Hannibal Lecter and Philosophy (Popular Culture and Philosophy)

by Joseph Westfall

  Entertainment Weekly critic Jeff Jensen picked up on this theme in his review of the finale of Season 1:

  How about that smirk that rippled across Hannibal’s lips? I would like to think that Lecter’s show of delight meant something more than just relished triumph, as I also would like to think that the ubermenchy mastermind sincerely wanted to help Will gain mastery over his chaotic internal world and transform his guilt-wracked pathology into the same kind of liberating, Nietzschian beyond-good-and-evil moral code he has for himself. Or maybe I’m just suffering from dementia. Will would certainly think so: His theory was that Hannibal was just conducting a mad scientist psych experiment in the wild, that Hannibal merely wanted to wind him up and see what would happen. (Jensen)

  It may well be a combination of both, and Will emphasizes the experimental element when he mimics Hannibal’s own words in explaining that he told Mason Verger the good doctor was going to kill Mason because he was curious to see what would happen.

  Lecter conspires with Dr. Sutcliffe to conceal Graham’s illness for nefarious reasons. They agree to jointly study Graham like a lab rat, Sutcliffe for the physical effects of encephalitis, Lecter for its psychological effects, noting what a “rare occasion” it was to be able to do so. Lecter had the added motive of wanting to exercise his power over the FBI, by eluding their dragnet and tormenting their crack investigator in the process.

  The framing of Will for Hannibal’s string of murders is nothing less than a masterpiece of engineering. Not only does Lecter plant Abigail’s DNA on Will, but he also kills Sutcliffe right after Will had been in for further tests. The comb which sparks the conflagration that incinerates Georgia Madchen appears right after Will visits her; bits of flesh from earlier victims are tied into the fly-fishing flies that Will fashions; Will spits up an amputated ear into his sink; and the list goes on. In the final episode of Season 1, Hannibal is triumphant and Will appears doomed.

  Meanwhile, Lecter has slowly (and apparently reluctantly) revealed Will’s supposed mental illness to Jack Crawford. He brilliantly plants the seeds of doubt in Jack’s mind, implicating Will and setting the stage for the season’s climax, when Crawford (convinced of his guilt) shoots Graham for threatening Hannibal. In short, Hannibal does precisely what he wants to do with all of the primary figures in the drama. Corresponding to how Harold Alderman outlined the traits of Nietzsche’s Übermensch, Lecter expresses his anger directly, is ingeniously creative, self-directed and this-worldly, remarkably self-aware, experimental and proudly egoistic, while being both unashamedly aristocratic and discretely masked (Alderman, p. 66). Hiding in their midst, Hannibal was (in Nietzsche’s words), “always disguised: the higher the type, the more a man requires an incognito” (Nietzsche, Will to Power §490).

  In several ways, then, the Lecter persona has been stripped of its black humor and romantic interest, pared down to a pure and immensely powerful figure. He exercises complete control over himself, his environment, and every other character with whom he comes in contact. He kills and eats his victims with impunity, manipulates those around him mercilessly (his psychoanalyst may be an exception), and leaves little doubt of his intellectual and strategic superiority. Dr. Du Maurier’s warning to Jack Crawford in the penultimate episode of Season 2 proves to be prophetic: “If you think you are about to catch Hannibal it is because he wants you to think so. Don’t fool yourself into thinking he’s not in control of what’s happening” (Hannibal, Season 2, “Tome-wan”). I can’t remember another season-ending episode of a series where the “bad guy” triumphed as completely.

  For Nietzsche, in the absence of a perfect Creator, we are called upon to be god-like creatures, to create meaning and value in an inherently meaningless world. Libby Hill, in her review of the series for NPR, captured the divine aura of Hannibal:

  Intentional or otherwise, Hannibal Lecter is not the devil; he is god. He is that force in his universe that exists in concert with but still wholly outside the world at large. He is something unnatural. Uncanny. He is the danger. He is the unknowable presence lurking in the shadows. He is omnipotent. He is omniscient. And he will beguile. He will persuade. He will manipulate. He will undermine your fear with fascination and your seduction will be your undoing. (Hill)

  What I have been arguing is that we empathize with Lecter for a number of reasons, the most prominent of which is this godlike power. The many close-ups he is featured in, his culinary and aesthetic tastes, his evil genius, and his discriminating choice of both victims and acquaintances, all of these factors play important roles in allowing us to enjoy Lecter’s escapades. But, in my view, it is his absolute control over every person and situation which he confronts that is the fundamental ground of our empathy with him. Those of us who love horror identify with monsters, and the one with whom I most enjoy doing so is Dr. Hannibal Lecter.

  1 For a different approach to Hannibal Lecter as an artist in the medium of murder, see Chapter 15 of this volume.—Ed.

  2 For a reading of Hannibal that suggests their romance is both believable and important to both of their stories, see Chapter 18 of this volume.—Ed.

  3 For a discussion of the possibility of friendship between Hannibal and Will, including discussion of Nietzsche’s thoughts on friendship as they apply to Hannibal, see Chapter 10 of this volume.—Ed.

  4 For more on Hannibal Lecter’s humor, especially as an expression of power, see Chapter 14 of this volume.—Ed.

  17

  The Beguiling Horror of Hannibal Lecter

  WILLIAM J. DEVLIN AND SHAI BIDERMAN

  In Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs, FBI trainee Clarice Starling is assigned to conduct interviews with, and develop a psychological profile on, the infamous psychiatrist and serial killer, Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Her supervisor, Special Agent Jack Crawford, advises her to be very careful with Hannibal and suggests the mental dangers she’ll face on this assignment. He warns her, “Believe me, you don’t want Hannibal Lecter in your head.” Meanwhile, at the asylum, Dr. Frederick Chilton warns her of the physical dangers she’ll face as he shows her photos of a nurse Hannibal attacked, pointing out that, though the doctors were able to re-set her jaw and save one eye, Hannibal’s pulse “never got above eighty-five, even when he ate her tongue.” Together, Crawford and Chilton aim to let Starling know the gravity of her assignment and who the subject really is. As Chilton points out, “Oh, he’s a monster. Pure psychopath. It’s so rare to capture one alive.”

  Even before we, the audience, meet “Hannibal the Cannibal,” his reputation precedes him. He is a monster—a living, breathing, captured, but still highly dangerous (both mentally and physically) monster. His path of horror incites fear in both the characters and the audience alike, and yet we are still drawn to him—anxiously awaiting our first glimpse of the monster “in chains” as Starling makes her way down the cold, dark prison hallway to meet Dr. Lecter. But this raises an interesting philosophical question: Given how fearful Hannibal the monster is, why are we so interested in watching him? In this chapter, we explore this question and address why it is that, despite the horror this iconic monster instills in us, we are still so drawn towards him, watching his every move.

  Hannibal and Monster Movies

  As suggested, both Crawford and Chilton startlingly warn Starling that Hannibal is a monster. But Hannibal is not alone in this regard: the gruesome depiction of Hannibal as a monster is a common trait of the cinematic horror genre. As such, he is one among many famous monsters in the cinematic history of the horror genre. In the first half of the twentieth century, audiences saw various monsters from literature brought to the moving image. In 1910, we find the Frankenstein monster from Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), portrayed in J. Searle Dawley’s short film Frankenstein. In 1920, we encounter the monster, Edward Hyde, in John S. Robertson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, drawn from Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886). In 1922, audiences wer
e introduced to the vampire, Count Orlok, in F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu, a film that adapted (and paved the way for many more film adaptations of) Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897). In 1932, the world saw the first cinematic introduction of zombies in Victor and Edward Halperin’s White Zombie, adapted from William Seabrook’s book, The Magic Island (1929); meanwhile, the zombie phenomenon was later catapulted by George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968).

  In the latter half of the twentieth century, while those same monsters of literature continued to frighten audiences, other monsters were introduced. Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) offered the psychotic character, Norman Bates, a psychologically disturbed man who, dressed as his mother, would kill his victims at the Bates Motel. This film helped to inspire the sub-genre in horror known as “slasher films” that followed. There, we find a new series of famous monsters in cinema. We meet the chainsaw wielding Leatherface in Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). In 1978, the monster Michael Myers begins his decades of terror in John Carpenter’s Halloween. Three years later, Jason Voorhees comes to life in Steven Miner’s Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981). In 1984, Freddy Krueger haunted us in our dreams in Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street.

  It is during this era that author Thomas Harris creates the monster, Hannibal the Cannibal, through the series of horror novels, Red Dragon (1981), Silence of the Lambs (1988), Hannibal (1999), and Hannibal Rising (2006). While Dr. Hannibal Lecter (or Lecktor) first hit the big screen in Michael Mann’s Manhunter in 1986, based on Harris’s Red Dragon, it wasn’t until Anthony Hopkins’s Oscar-winning performance as Hannibal in Demme’s Silence of the Lambs (1991) that the monster became embedded in popular culture. From there, Hannibal’s journey on the big screen continued with the sequel, Ridley Scott’s Hannibal (2001), and the prequels, Peter Webber’s Hannibal Rising (2007) and Brett Ratner’s Red Dragon (2002). All of these films are notable, not simply for including Hannibal as a character, but for focusing on Hannibal as a monster.

  The fascination (to the point of obsession) of moviegoers with monsters and the personification of monstrosity has thus furnished the cinematic culture of horror from the dawn of cinema to the contemporary age. This rather unique (and definitely strange) phenomenon raises an interesting philosophical question: given how fearful the monster is, why are we so interested in watching him? What is it in the cinematic appearance of the monster—an appearance that, for lack of better words, involves an unpleasant experience, and negative emotions like fear, dread, and disgust—that anxiously draws us to sneak the excruciating peek? Moreover, and to the extent that Hannibal helps to make a new breed of “realistic” monsters (who exist “in the flesh,” so to speak, as integral to the human race), how should we treat Hannibal, as we compare him to those which inhabit the fictitious (and highly improbable) world of zombies, vampires, and the like? And what, if anything, is cinematically unique in the monstrosity of Hannibal Lecter?

  The Monster and Paradox of Horror

  These questions about monsters and horror films take us into the philosophy of horror, a renewed branch of the philosophical interest in film and cinema. One of the proponents of such philosophy, the contemporary philosopher Noël Carroll, offers a significant and influential account of the horror genre. According to Carroll, the horror genre is determined by its engagement with the inexplicable (and thus revolting) existence of the monster. Accordingly, the centrality of the monster in the plotline of a film is a precondition for a film to be considered a horror film. Carroll’s definition of a horror film thus spreads in three consecutive steps. First, a work of cinematic horror is that which attempts to raise fear and disgust. Second, these stirred emotional responses are directed at the monster. Third, the monster is a threatening creature beyond the realms of scientific possibility. For Carroll, “a work should be classified as horror if it attempts to arouse fear and disgust directed at a monster. . . . a threatening creature not thought to exist by current science” (Carroll, The Philosophy of Horror, p. 27). So, for example, we can clearly see that Frankenstein is a monster insofar as, via a combination of chemistry and alchemy, a new hideous inhuman creature is created that threatens and terrifies us all. Likewise, Count Orlok and Count Dracula are dangerous immortal monsters that live by sucking the blood, and life, of their human prey. Meanwhile, Freddy is not only already dead, but also only “lives” in the dream world, insofar as he is able to be a non-physical dream-like being that can physically harm and kill his victims in their nightmares. Clearly, these monsters are both threatening creatures and not explainable or posited to exist by current science.

  But, following Carroll, notice two striking features about how the audience relates to the cinematic monster. While these monsters do not exist in real life, we are horrified by them (like the boogeyman that lays await under our beds) and yet we are still drawn in to watching them on the big screen. That is, we, the audience, have two different but seemingly simultaneous emotional responses to the monster. First, we are horrified by the monster. From Frankenstein to Dracula to Michael to Freddy to Jason: each one of them terrifies us, making us cower away in fear. Second, we are also, as awkward as it may seem, equally attracted to the monster. Although we may cower in fear, we want to see the monster on the prowl, attacking, and taking his next victim. Many movie-goers seeing A Nightmare on Elm Street watched intently and maybe even covered their eyes (while peeking past their fingers) as Glen Lantz screamed and struggled while Freddy sucked him into the bed and released a geyser of blood upon the ceiling. Or, if you were like this co-author, Bill, you were a kid who hid behind his couch in fear, but still poked his head out, watching Jason stalk Chris Higgins until Chris bravely swings an axe into Jason’s head, apparently killing him in Steve Miner’s Friday the 13th Part 3.

  This strange set of feelings we hold of being scared of, but attracted to, the monster (and its centrality to the definition of horror films) raises a problem. How is it that we can be both horrified by and attracted to the monster at the same time? Is it a case of Stockholm syndrome? Is the monster our captor, and we the captive audience, as we follow him and develop a traumatic bonding to him? Is there a way for us to resolve, or at least explain, this tension that we have towards monsters in cinema? Carroll calls this the paradox of horror. If horror films present us with monsters, and if the sole purpose of this presentation is to disgust and to stir unpleasant emotions while doing so—why is it that we seek this mental anguish to begin with? This becomes all the more important, when we recall that in real life we are typically keen to avoid such painful emotions. In cinema, on the other hand, while encountering the monster in horror, we seem to be attracted to that which is fundamentally repulsive. How is it, then, that we routinely seek out the horror monsters, knowing that they will raise painful emotions of fear and disgust? This behavior seems to be paradoxical.

  Carroll provides an answer to the apparent paradox of conflicting feelings we hold towards the monster. The reason why audiences seek out horror films, knowing full well that we will experience fear and disgust, is for the pleasures we’ll gain from them. Despite the terror instilled in us, we watch the fictional Frankenstein’s monster terrorize the villages on the big screen, or Dracula draw blood from his prey, or Michael murder his innocent victims, because the experience of horror is the “price we are willing to pay” for the pleasures of discovering and learning about the horrific being (Carroll, The Philosophy of Horror, p. 186).

  The Paradox of Hannibal

  At first glance, Hannibal appears to fit the model of Carroll’s analysis of the monster and the paradox of horror. First, as mentioned, Hannibal is a monster who threatens us, similar to the classic monsters in cinematic history. In The Silence of the Lambs, we hear of, and witness, Hannibal’s sadistic infatuation with human flesh, as he eats a nurse’s tongue, tears at a guard’s flesh, and proceeds to wear his facial skin as a mask to escape imprisonment. In Red Dragon, we see how vengeful Hannibal can be as he agrees to work with FBI Agent
Will Graham to help him catch the serial killer, Francis Dolarhyde, known as the “Tooth Fairy.” However, Hannibal’s agreement is just a clever ruse, as Hannibal uses his resources to provide Dolarhyde with Graham’s home address through a coded message in a tabloid. Although Graham and his family survive the Tooth Fairy’s subsequent attack, he is left “disfigured.” Aware of this, Hannibal sends Graham a chilling letter, saying “I hope you’re not too ugly. What a collection of scars you have! Never forget who gave you the best of them” (Ratner, Red Dragon). Meanwhile, in Hannibal, Hannibal continues his lineage of sadistic homicides. He publicly hangs and disembowels Chief Inspector Rinaldo Pazzi in Florence. He lobotomizes Justice Department Agent Paul Krendler and forces Starling to watch as he cuts out Krendler’s prefrontal cortex, sautées it, and feeds it to him. Later, as Hannibal makes his escape on a commercial plane, he offers a piece of Krendler’s cortex to a young boy, teaching him, “it is important to always try new things” (Scott, Hannibal). Lastly, in Hannibal Rising, we witness the development, growth, and unleashing of the monster within, as Hannibal kills his first victim (via beheading) as a teenager and then carries out and completes his crusade of revenge as he murders those who killed his sister, Mischa. Thus, the series of films in the Hannibal Lecter franchise depicts Hannibal as a monster and puts him with the famous cast of Frankenstein, Dracula, Leatherface, Jason, and others.