The Red Dragon is the national flag of Wales. Red Dragon is also a tile in Mahjong.
| Red Dragon (2002) | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Brett Ratner |
| Written by | Thomas Harris |
| Produced by | Dino De Laurentiis |
| Starring | Edward Norton Anthony Hopkins Ralph Fiennes Harvey Keitel Emily Watson Philip Seymour Hoffman Mary-Louise Parker |
| Music by | Danny Elfman |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release dates | October 4, 2002 |
Running time | 124 min. |
| Language | English |
Red Dragon is a novel written by Thomas Harris featuring the brilliant psychiatrist and serial killer Hannibal Lecter. It was originally published in 1981, but found a new audience in the early 1990s after the success of its sequel, The Silence of the Lambs. The title refers to a painting by William Blake, The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun.
Red Dragon is, in both publishing chronology and story order, the first book in the Lecter trilogy. The story takes place before the events in The Silence of the Lambs, and after Lecter's original capture and incarceration. While Lecter plays a central role, Red Dragon focuses more on the characters of Will Graham and the tortured serial killer, Francis Dolarhyde.
The story has been filmed twice. The first film, released in 1986 under the title Manhunter, was directed by Michael Mann and focused on FBI Special Agent Will Graham, played by William Petersen. Lecter was played by Brian Cox. The second film, which used the title Red Dragon, appeared in 2002. Directed by Brett Ratner and written by Ted Tally (who also wrote the screenplay for Silence of the Lambs), it starred Edward Norton as Graham and Anthony Hopkins as Lecter — a role he had, by then, played twice before in The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal. This film is set to be followed by Young Hannibal.
Cast
- Anthony Hopkins - Hannibal Lecter
- Edward Norton - Will Graham
- Ralph Fiennes - Francis Dolarhyde
- Emily Watson - Reba McClane
- Mary Louise Parker - Molly Graham
- Harvey Keitel - Jack Crawford
- Philip Seymour Hoffman - Freddy Lounds
- Frankie Faison - Barney
Synopsis
Template:Spoiler Will Graham, who captured Lecter, was nearly killed in the process. He is called out of retirement to help track down a serial killer known to law enforcement agencies and the press only as "The Tooth Fairy," who has murdered two families. Graham turns to Lecter for help, but discovers that Lecter is manipulating not only him but also the man he is hunting.
The relationship between Lecter and Graham parallels the relationship between Lecter and Clarice Starling in the later books, but has very different overtones. Lecter treats Starling as an unworthy student but Graham as a fellow professional (though not an equal). Lecter's acceptance of Graham does not stop at the being "professional" level, but extends further into the overlapping realm between Graham's and Lecter's psyches.
A complication in the investigation is Freddie Lounds, a tabloid reporter who once ran afoul of Graham during the Lecter case and is now dogging him to get the story on "The Tooth Fairy". "The Tooth Fairy" is Francis Dolarhyde. Dolarhyde, an avid reader of Lounds' paper, The National Tattler, is displeased with what Lounds writes about him, and brutally murders him.
Dolarhyde meets Reba McClane, a blind co-worker at Chromalux Film & Videotape Services, where Dolarhyde's work gives him access to the home movies which the company transfers to video cassette. Dolarhyde and McClane begin a romantic relationship. Dolarhyde's newfound love conflicts with his homicidal urges, which manifest themselves in his mind as a separate personality he calls "The Great Red Dragon," after the Blake painting. Posing as a researcher, Dolarhyde enters the Brooklyn Museum, beats a museum secretary unconscious, and eats the original Blake watercolour of The Red Dragon which is kept there, believing that if he consumes the Dragon, he can stop killing and pursue a normal relationship with McClane.
After Lecter gives Dolarhyde Graham's address in code (through the personal advertisements in The Tattler), thus endangering Graham and his family, Graham becomes obsessed with the case, eventually figuring out that the killer knew the layout of his victims' houses from their home videos, which he only could have seen if he worked for Chromalux. Sensing that he is about to be caught, Dolarhyde goes to see McClane one last time, but finds her talking to a co-worker, Ralph Mandy. Dolorhyde becomes enraged, kills Ralph Mandy, kidnaps McClane and, having taken her to his house, sets the place on fire. He apparently intends to kill her and then himself, but finds himself unable to shoot her. After he apparently shoots himself, McClane escapes. Graham is given Dolarhyde's scrapbook, saved from the wreckage of the house, which details the killer's obsession with the Blake painting and his admiration of Hannibal Lecter as well as the abuse Dolarhyde suffered as a child at the hands of his grandmother, which evidently turned him into a monster.
It transpires that Dolarhyde had not shot himself, but merely the body of a previous victim (in the movie Red Dragon, the body is that of Ralph Mandy; in the novel, it is that of a petrol station attendant with whom Dolarhyde had had a previous confrontation). Dolarhyde pursues Graham to his home, and attacks Graham's family. In the movie Red Dragon, Graham uses the same terms that Dolarhyde's grandmother had used against him (eg. "dirty little beast", threatening to cut off his penis, a threat Dolarhyde's grandmother had used to prevent him from bedwetting as a child). This enrages Dolarhyde, who attacks Graham, allowing his son to escape to safety (this episode was added for the movie to prevent a rather graphically violent attack scene from ensuing). Dolarhyde gains the upper hand and is about to kill Graham when Graham's wife, Molly, shoots Dolarhyde. After recovering, Graham receives a letter from Lecter. In the book, Dolarhyde stabs Graham in the face, but is attacked by Molly, who strikes him with an aluminium fishing rod, embedding a barbed hook into his cheek.
Mann's Manhunter was a very loose adaptation, leaving out Dolarhyde's backstory and having him die at Graham's hands during the fire. Ratner's Red Dragon was more faithful to the novel, although it expanded Lecter's role to capitalize on the popularity of Hopkins' famous interpretation of that character.
One of the main themes covered in the book is Will Graham's struggle with his own nature: specifically, his ability to think and feel like a serial killer. Will's greatest fear is that he differs from the likes of Lecter and Dolarhyde by only the slim barrier erected by personal choice; that he is really a deranged and demented being who chooses to engage in an eternal standoff with his darker impulses. This ability to have final dominance over one's impulses is what Dolarhyde sought to establish by eating the Blake painting.
It is no accident that Lecter calls Dolarhyde 'Pilgrim'. Yet, where Lecter is base and primal in his communications with Dolarhyde ("You're very beautiful"), he behaves in a cultured, refined manner in his dealings with Graham. Lecter symbolizes a midpoint between the two journeyman 'monsters': Dolarhyde, who is at a 'less-evolved' state where he still acts solely to sate his impulses, and Graham, who instead fights his darker nature and uses it to hunt those who would not share his fight. Lecter, who has chosen to rationalize and intellectualize his actions by killing only the rude and incompetent, seems to harbor an affinity towards Graham, perhaps because of their similar backgrounds in academia and their mutual disdain for 'irrational' killing, but most likely because Graham's decision is based on choice. Dolarhyde, in believing he has no choice in the matter, exhibits weaker mental fortitude, and thus places himself below Graham in Lecter's eyes.
A key moment in this storyline occurs when Graham tries to goad Lecter into helping him catch the Dragon. Graham suggests it would be an opportunity to prove that Lecter is smarter than the emerging Dragon character. Lecter proves himself capable of meeting Graham's challenge, ruining both Dolarhyde and Graham, having set the two against each other. Dolarhyde leaves Graham with a permanent disfigurement - something Graham's mind will be hard-pressed to ignore as a sort of 'mark of the beast', a reminder of what he is. Harris foreshadows Graham's fate during Lecter and Graham's exchange on the Tooth Fairy's self-loathing and disfigurement.
Lecter accomplishes all of this on a whim while incarcerated in a maximum security facility.
Lecter's wit and charm, his ability to toy with people and to remain a serious threat even while imprisoned and heavily restrained and the obvious fear he evokes through this, were all used by Harris to create a dark mystique and infamy around the Lecter character, which Harris highlights by refusing to ever directly mention the nature of Lecter's crimes or his exact methods of murder. This leaves the reader with the challenge of reconciling the debonair and affluent, if evidently sadistic character whom they are introduced to through the narrative, with the psychotic mass-murderer perception Harris deliberately builds up around the character of Dr. Lecter, but never in his presence. It was these qualities and their contrast with the usual slasher-story method of totally dehumanizing the killer through excruciating explication which made the Lecter character such a show-stealer, and set the stage for that character to become the subject-in-his-own-right of the now world-famous "Hannibal Lecter" series of books which have inspired the blockbuster films.
Response
Red Dragon was a box office success, earning $92,930,005 in the U.S. [1]. However, the film received a considerable amount of negative critical reviews. While some reviewers, such as Roger Ebert, were enthusiastic about the remake, many critics compared it unfavorably to Manhunter:
“The best thing about Red Dragon, the second adaptation of Thomas Harris' 1981 novel, is that it reminds you how scary and seminal the first adaptation—Michael Mann's Manhunter (1986)—was.” David Edelstein, Slate [2]
“…utterly unnecessary remake of Michael Mann's adroit 1986 thriller Manhunter. Red Dragon's formula is so risible and rote by now that the natural reaction to scenes of peril, torture, and suffering is flippant laughter." - Michael Atkinson, Village Voice [3]
“We've already seen the prequel to The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal -- and it was better the first time.” Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com [4]
“…it all feels like a revved-up, market-driven rehash of a once-thrilling film. “ --Edward Guthman, San Francisco Chronicle [5]
“Manhunter was a more stylish film, but it was also richer in its psychology…” Gary Susman, Boston Phoenix [6]
"…a thriller too timid to thrill because it's the devil we not only know, but that audiences have come to love…Dragon is akin to artistic bankruptcy. The movie could have been directed by "Avid Fan,"' the sobriquet the Tooth Fairy uses in his letters to Lecter. --Elvis Mitchell, New York Times[7]
“…Red Dragon suffers from franchise fatigue. Its rote suspense is strictly a business proposition.” Peter Travers, Rolling Stone [8]
Trivia
- Director Brett Ratner wanted Michael Mann, who directed Manhunter, to make a cameo as a taxi driver.
- When the film was released in 2002, Edward Norton was 33 years old. When the original film, Manhunter was released, William Petersen (who originated the Will Graham character) was also 33 years old.
- Harvey Keitel plays a character originally played by Dennis Farina in Manhunter. In Get Shorty, Keitel played Farina's character in the movie within a movie.
- In this film, Frankie Faison reprises his role as Barney, the orderly from The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal. Faison is the only person to appear in all four Hannibal Lecter films, having played Lt. Fisk in Manhunter.
- Anthony Heald who reprised his role as Dr. Frederick Chilton wore a hair piece to match the hair style he had in The Silence of the Lambs because at the time of shooting he sported a crew cut while in the TV show Boston Public.
- The end of the film leads into the beginning of The Silence of the Lambs. While not explicitly stated, it is implied that Hannibal Lecter's female vistor is Clarice Starling.
- Edward Norton used his paycheck to finance his next film, 25th Hour.
External links
