Wednesday, 7 February 2001

RANTING & RAVING

What's wrong with Hannibal?

That is really the question of the moment. I don't see a movie that seems to be a stand-out until The Mexican on March 2… and everyone is wondering why DreamWorks isn't screening the film if it thinks it has a real hit. There's Monkeybone… maybe a surprise. And The Dish hits in a limited run on March 9. Maybe it will be the Tailor of Panama.

But Hannibal was the great hope for a great movie in early 2001. After all, you have the reprise of an Oscar winning performance by Anthony Hopkins, one of the great actresses of this era stepping in for Jodie Foster, a likely-to-be-Oscar-nominated director in Ridley Scott, a screenplay by David Mamet and Steven Zaillian and even a producer, Dino DeLaurentiis, who is getting an Oscar for lifetime achievement this year.

So why is Hannibal such a disappointment?

Well, to start with, it is about as cold-blooded a moviegoing experience as Silence of the Lambs was warm-blooded. Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing. The Alien series has been marked by very distinct differences of style and tone from film to film and kept things very interesting for audiences. So why not the Hannibal series? The problem is this… while Hannibal is ice cold, it keeps on trying to find its warm heart… a warm heart that Hannibal Lecter would clearly remove from the film's chest and refrigerate before eating.

I haven't read the Thomas Harris novel and I have made a point of not reading the screenplay. A screenplay is not a movie. A movie is a movie. And in this case, everything I heard about the novel sounds like the movie they should have made. A story in which the perfectly moral Clarice Starling ends up in love with the perfectly immoral Hannibal Lecter is the kind of black comedy that this film cries out to become. And it makes more sense than anything that is in Hannibal. Clarice's world is filled with people who claim to be on the right side of the law and, theoretically, of morality also. But they are all immoral and inhumane. Likewise, Hannibal's once-victim, Mason Verger, was immoral before Lecter fed his face to the dog and remains, in a universe of moral relativity, a less clearly moral man than Lecter. Hannibal may kill people and he may eat people, but the movie reminds us repeatedly that he has a very specific set of rules by which he lives. In a world where morality is virtually non-existent, these two, the moral sadist and the moral masochist make a fascinating, if highly disturbing, fit.

But no such luck. Instead, we get Julianne Moore, who is going to be unfairly accused of making Clarice too much of a cold fish, playing a cold fish. The reason that the accusation is unfair is that her performance follows the screenplay faithfully. Ms. Moore is as capable of warmth and vulnerability as any actress out there. This is not Helen Hunt standing around looking severe. This is a warm-blooded woman playing the restraint that frames Clarice in this story.

And there is the thing. It's the screenplay, dammit! It is unfair of me to simply assume that David Mamet's first screenplay, which he abandoned to go make State & Main after the first couple drafts, was edgier and that Steve Zaillian softened things up. But that was the direction Dino De Laurentiis was heading while Mamet was heading out of town. He was still trying to satisfy Jodie Foster's concerns about Clarice being flipped by Lecter, all the while he was trying to get her to sign a deal.

But Foster was not alone. There was an enormous uproar when Hannibal hit the book racks over this very same issue. As I say, I didn't read the book. But as far as a movie goes, that was a great idea for a twist. If it weren't in the novel, risk-adverse Hollywood would never risk such a thing. But it was. And it could have made Hannibal into the equivalent of Aliens, in which Jim Cameron took a haunted house movie and turned it into a war movie.

Which brings me to the good thing here. Ridley Scott shoots a beautiful movie. There is no doubt about it, Scott is one of the great visualists in the history of film. I would say that he has risen above that damnation-by-faint-praise by consistently making films that were smarter than most visualists attempt. In recent year, only Terry Gilliam and now, David Fincher, with Fight Club, can come close to keeping up with him. Yet, my feeling was that there were big plot holes, really moral holes, in Gladiator, causing me to call it "the first Ridley Scott movie that Tony Scott could have made." I'm actually not sure that Tony has the visual chops to keep up with his older brother anymore either. Nonetheless, he once again is making a beautiful looking film with some great performances. (God, is Oldman good in the kind of role the aging Laurence Olivier ate up with a spoon!) But once again, there are big, gaping holes all over the place. Emotional craters.

Scott is particularly unhelpful to his supporting cast, which is made of some great actors who end up slumming. Even Frankie Faison deserved better and gave us more with less screen time in Silence of the Lambs. But Giancarlo Giannini is reduced to a caricature of a good man making a bad decision, as characters around him comment on his situation so overtly that I was waiting for Basil Exposition to appear. Zeljko Ivanek is stuck with an invisible character arc. And Ray Liotta has a career low, playing a cartoon version of… well, Ray Liotta. Not pretty.

And so, what is wrong with Hannibal? Lots. And you know what? Lots of people will love it anyway. It's Ridley Scott's first foray into the Grand Guignol and he barely dips a toe into the water. But if there was ever a man who would be the perfect director for a new (maybe musical) version of the Phantom of the Opera, he's the one. But Terry Gilliam would have made a better version of this story. It would have been a fascinating exercise in restraint for Tim Burton to have tried his hand. And for all the screaming over Fight Club, Fincher's sense of personal responsibility, which runs through all of his film work, would be too strong to be good for this film.

Hannibal is a beautiful mess. Take your joys when you can because the well is often dry. (We'll discuss it more specifically in a couple of weeks, after most of you have had a chance to see the film.) Meanwhile, it may be the wettest source for a while…

READER OF THE DAY: Not Tony Soprano: "You bet I'll see Hannibal on opening day. Even though you seem to have some problems with it, most of the early reviews have been good, to very good, to great (except for Newsweek). I adored the novel. I adore Ridley Scott. I adore Julianne Moore. And what can we say about Hopkins; he's playing the role of his life...again! Steve Zaillian as far as I know is one of the top five screenwriters in Hollywood and I don't see how under all that pressure Zaillian could not have delivered the goods. I expect more bad reviews (including yours I guess), but I bet this film will make people talk. And I bet you I'll love it. I won't literally be ON LINE. I'll just buy my tickets when whenever possible and see the film when I can."

And this from Not Tom Cruise: "About Jodie...as much as I love and adore the woman, she needs to sit back and do some great work, a la Cameron Diaz with Being John Malkovich, again. Anna and The King did NOT need to be made. I don't know yet whether she made a good decision to stay away from Hannibal. Personally, I would've gone back there if I were her. I haven't read nearly enough about her nun role in whatever that new movie's called, but I'm hoping she comes up with some aces soon. I've enjoyed her producing work (having seen Waking the Dead) a lot, but Foster needs to get in front of the camera. Being on the Cannes jury might've been fun, but working on a film's probably funner."

E ME: Lots of rumors all over…. what's you favorite theory of the week?