Hannibal

This is the fourth time I've sat down to write about Hannibal. When pontificating about a new piece of art, I always try to let it sit for a few days. To turn it over in my brain at odd moments, explore it from weird angles, attack from the corners. Usually this works. By the time there's a cursor blinking in front of me, I've formed some sort of opinon. That isn't to say that my ideas and conceptions can't evolve after I've begun writing, because of course they can. But I try, always, to write from a place of careful consideration, to have given the piece respect and attention, and to know more or less what I think and want to say. About Hannibal, I think and say this: It's the best TV show I've ever seen, and I'm not sure I ever want to watch it again.

I went in expecting cliches. Thomas Harris has never been a particularly good writer, and the bluntness of his storytelling choices hamstrung each of the many adaptations. Silence of The Lambs (novel, not film), has a certain lurid, fever-dream intensity that translates well to celluloid, and the movie is elevated by terrific acting and Jonathan Demme's artistry as a visual craftsman. It's worth watching, but the plot itself is rote. Ridley Scott and Bret Ratner managed to variously and creatively bungle two more movies, neither of which comes from a novel I'd advise wasting your time in reading. The best of the films remains the first, Michael Mann's wonderfully atmospheric Manhunter. But, then again, Mann has long been one of the few auteurs able to elevate crappy writing through the force of his vision. Long story short: Two of the books and three of the movies (the less said about Hannibal Rising, the better) suck, and the good ones are more of a "has redeeming qualities" kind of good. Plus, the whole shtick felt played-out in the nineties.

So what did Bryan Fuller do? In the words of Marsellus Wallace, he went medieval on your asses. Hannibal is brutal. Truly, utterly, brutal. And gorgeous. Haunting, funny, smart and deeply curious about human nature. That last bit is what I most want to discuss. Hannibal, above all, is a brilliant show about psychology.  Consider that the majority of characters are either shrinks, or vastly experienced in the twisting perversities of the human mind. This has two effects: First, it requires the show to treat its characters with immense respect in order to remain credible. These are smart, meticulous people chasing Hannibal, and they're really fucking good at what they do. To stay ahead of the pack, Hannibal must be brilliant, bold, and resourceful. I hate idiot plots. This is miles away. Second effect: The show is unique in that it considers the consequences of violence on those who commit, are victimized by, and study it.

Binge watching season 2 over the past couple of weeks, I've been struck by the amount of murder tableaus that feature what you might call the "Life Cycle." Mushrooms growing out of flesh, flowers blooming in a chest-cavity, a totem of bodies. The totem, centerpiece of the season 1 highlight Trou Normand, is especially emblamatic of the show's overall project. The violence that created it is, in the mind of Larry Wells, his true legacy. He thinks that these horrific acts make him powerful, magnificent. Instead, as it ends, he's just a sad old man dooming himself to watch his line die. The show respects his grief, even as it expects us to be repulsed by him. Any television program can show us gruesome murder and expect to create feelings of horror and disgust in the audience (Fox's worthless The Following springs to mind), but so very few can carefully and intelligently dissect the consequences of living a violent life, while appreciating and delving the effects on both heros and villains.

That dissonance, between action and consequence, is the primary weakness of the titular friendly neighborhood cannibal. The show has caused much internet chatter to the effect of Hannibal Lecter being a perfect man. I see where the ladies are coming from. Handsome, sophisticated, enthusiastic about tailored suits etc etc. But what does he want? What is the goal underlying his streak of murders. Not cannibalism, or not only that. If Hannibal simply wanted to harvest human flesh, there are a lot of quieter and more discreet ways he could go about it. General sadism? This is probably an element of his personality, but he's too controlled, too careful for it override caution as we've seen in the second season. Gamesmanship? Again, that's part of it. Hannibal has something of the matador in his twist of a mind, something explosively ostentatious. But still, an insufficient explanation. We don't know, we can't know. Hannibal is a shark in tailored seersucker, utterly other, but following an internal logic we can't understand even as we must respect it. We see the trail of corpses, and shudder. But the haunting thing is the thought that this guy may not even be crazy. He might just be ahead of the curve.