For a director whose work is known to be incredibly macho and conform to genre tropes, Mann stands out amongst a lot of cinephiles as the one of the best studio filmmakers working today. His films, shot in digital or non-digital, evoke a moody imagery that glorifies his character’s emotional being yet is radiated by coolness. Last night, the BAMcinematek …
Michael Mann is fascinated by obsessives who work on opposite sides of the law. In fact, when you go over his filmography, it’s filled with them: loners who are hardened by choice and keep others at a constant arm’s-length, indulging in their skills instead. Starting in 1981, Mann made his first feature, Thief, about a …
In 1986, Mann was the first to bring Thomas Harris’s character of Hannibal Lecter to the screen with Manhunter, and his adaptation of the novel Red Dragon, is a disturbing examination of voyeurism. Writer/director Michael Mann’s measured approach pays off in spades. Manhunter is a clever race-against-time flick, in which the ticking of the clock …
When the news of Dennis Farina’s death by cancer at age 69 came through early this week, I think I felt a particularly sharp pang because it came so soon after the passing of James Gandolfini. I hadn’t thought of it before, but with Gandolfini still fresh in my mind, when I heard about Farina’s …
Manhunter is adapted from the Thomas Harris novel Red Dragon, the book which introduced the world to the serial killer known as Hannibal Lecter. It came five years before Harris’s other novel was adapted to the screen ( The Silence of the Lambs), and 27 years before the NBC hit crime drama Hannibal. In between, the role of Dr. Hannibal has been reprised several more times, including Hannibal in 2001 and in a second adaptation of Red Dragon made in 2002 (under the original title).
In framing Hannibal as a weekly procedural, showrunner Bryan Fuller populates his world with so many serial killers, that it becomes hard to believe that so many of these insane, yet brilliant men can all reside in the same city at the same time. Only two episodes in and we’ve already been introduced to three killers, with the possibility of a fourth. Yet, while the second episode of Hannibal does introduce a new ‘killer of the week’ formula, the series remains elevated by four things:
How many TV shows about serial killers can networks create before audiences grow tired of the genre? Earlier this year, we welcomed FOX’s The Following and A&E’s Bates Motel to the already crowded TV lineup that already includes Dexter and Luther, to name a few. Doctor Hannibal Lecter was first introduced in the 1981 novel Red Dragon followed by The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal.
Tom Noonan as Francis Dollarhyde in Manhunter (Michael Mann, 1986, USA): Noonan is absolutely incredible as a serial murderer in this underrated adaptation of Thomas Harris’ novel Red Dragon. With all respect to the talented but miscast actors involved in Brett Ratner’s 2002 adaptation Red Dragon (USA), with the exception of Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal …