Well I know how, she gets killed before she discovers The Truth and that her entire professional career/life is a lie but I don’t think that’s gonna happen cause it would deprive us of the MAXIMUM ALLOWED ALANA SUFFERING.
Applesauce forever tho.
Red Dragon also changed the backstory on Will and Lecter and had the two as colleagues before Will realized Hannibal was the killer. In Manhunter and the book, Will doesn’t know Lecter and goes into his office to ask him about the disappearance of a Princeton student. Lecter leaves the room and Will looks into a book of war wounds and realizes he’s the serial murderer. Lecter comes back in and even though he doesn’t know Will, he knows that Will knows, so he attacks him and almost kills him. This wouldn’t be an important detail but Ratner was so lazy that he couldn’t change the dialogue for the cell scene.
In Manhunter, the underlying tension of that scene is that Lecter knows no personal information about our Will. And Will is desperate to keep Lecter out of his head and life. But within an instant of stepping into Lecter’s lair, Lecter very quickly divines that Will has a child because only a child would pick out Old Spice (which has a neat looking bottle to boy but smells atrocious). It’s the one fact that Will wants to keep hidden from the serial killer he got locked up, but he can’t hide it from Lecter’s intellect and nose. The point is that Will cannot hide from a killer who is smarter than him and that scares him and the audience.
In Red Dragon, Ratner copies the dialogue wholesale but seems to forget his own changed plot point that they already knew each other professionally and therefore, Lecter would know he had a son. There is no “figuring out” that Will has a secret. The dialogue about the aftershave is then pointless and all the menace from the scene is gone.
TL;DR Ratner sucks.
I haven’t read the book “Red Dragon”, but I recall that in the movie, several years pass between Lecter’s attempted murder of Will and Will’s visit to Lecter in the asylum. I suppose it’s possible that, in the universe of the movie, Will’s son was born after Lecter was incarcerated?
I can’t remember how old Will’s son is, so perhaps this theory is flawed. But I did generally enjoy the movie, so feel compelled to take a stab at defending it. 🙂
In the book it’s his step-son.
And in both the Manhunter movie and the book it’s noted that Will had caught Lecter 3 years before, but the boy is around 9 or 10, I think. The step-son wrinkle is interesting, but Molly talks about visiting Will in the hospital after the attack so they were already married, I think?
as far as I remember, in the book it was a “a few years ago” and Will had been married to Molly for 2 years and she has a roughly 10 year old son from a previous marriage (Widow? I think?)
Will and Molly met while he was recovering in Florida after the attack by Lecter; she is widowed, and has a young son. (This is also, in the book timeline, when he becomes obsessed with dogs. He just can’t deal with people).
He encounters Lecter again (in Red Dragon) a few years later. Molly visits him in the hospital after the attack by Dolarhyde. (poor Will Graham!)
I’m probably being too literal here but… Old Spice = child, no exceptions? He couldn’t just be like “….no? I just have an elderly aunt/terrible taste/an eye for a bargain/a poor sense of smell. You creepy bastard.”
This didn’t make it into the comparison but Cleolinda Jones has a great line about Ratner “It’s like he’s a director who’s never done a second take.”
You two alway do the best feeds on Hannibal. It’s nice to see people who are more obsessed than I am.
I like to feel my job is to make other fans seem grounded and sane and productive.
GOOD WORK, JOHN.
All I remember of seeing Red Dragon in the theater is that my friends and I BUSTED THE FUCK UP laughing when he eats the painting.
“Bart! Sensible bites!”
I recently got to that part of the book, and after all the horrific stuff that had just happened I wanted to throw up my hands and yell “ARE YOU ACTUALLY KIDDING DUDE THERE ARE PEOPLE LYING ON THE FLOOR WHY ARE YOU NO STOP JUST GET THAT OUT OF YOUR MOUTH GO HOME LIFT SOME WEIGHTS THAT IS PRICELESS WHY”
I am all but wailing “NOOOOOO I WAS WITHOUT INTERNET ALL EVENING” because I so want everyone to come back and talk Red Dragon/Manhunter with me alllllllllllllll night long. This is great, John, it’s as if you wrote a whole article for me to roll around in like one of Will’s stray dogs.
(Just an an example of the alllllllll-evening conversation I would like to have: it makes me wild to hear the Will of Fuller’s show saying he keeps getting the aftershave for Christmas because THAT IS NONSENSICAL when there is no Molly and therefore no Molly’s kid to give him the bottle with the ship on it in an attempt to share a gesture of the expected masculinity toward which the child is fumbling.
That is, it’s entirely possible to explain that line within the reality of the show, but it lacks the resonance that the quote has in the film, and it’s an uncharacteristic example of Fuller dropping in a line from the books verbatim to less-than-perfect effect.)
Headcanon: Will gets them from professional contacts, he’s a scholar and teacher after all. Some grad student checks a box on amazon. Aftershave kits, like leather bound golf doodads or novelty ties are the things you give to guys you don’t know very well but have to Send A Gift.
But but buuuuuuuut grad students don’t give you Old Spice and I am apparently incapable of separating out “I keep getting it for Christmas” from “it smells like it has a ship on the bottle” because I am an inhuman monster.
Also, thinking whether I ever brought an advisor anything more personal than a book or a piece of pottery (an archaeology prof who taught my courses on pottery, natch).
I did once bring one prof a bag of Christmas cookies when I asked for a few hours’ extension on a deadline so I could work my day-job at the bakery and he joked that I should bring him a linzertorte while I was at it. (Hey, we didn’t make linzertorte. We did make great cookies.)
Lots of aftershave have ships on the bottle! An Old Spice Wouldn’t be totally bad! They’re kinda hip now! But yeah for a BRIEF while I was responsible for corporate gift giving and, yeah things with the company logo on it printed en mass in China and …shaving kits. Once you go up a level it’s liquor but that’s personal assistant space not temp with a spreadsheet space.
I AM WOEFULLY UNSCHOOLED IN THE BOTTLING PRACTICES OF AFTERSHAVES. Also, of course, in an academic background like mine, we’re typically cautious about gifts that smack of intimacy as aftershave would. I would never have given one of my advisors or profs a bottle of aftershave precisely because I was so friendly with them, which is (of course) also a gendered reflection.
But but buuuuuuuut grad students don't give you Old Spice and I am apparently incapable of separating out "I keep getting it for Christmas" from "it smells like it has a ship on the bottle" because I am an inhuman monster.
Also, thinking whether I ever brought an advisor anything more personal than a book or a piece of pottery (an archaeology prof who taught my courses on pottery, natch).
I did once bring one prof a bag of Christmas cookies when I asked for a few hours' extension on a deadline so I could work my day-job at the bakery and he joked that I should bring him a linzertorte while I was at it. (Hey, we didn't make linzertorte. We did make great cookies.)
I AM WOEFULLY UNSCHOOLED IN THE BOTTLING PRACTICES OF AFTERSHAVES. Also, of course, in an academic background like mine, we're typically cautious about gifts that smack of intimacy as aftershave would. I would never have given one of my advisors or profs a bottle of aftershave precisely because I was so friendly with them, which is (of course) also a gendered reflection.
this feels like there should be more. write more!
I am an inveterate lurker, but Manhunter will lure me out of the woodwork any time. I went on a Harris binge after being blown away by NBC’s Hannibal and Manhunter was such a pleasant surprise.
I imagine the plot would give whiplash to anyone not familiar with the book (Dolarhyde procures a sedated tiger for Reba after talking to her for two minutes?), but everything else was so cool and wonderful that it didn’t bother me one bit. I’m a sucker for a strong and interesting aesthetic which this obviously has in spades. I’m pretty sure every single set and costume were sucked back into the earth once 1990 rolled around, because they were too ’80s to exist in any other time period.
Red Dragon, though…man, it sucked. It definitely didn’t help that it came at the end of my binge. Thomas Harris, Michael Mann, and Bryan Fuller all had clear and interesting creative visions, and Ratner absolutely did not. There’s no style or interesting point-of-view present in the movie, just boring normal detectives going after a mildly sympathetic monster to the overwrought strings of a Danny Elfman score. As you pointed out, In Manhunter, when Graham goes to visit Lecter he is visibly uneasy and barely keeping himself in check. By the time Lecter is telling him how they’re “very much alike” Graham is literally running out of the hospital like his life depends on it. In Red Dragon, Graham looks a little uncomfortable but saunters out easily and thinks nothing of going to see Lecter several more times, even after he knows Lecter gave out his address in order to see his family come to harm. That’s just laziness; a device to keep the cash-cow in the movie at the expense of an interesting story. I can’t blame Edward Norton here as the director and the script gave him barely anything at all to work with.
And, AND, the ending is SO DUMB! Like, Manhunter changed the ending of the book completely and it works just fine. Take out the overplayed “the killer is actually alive!!!”, give Graham a happy ending, give me some In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. Great. Red Dragon keeps the rather ludicrous twist but takes away everything that made it interesting in the book, mainly Graham’s mutilation and the fact that Molly is the one who ultimately defeats the Great Red Dragon. That felt like a pretty subversive ending to me, especially for 1980-whatever, and then this stupid movie goes and turns it into the standard hero takedown with a weepy assist from Molly. Graham’s face and marriage remain un-shattered and Lecter still writes a stupid letter that doesn’t really make much sense in this context.
Uh. Anyway hi, I’m Alex and I have a lot of thoughts about Red Dragon, apparently.
Yeah I dont know why Hannibal got a bad rap either. Maybe because it was too linear and not much mystery held throughout like Silence…
However, getting to the comparison without too much detail so I will make the ONE big comparison for atmosphere….but first a forward.
Ah yes, atmosphere is something a lot of directors lack in their movies…eapecially in horror, suspense, mystery and detective!
Mann GETS it with fluid glide tracks and stedicam usage along with having a photographers eye that was ahead of its time. Beautifully framed motion and imagery!!! Damn! ADD in that warm synth mood creating soundtrack and the realization that you dont need to have fast edits and loud sound….because lets face it…SILENCE creates a creepy and solitary mood! And SILENCE is smugtastically frelleng GOLDEN!!! Kubrick knew this in the shining. Stephen King book fans will compare the book to the movie and opt for the book. I would say this is a huge mistake and is a fallacy by default. if you want the book then read the book. If you want to experience the book see The Shining!!! King has a difficulr time editing unnecessary bullshit words and conversation in his books. A Fallacy of most writers. Screenplay writers need to write for visual and audio cues. A VERY different experience!
So you can probably see why I support the Mann version. I feel like Im watching a rehash of Silence as I sit here and watch Red Dragon. I dont feel the psychological torment or fear at all.
I loved the cinematography in Manhunter, especially the framing of the tiger scene, and the empty houses of the victims.
michael mann’s stamp is unmistakable, whatever you think of it. It is also very period, at this point. You know exactly what era the movie hails from. Personally, I love it.
Red Dragon does rely heavily on our knowledge of SOTL. Studio orders no doubt.
Emily Watson and Ralph Fiennes are superb as always though, and Emily is much more endearing, in my opinion, than Joan Allen, who I also love. Ed Norton (again, who I love, but not here) probably was bored. The studio was no doubt all over this shit, and I imagine that through most scenes he was thinking “$8 million, $8 million.”
Very. Well. Done. This is my take: I saw the unedited, original version of Manhunter in 1986 and knew, right then and there, that I had seen a film that would forever live among my favorites. Sixteen years later, Director Brett Ratner set up camp (i.e. lights, cameras; security personal; two of Red Dragon’s stars, Ralph Fiennes and Emily Watson) on the corner of my street as my toddler and I, (see photo below with Director Ratner) watched him re-make the one film in which nothing needed to change. Not even the score. Where others find the music to be overbearing, I found it haunting and suspenseful, and memorable, much like that heard in The Exorcist.
The relatively unknown cast, was chosen with skill. Each major player turned in phenomenal performances. Simply put, it is my opinion that the remake fails epically by comparison. Without further ado, and not too many spoiler moments, I’d like to comment on the performances of both movies’ stars and then encourage the reader to rent Manhunter and see for himself.
William Petersen, as FBI profiler Will Graham, is intense, sometimes gritty and others, sublime. Ed Norton’s Will Graham was too young, too one dimensional and not at all believable in this role. Dennis Farina, Graham’s superior at the FBI, is convincing and works very well with Peterson. Harvey Keitel’s Jack Crawford did not impress. Joan Allen’s, Reba, is nothing short of stellar. If I hadn’t known better, I would have, without a doubt, thought she was blind. When speaking, she artfully hides her actual vision by looking blank in the general direction but never focusing in. I remember thinking how hard that must be to do. Emily Watson’s Reba was just pitiful. Her character appears weak, her expression is just blank and her performance, as a whole, was extremely sub-standard and disappointing. Serial killer, Francis Dollarhyde, aka “The Tooth Fairy,” played by Tom Noonan, delivers a spot on portrayal of a dissociative sociopath and includes the very rare experience of empathy and attachment later in the movie, At that moment, I believe the audience forgets he’s a killer.. He looks so genuinely vulnerable and leaves you wondering if things would have gone differently for him at an earlier stage in his life. Ralph Fiennes, however, is not at all menacing in my opinion, doesn’t appear to be wickedly clever. He bored me to tears.
Lastly, the original Hannibal Lecktor, played by forerunner Brian Cox, is as good as it gets. You can cut the tension in the air whenever he is in a scene which is not often enough. His pathology is so deep; he’s manipulative, calculatingly brilliant and quite menacing….something Ralph Fiennes just did not pull off. Cox brought this complex character to life and made it his own. That’s where it remains his to this day.
Manhunter is clearly the better film in every way. It has poignant moments around almost every corner. Reba’s “seeing” an anesthetized tiger is just one of those. She allows the vet to place her hand by its mouth to feel its breath, convincing her it was alive. Then, with a fascination hard to describe, she drapes herself over this man-eater and uses senses other than sight to soak it all in. She is mesmerized by the intensity of the moment. We watch, transfixed, as she hears his heart beat and strokes the beasts’ fur. Dollerhyde’s voyeuristic reaction is shared by the audience here. You’re left feeling jealous of her handicap as you know what she experiences in that moment is not attainable for those with sight.. It is a very moving, seductive scene.