What happens in Hannibal? Does Clarice Starling have sex with Hannibal Lecter? Does she eat brains with him?
Yes, it’s implied anyway. And yes, brains sauteed in butter.
Hannibal and Starling go off into hiding together
How old is Lecter in the book?
have you seen the film? it bears little or no resemblance to the book, especially the ending. things ae swopped around, mason vergers sister, whos pretty pivotal in the proceedings, is missing, plus another bunch of crap they threw in that i dont remember.
the above spoiler box, its not really implied, it says what they do in the book.
Hannibal is nothing more an old-timey serial. Part 1 ends with our plucky heroine under the sway of the diabolical villain, doing things she never dreamed she’d do before. How can she escape? Will she ever get out from under his clutches and put him in jail? Tune in to part 2 for the answers to these and other exciting questions.
:rolleyes:
SPOILERS
Clarice doesn’t just go with Hannibal Lecter, he brainwashes her. After her injury with the pigs at Mason’s place, he nursed her back to health and pumped drugs into her, leaving her in a lucid state throughout most of the end of the book and totally dependent on Lecter. Under this influence, she does eat part sof Krendle’s brain. Lecter then used drugs to manipulate her, using her fragile feelings about her father (he even shows her his dug up skeleton) and failure at the FBI to make her fall in love with him. He mentions how she was the substitute he was looking for to replace his dead sister Mischa, who was eaten by criminals in WWII.
In the end, they are at function together and Barney sees them. It mentions how Clarice has to hear a certain note for her to snap out of it.
Lecter was born in early 1938. The timeline of the book Hannibal is all messed up. Officially it’s supposed to take place about ten years after the book Silence of the Lambs, so around 1991 or 1993 (SOL took place around 1983). But in the book it makes references to the song “Macarena” and I think it mentions the year 1999. So Lecter would be sixty-one based on this. I wish Harris would have looked back to his other books for some continuity.
One more quick question:
Does it really suck that bad? I had heard the rumors of Clarice being sucked into Hannibal’s life and such, so I never read it/seen it. Now hearing even more, I’m never going to see or head them. Ugh. I can perfectly understand why Jodie Foster would refuse to do the movie.
So, how’s the movie end? And how does the book end? From the descriptions, it sounds like there is no real ending, which would not surprise me in least given that Harris has turned into a two bit gutter whore and hollywood is hollywood. Tis a shame.
Well, I may head them but I surely won’t Read them.
the movie ends with Lecter kinda trying to seduce Clarice (no drugs, hypnosis or Dad-skeleton) but she resists (to which Lecter displays respect-“That’s my girl!”) & handcuffs him to herself. He picks up a cleaver (“This is really going to hurt”). Cut G to the authorities coming to her rescue as she looks over the dark lake he boated across.
Cut to him with bandaged handless wrist on an airplane, talking with a little boy who wants a taste of Lecter’s snack, a wee bowl of brains.
I actually liked the book AND the movie- my main disappointment with the book being the attempt to “explain” Lecter (his beloved little Sis eaten by starving Nazi soldiers during WWII) while my main disappointment with the movie (which wisely omits the “explanation”)
being the absence of Verger’s Sister (whether or not they stayed faithful to the book making her a lesbian bodybuilder, in which case Chynna would have been good casting).
The thought is that Harris wrote the book as he did to kill the demand for another sequel by turning off his audience. He approved of the milder ending for the movie (I’m not sure if he actually wrote it for the scriptwriter to adapt).
Essentially, if you liked Red Dragon & Silence, book or movie, you should try Hannibal, if only to have completed the trilogy- then at worst, you can enjoy bitching about it to all & sundry.
Yeah, the whole idea that Lecter is obsessed with the idea of entropy (is that the right word?) and the idea that his little sister can some how take Starling’s place is a little strange, and the ending where she talks to her dead dad and holds his skull is just creepy.
But I really liked both the book and the movie and if you liked Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon it’s worth reading (if only to see Krendler get his come-uppance).
I think where the book succeeds is in making more evident Starling’s ostracization from the FBI after the shoot-out debacle in the beginning. Her connection with Lecter becomes the only asset she has to the Bureau, and it’s something I think she loathes but lives for, as it provides her an opportunity to excel in her profession. Krendler wants the glory for himself, and his ego is his downfall.
Harris also goes more in depth regarding Starling’s personal life, especially her relationship with her father which, as others posted above, provides Lecter a way to establish an emotional connection with her. IMO, Starling had nowhere to go after the Bureau booted her, and Lecter became the only person to whom she could turn, as he was the only person who knew her secrets like stopping the lambs from screaming and her family life. She’s an absolute mess, far from the relatively composed heroine Julianne Moore portrayed in the film.
I would have liked to see the film end as the book did, with Lecter and Starling touring the world together. The film ending, while sort of grossly humorous, felt trite and lame in that it set things up for yet another installment. Hannibal reads a lot like Red Dragon in that it ends with the hero(ine) in something of a moral quandry. Starling embarks on a relationship with Lecter, which I thought (it’s been awhile since I read it) did have a sexual component to it, and IIRC without the drugs. I felt she went with Lecter because she thought she had nowhere else to go. It’s a more complicated ending than the film.
I wonder why Lecter never went after Will Graham when he escaped. He finished Dr. Chilton off. He really hated Graham in Red Dragon, but seems to entirely forget him in Hannibal.
And it’s also too bad we never find out more what happens to Graham. In SOTL all we hear is he is divorced from his wife, and a scarred up alcoholic in Florida.
I took the book ‘Hannibal’ as follows -
Impossibly successful author takes two year holiday in Italy before realising deadline to new novel aproaches - cut to - the most vile manuscript he is able to muster dropping on editors desk as a sure-fire way to get more time. Lo! Editor accepts repugnant first draft as the cash cow it is and publishes!
He is then glad to accept any toning down the movie script makes.
What do I know!