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{{Short description|Character created by Thomas Harris}}
{| class="infobox" style="width: 21em; font-size: 90%; text-align: left"
{{About|the character|the franchise|Hannibal Lecter (franchise){{!}}''Hannibal Lecter'' (franchise)}}
|-
{{Redirect|Hannibal the Cannibal|the real-life serial killer given this nickname|Robert Maudsley}}
! colspan="2" style="text-align:center;" | ''[[Hannibal Lecter|Hannibal Tetralogy]]'' character
{{Redirect|Dr. Lecter|the Action Bronson album|Dr. Lecter (album)}}
|-
{{Infobox character
| colspan="2" style="text-align:center;" | [[Image:Lafm-com-Red20Dragon.jpg|350 px| Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter in Red Dragon]]
| series = [[Hannibal Lecter (franchise)|Hannibal Lecter]]
|-
| image = Hannibal Lecter in_Silence of the Lambs.jpg
! colspan="2" style="text-align:center; font-size: larger; background-color: #001; color: #ffa;" |Hannibal Lecter
| caption = [[Anthony Hopkins]] as Lecter in 1991's ''[[The Silence of the Lambs (film)|The Silence of the Lambs]]''
|-
| first = ''[[Red Dragon (novel)|Red Dragon]]'' (1981)
! Aliases
| creator = [[Thomas Harris]]
| Lloyd Wyman<br>Doctor Fell
| portrayer = {{ubl|[[Brian Cox (actor)|Brian Cox]] (''[[Manhunter (film)|Manhunter]]'')|[[Anthony Hopkins]] (''[[The Silence of the Lambs (film)|The Silence of the Lambs]]'', ''[[Hannibal (2001 film)|Hannibal]]'', ''[[Red Dragon (2002 film)|Red Dragon]]'')|[[Gaspard Ulliel]] (''[[Hannibal Rising (film)|Hannibal Rising]]'')|Aaran Thomas (young; ''Hannibal Rising'')|[[Mads Mikkelsen]] (''[[Hannibal (TV series)|Hannibal]]'')}}
|-
| nickname = {{ubl|Hannibal the Cannibal|The Chesapeake Ripper}}
! Nicknames
| nationality = [[Lithuanian Americans|Lithuanian-American]]
| The Chesapeake Ripper<br>"Hannibal the Cannibal"
| alias = {{ubl|Lloyd Wyman|Dr. Fell|Mr. Closter}}
! Gender
| [[Male]]
| gender = Male
| occupation = {{ubl|[[Psychiatrist]]|[[Surgeon]] (former)}}
|-
| family = {{ubl|Count Lecter (father)|Simonetta Lecter ([[née#Maiden and married names|née]] [[Sforza]]) (mother)|Mischa Lecter (younger sister)}}
! Race
| title = {{ubl|Dr. Hannibal Lecter|[[Count]] Hannibal Lecter VIII}}
| [[Caucasian race|Caucasian]]
| relatives = {{ubl|Count Robert Lecter (uncle)|Lady Murasaki (aunt-by-marriage)|Balthus (cousin)<ref>{{cite web |first=Eugen|last=Weber|title=Guess Who's Coming To Dinner? |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jun-20-bk-48200-story.html |website=[[The Los Angeles Times]] |date=20 June 1999 |access-date=4 March 2022}}</ref>}}
|-
| significant_others = {{ubl|Lady Murasaki|Rachel DuBerry|[[Clarice Starling]] (novels)|Alana Bloom (TV series)|[[Will Graham (character)|Will Graham]] (TV series)|[[Bedelia Du Maurier]] (TV series)<!-- Per discussion, "Will Graham" is presently to be included and further discussion is open. -->}}
! Birth
}}
| [[1933]]
'''Dr. Hannibal Lecter''' is a character created by American novelist [[Thomas Harris]]. Lecter is a brilliant, [[human cannibalism|cannibalistic]] [[serial killer]] and former [[Forensic psychiatry|forensic psychiatrist]]; after his incarceration, he is consulted by [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] agents [[Will Graham (character)|Will Graham]] and [[Clarice Starling]] to help them find other serial killers.
|-
! Relationships
| [[Count Lecter]] (Father)<br>[[Simonetta Visconti]] (Mother)<br>[[Mischa Lecter]] (sister)<br>[[Robert Lecter]] (Uncle)<br>[[Lady Murasaki (Hannibal)|Lady Murasaki]] (aunt and later lover)<br>[[Clarice Starling]]
|-
! Enemies
| [[Vladis Grutas]]<br>[[Inspector Pascal Popil]]<br>[[Frederick Chilton]]<br>[[Mason Verger]]
|-
! Respected Rivals
| [[Will Graham]]<br>[[Clarice Starling]]
|-
![[Modus operandi|M.O.]]
|[[Serial killer#Organized_and_disorganized_types|Organized serial murder]], [[Cannibalism]], [[Torture murder|Torture]]
|-
! Portrayed by:
| '''''Manhunter'''''<br>[[Brian Cox]]<br>'''''The Silence of the Lambs''''', '''''Hannibal''''', & '''''Red Dragon'''''<br>[[Anthony Hopkins]]<br>'''''Hannibal Rising'''''<br>[[Gaspard Ulliel]], [[Aaron Thomas]]
|}


Lecter first appeared in a small role as a [[villain]] in Harris' 1981 [[thriller (genre)|thriller]] novel ''[[Red Dragon (novel)|Red Dragon]]'', which was adapted into the film [[Manhunter (film)|''Manhunter'']] (1986), with [[Brian Cox (actor)|Brian Cox]] as Lecter (spelled "Lecktor"). Lecter had a larger role in ''[[The Silence of the Lambs (novel)|The Silence of the Lambs]]'' (1988); the [[The Silence of the Lambs (film)|1991 film adaptation]] starred [[Anthony Hopkins]] as Lecter, for which he won the [[Academy Award for Best Actor]]. Hopkins reprised the role for the [[Hannibal (2001 film)|2001 adaptation]] of the 1999 novel ''[[Hannibal (Harris novel)|Hannibal]],'' which sees Lecter evading recapture, and for a [[Red Dragon (2002 film)|second adaptation of ''Red Dragon'']] in 2002.
'''Dr. Hannibal Lecter''' is a [[fictional character]] appearing in four [[novel]]s by author [[Thomas Harris]] and their film adaptations. Lecter (as portrayed by Sir [[Anthony Hopkins]]) is acknowledged by the [[American Film Institute]] to be the most memorable fictional [[villain]] in film history. [http://www.filmsite.org/afi100heroesvillb.html], [http://ofcs.rottentomatoes.com/pages/pr/top100villains]


The fourth novel, ''[[Hannibal Rising]]'' (2006), explores Lecter's childhood and development into a serial killer. He was played in the [[Hannibal Rising (film)|2007 film adaptation]] by [[Gaspard Ulliel]]. In the [[NBC]] television series ''[[Hannibal (TV series)|Hannibal]]'' (2013''–''2015), which focuses on Lecter's relationship with Graham, Lecter was played by [[Mads Mikkelsen]], who won the [[Saturn Award for Best Actor on Television]] for his performance.
Lecter appears in all four books in the series and their film adaptations. The first book of the series being ''[[Red Dragon]]'' (published in 1981, however the film name was changed to ''[[Manhunter (film)|Manhunter]]'', but remade in 2002 under the book title). The sequel to ''Red Dragon'' is ''[[The Silence of the Lambs]]'', which was published in 1988, but filmed with different actors than ''Manhunter'' in 1991. The next installment in the series was [[Hannibal (novel)|''Hannibal'']], which was published in 1999, and filmed in 2001. The latest and last book of the series, called ''[[Hannibal Rising]]'' was published in 2006, and filmed with it bearing the same title. The [[Hannibal Rising (film)|Hannibal Rising film]] is set to be released on February 9, 2007.


In 2003, Lecter, as portrayed by Hopkins, was named the [[AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains|greatest villain in American cinema]] by the [[American Film Institute]].<ref name="AFI's 100 Heroes & Villains">{{cite web | url= http://www.filmsite.org/afi100heroesvilla.html | title=AFI's 100 Heroes & Villains |date=June 2003 | work=American Film Institute | access-date=2007-02-12 }}</ref> In 2010, ''[[Entertainment Weekly]]'' named him one of the 100 greatest characters of the preceding 20 years.<ref name="Vary">{{cite magazine |first=Adam B.|last=Vary|title=The 100 Greatest Characters of the Last 20 Years: Here's our full list! |url=http://popwatch.ew.com/2010/06/01/100-greatest-characters-of-last-20-years-full-list/ |magazine=[[Entertainment Weekly]] |date=June 1, 2010|access-date=July 7, 2012}}</ref> In 2019, Lecter, as portrayed by Mikkelsen, was named the 18th greatest villain in television history by ''[[Rolling Stone]]''.<ref name="rollingstone.com">{{cite magazine | url=https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-lists/40-greatest-tv-villains-of-all-time-26500/hannibal-lecter-hannibal-24800/ | title=40 Greatest TV Villains of All Time | magazine=[[Rolling Stone]] | date=September 4, 2019 | access-date=January 1, 2020}}</ref>
In Harris' novels and their film adaptations, Lecter is a brilliant and cultured criminal [[psychiatry|psychiatrist]] turned [[cannibalism|cannibalistic]] [[psychopath]]. Being a resourceful [[serial killer]] and culinary artist, Lecter is more widely known by his less-than-desirable nickname "'''Hannibal the Cannibal'''", a publicity term given to him by tabloid newspaper ''National Tattler'', during the time that he stood trial for his crimes.


== Inspiration ==
[[Brian Cox]] was the first actor to portray Lecter, taking the role in ''Manhunter'', but due to Cox declining the role of Lecter for the sequel, the actor was changed to [[Anthony Hopkins|Sir Anthony Hopkins]] for the filming of ''[[The Silence of the Lambs]]''. Hopkins continued to portray Lecter in the following films (including the remake of ''Manhunter'' which was filmed under its original book title '''Red Dragon'''). However, Hopkins will not reprise his role in the upcoming film [[Hannibal Rising]], in which a younger version of Hannibal Lecter will be portrayed by [[Gaspard Ulliel]].
Working as a journalist for ''[[Argosy (magazine)|Argosy]]'' magazine in the 1960s, [[Thomas Harris]] traveled to Mexico to interview an American mental patient, Dykes Askew Simmons, who was being detained at Nuevo León State Prison in [[Monterrey]] for three murders. While jailed, Simmons had been shot by a prison guard, once in each calf, and he was treated by a skilled "prison-doctor" whom Harris had referred to as "Dr. Salazar". Harris described him as a "small, lithe man with dark red hair" who "stood very still" with "a certain elegance about him"; their interview eventually took a dark turn, Harris said, when Salazar started talking about “the nature of torment”. A prison guard later informed Harris that Salazar was, in fact, a convicted murderer who could "package his victim in a surprisingly small box".<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|last=Valdez|first=Maria G.|date=July 29, 2013|title=Thomas Harris, 'Silence Of The Lambs' Author, Reveals Hannibal Lecter Was Inspired By Real Life Mexican Doctor|url=https://www.latintimes.com/thomas-harris-silence-lambs-author-reveals-hannibal-lecter-was-inspired-real-life-129778|access-date=November 12, 2020|website=Latin Times|language=en}}</ref> Salazar inspired Harris to create a character with a "peculiar understanding of the criminal mind".<ref name=":0" />
[[File:Doctor Balli.jpg|thumb|left|Doctor Alfredo Ballí Treviño, a convicted murderer, was the inspiration for Lecter.]]
Salazar is believed to be Alfredo Ballí Treviño, the last criminal to be condemned to death in Mexico, in 1959.<ref name=":0" /> Ballí was a surgeon and physician from an upper-class family who had murdered his colleague and lover, Jesus Castillo Rangel. Ballí had held a towel soaked in chloroform over Rangel’s face, causing him to lose consciousness; Ballí then transferred the body to an adjacent bathroom where he slit Rangel’s throat and drained his body completely of blood before dismembering his corpse. Ballí is suspected of killing and dismembering several hitchhikers in the countryside during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Harris incorporated some of these details into [[Buffalo Bill (character)|Buffalo Bill]]'s development as a killer in [[The Silence of the Lambs (novel)|''The Silence of the Lambs'']].<ref>{{cite magazine|first=Diego Enrique |last=Osorno|url=https://www.vice.com/es_mx/read/hannibal-lecter-es-de-monterrey |title=Hannibal Lecter es de Monterrey |magazine=[[Vice (magazine)|VICE]] |language=es |date=July 29, 2013|access-date=July 22, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|first=Umberto|last=Bacchi|url=http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/495908/20130731/hannibal-lecter-gay-mexican-doctor-alfredo-ball.htm|title=Real Hannibal Lecter was Murderous Gay Mexican Doctor Alfredo Ballí Treviño|newspaper=[[International Business Times]]|date=July 31, 2013|access-date=July 22, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|first=Maria G.|last=Valdez|url=http://www.latintimes.com/articles/6867/20130730/real-hannibal-lecter-gay-mexican-doctor-alfredo-balli-trevino-inspiration-thomas-harris-silence-lambs-25-anniversary.htm|title=Who Was The Real Hannibal Lecter?|newspaper=[[Latin Times]]|date=July 30, 2013|access-date=July 22, 2018}}</ref>


In her book ''Evil Serial Killers'', [[Charlotte Greig]] asserts Lecter was inspired at least in part by the serial killer [[Albert Fish]].<ref>{{cite book|first=Charlotte|last=Grieg|title=Evil Serial Killers: In the Minds of Monsters|publisher=Arcturus Publishing|location=London, England|date=2009|isbn=978-1841932897|page=27}}</ref> Greig also states that, to explain Lecter's pathology, Harris borrowed the possibly apocryphal story of serial killer and cannibal [[Andrei Chikatilo]]'s brother Stepan being kidnapped and eaten by starving neighbors.<ref>Grieg, pg. 102</ref> The location of the book ''[[Hannibal (Harris novel)|Hannibal]]'' was inspired by the [[Monster of Florence]] and, while preparing the book, Harris traveled to [[Italy]] and was present at the trial of the main suspect, [[Pietro Pacciani]].<ref>{{cite web | first=Douglas | last=Preston | title=The Monster of Florence | url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/07/the-monster-of-florence/304981/ | work=[[The Atlantic]] | date=July–August 2006 | access-date=March 26, 2017}}</ref>
In a commentary on [[The Criterion Collection]] [[DVD]] version of ''The Silence of the Lambs'', Hopkins claims the villainous [[computer]] [[HAL 9000]] from [[Stanley Kubrick]]'s ''[[2001: A Space Odyssey (film)|2001: A Space Odyssey]]'' as one inspiration for his interpretation of the character. Cox stated on the ''Manhunter'' DVD interview that his main inspiration for playing Lecter was [[Scottish people|Scottish]] serial killer [[Peter Manuel]], who, according to Cox, "didn't have a sense of right or wrong."


==Character==
Harris, who rarely gives [[interview]]s, has never definitively explained his influences for creating Lecter, but real-life cannibalistic murderers such as [[Albert Fish]] and [[Issei Sagawa]] have been suggested to be possible influences. In 1992, Harris also paid a visit to the ongoing trials of [[Pietro Pacciani]], who was suspected of being the infamous serial killer who was nicknamed the "Monster of Florence". Parts of Pacciani's killing methods were used as reference for the novel ''Hannibal''.
Hannibal Lecter is a child of [[Lithuanian nobility]] and of the [[Visconti of Milan|Visconti]] and [[House of Sforza|Sforza]] families of [[Italy]], and he is also a [[Human cannibalism|cannibalistic]] [[serial killer]]. He is highly intelligent and cultured, with refined tastes and impeccable manners. He is deeply offended by rudeness, and often kills people who exhibit bad manners; according to the novel [[Hannibal (Harris novel)|''Hannibal'']], he "prefers to eat the rude".<ref name=":2">{{Cite news |last=Clarke |first=Cath |date=October 13, 2017 |title=An old friend for dinner ... why we're not scared of Hannibal Lecter any more |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/oct/13/an-old-friend-for-dinner-why-were-not-scared-of-hannibal-lecter-any-more |access-date=November 17, 2020 |work=[[The Guardian]] |location=London, England |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref> Hopkins described Lecter as the "[[Robin Hood]] of killers", who kills "the terminally rude".<ref name="actor">{{cite news|last=Rose|authorlink=Charlie Rose|first=Charlie|date=30 January 2001|title=60 Minutes: Actors' Take On Ridley Scott|work=[[CBS News]]|url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/actors-take-on-ridley-scott/|access-date=8 June 2007}}</ref>


In the novel ''[[Red Dragon (novel)|Red Dragon]]'', the protagonist, [[Will Graham (character)|Will Graham]], says that psychologists refer to Lecter as a [[Antisocial personality disorder|sociopath]] "because they don't know what else to call him". Graham says "he has no remorse or guilt at all", and tortured animals as a child, but he does not exhibit any of the [[Macdonald triad|other criteria]] traditionally associated with sociopathy. Asked how he himself would describe Lecter, Graham responded, "he's a monster. I think of him as one of those pitiful things that are born in hospitals from time to time. They feed it, and keep it warm, but they don't put it on the machines and it dies. Lecter is the same way in his head, but he looks normal and nobody could tell."<ref>{{cite book|first=Thomas|last=Harris|author-link=Thomas Harris|title=Red Dragon|publisher=[[G. P. Putnam's Sons]]|location=New York City|date=1988|page=67|quote=He's a monster. I think of him as one of those pitiful things that are born in hospitals from time to time. They feed it, and keep it warm, but they don't put it on the machines and it dies. Lecter is the same way in his head, but he looks normal and nobody could tell.}}</ref>
==Biography==
::''The following account of the character's life is based strictly on information presented in the "Hannibal Rising" novel. The inconsistencies presented later in the canon were fabrications made by Lecter, simply to avoid capture or direct psychological profiling.''{{fact}}
{{spoiler}}
===Early life===
[[Image:Hannibalstill12.PNG|200px|thumb|Hannibal Lecter, along with his sister Mischa, kidnapped by Vladis Grutas' band of deserters in a scene from ''Hannibal Rising''.]]
Hannibal Lecter, the eighth of his line to bear the name "Hannibal," was born in [[Lithuania]] in late [[1932]] or early [[1933]] to a wealthy aristocratic family. His father (so far unnamed) was a count, his title dating back to the tenth century. Among the noted members of his line was Hannibal the Grim (1365-1428), a warlord who helped to defeat the [[Teutonic Order]] at the [[Battle of Grunwald]]. His mother, Madame Simonetta Sforza, was a scion of two famous Milanese houses, the [[House of Sforza|Sforza]] on one side and the [[House of Visconti|Visconti]] on the other. The Visconti, one of the wealthiest families in Italy, ruled Milan for one hundred seventy years (1277-1447) until it fell to the Sforza, who ruled it for another eighty years (1450-1535). He had a younger sister named [[Mischa Lecter|Mischa]], born in the fall of 1939.


In [[The Silence of the Lambs (novel)|''The Silence of the Lambs'']], Lecter's keeper, Dr. [[Frederick Chilton]], claims that Lecter is a "pure sociopath" ("pure [[Psychopathy|psychopath]]" in the film adaptation). In the film adaptation of ''The Silence of the Lambs'', protagonist [[Clarice Starling]] says of Lecter, "They don't have a name for what he is". Lecter's pathology is explored in greater detail in ''Hannibal'' and ''[[Hannibal Rising]]'', which explains that he was [[Psychological trauma|traumatized]] as a child in [[Lithuania]] in 1944 when he witnessed his beloved sister, Mischa, being murdered and cannibalized by a group of deserting [[Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy#Lithuania|Lithuanian]] [[Hiwi (volunteer)|Hilfswillige]], one of whom claimed that Lecter unwittingly ate his sister as well.
It has been suggested, with little evidence other than fragmentary family records, that Lecter was descended, presumably through his mother, from one Giuliano Bevisangue, a feared and ruthless figure in twelfth-century Tuscany, and from the Machiavelli bloodline in addition to the Visconti and Sforza. In the book ''Hannibal'', Lecter himself would pursue this subject, to determine from the records of the Capponi Library if there was any true connection to Bevisangue, but he was unable to definitively answer the question. (the fictitious name Bevisangue is in fact a condensation in Italian of the verb ''bevere'' meaning "to drink," and the noun ''sangue'' meaning "blood," possibly meaning "Giuliano the Blood-Drinker." This may be Harris' subtle way of linking his character to the vampire tradition). ''Hannibal'' also asserted that Lecter was a cousin of the artist [[Balthus]]. This relationship was never touched on again, though it could be argued that Lecter's uncle, the fictitious painter Robert Lecter, exhibited many of the same traits as Balthus.


All media in which Lecter appears portray him as intellectually brilliant, cultured and sophisticated, with refined tastes in [[art]], [[music]] and [[cuisine]]. He is frequently depicted preparing gourmet meals from his victims' flesh, the most famous example being his admission that he once ate a census taker's [[liver]] "with some [[fava bean]]s and a nice [[Chianti]]" (a "big [[Amarone]]" in the novel). Prior to his capture and imprisonment, he was a member of [[Baltimore, Maryland]]'s social elite, and a sitting member of the Baltimore Philharmonic Orchestra's Board of Directors.
It quickly became apparent that Hannibal was marked from birth to be different; his left hand had a second middle finger next to the first, perfectly replicated. He was diagnosed with the rarest form of [[polydactyly]], a congenital irregularity of the hands or feet, manifesting itself in the occurrence of extra fingers or toes. This condition can vary from an unnoticeable rudimentary finger or toe, to fully developed extra digits, as was the case with young Lecter. It was a condition he never bothered to correct until after his escape from custody, when such a distinctive feature would have quickly led to his recapture; by the resurfaced, he had only the normal five fingers on his left hand, the scar left behind on the back of the hand covered by cosmetics and a tanning agent (the film adaptations of Harris' novels make no mention of this phenomenon; whatever actor portrayed Lecter in a given film had the usual five fingers on his left hand).


In the novel ''The Silence of the Lambs'', Lecter is described through Starling's eyes: "She could see that he was small, sleek; in his hands and arms she saw wiry strength like her own." The novel also reveals that Lecter's left hand has a rare condition called mid-ray duplication [[polydactyly]], i.e. a duplicated middle finger.<ref>{{cite book|first=Thomas|last=Harris|author-link=Thomas Harris|title=Silence of the Lambs|url=https://archive.org/details/silenceoflambs00harr_0|url-access=registration|publisher=[[St. Martin's Press]]|location=New York City|date=1988|page=[https://archive.org/details/silenceoflambs00harr_0/page/15 15]|isbn=9780312022822|quote=Dr. Lecter has six fingers on his left hand}}</ref> In ''Hannibal'', he performs plastic surgery on his own face on several occasions, and removes his extra digit. Lecter's eyes are a shade of maroon, and reflect the light in "pinpoints of red".<ref>{{cite book|first=Thomas|last=Harris|author-link=Thomas Harris|title=Silence of the Lambs|url=https://archive.org/details/silenceoflambs00harr_0|url-access=registration|publisher=[[St. Martin's Press]]|location=New York City|date=1988|page=[https://archive.org/details/silenceoflambs00harr_0/page/16 16]|isbn=9780312022822|quote=Dr. Lecter's eyes are maroon, and they reflect the light in pinpoints of red}}</ref> He has small white teeth<ref>{{cite book|first=Thomas|last=Harris|author-link=Thomas Harris|title=Silence of the Lambs|url=https://archive.org/details/silenceoflambs00harr_0|url-access=registration|publisher=[[St. Martin's Press]]|location=New York City|date=1988|page=[https://archive.org/details/silenceoflambs00harr_0/page/17 17]|isbn=9780312022822|quote=He tapped his small white teeth against the card and breathed in its smell}}</ref> and dark, slicked-back hair with a [[widow's peak]]. He also has a keen sense of smell; in ''Red Dragon'', he immediately recognizes Will Graham by his brand of aftershave, and in ''The Silence of the Lambs'', he is able to identify through a plexiglass window with small holes the brand of perfume that Starling wore the day before. He has an [[eidetic memory]] with which he has constructed in his mind an elaborate "[[memory palace]]" to relive memories and sensations in rich detail.
In ''Red Dragon'', Harris wrote that, as a child, Lecter showed his earliest sign of [[sociopathic]] behaviour: [[Sadism and Masochism|sadism]] towards animals. This early behavior doesn't fit seamlessly with his later characterization, which some fans are doubtful of his early mannerisms due to the inconsistency.[http://reddragon.hannotations.com/dragon1_9.html] It should also be pointed out that to be diagnosed as a true sociopath, Lecter must exhibit all three characteristics from the [[Diagnostic and Statistical Manual]]'s checklist. Lecter is seen to only exhibit two: a lack of [[remorse]] and habitual deceitfulness. However, Harris also wrote in ''Red Dragon'' that Lecter did not really fit any existing [[offender profiling|psychological condition]], so psychiatrists called him a sociopath for lack of another appropriate label. In ''Red Dragon'', [[Will Graham]] (a [[forensic psychology|forensic psychologist]] and Lecter's captor) says he believes Lecter is the way he is because of [[neurological]] disability, which would present a severe congenital deformity as well.


According to ''[[The Guardian]]'', before ''The Silence of the Lambs'', films portrayed psychopathic killers as "claw-handed bogeymen with melty faces and rubber masks. By contrast, Lecter was highly intelligent with impeccable manners."<ref name=":2" /> [[Anthony Hopkins]], the actor most closely identified with Lecter, said he played him as "ultra sane, very still ... He has such terrifying physical power, and he doesn't waste an ounce of energy. He's so contained. He's all brain."<ref name=":1">{{Cite magazine|first=Meredith|last=Berkeman|title=Playing Hannibal Lecter|url=https://ew.com/article/1991/03/29/playing-hannibal-lecter/|date=March 29, 1991|access-date=November 17, 2020|magazine=[[Entertainment Weekly]]|language=EN}}</ref> His performance was inspired by [[HAL 9000]] from [[Stanley Kubrick]]'s ''[[2001: A Space Odyssey (film)|2001: A Space Odyssey]]''. The critic [[Roger Ebert]] elaborated on this comparison: "He is a dispassionate, brilliant machine, superb at logic, deficient in emotions."<ref>{{cite book|first=Roger|last=Ebert|author-link=Roger Ebert|title=The Great Movies|publisher=[[Broadway Books]]|location=New York City|date=2003|isbn=978-0767910385|page=418|quote=His approach to Lecter's personality, Hopkins says on his commentary track, was inspired by HAL 9000 in ''2001'': He is a dispassionate, brilliant machine, superb at logic, deficient in emotions.}}</ref> In the same essay, Ebert wrote:<blockquote>
===Transition to murder===
One key to the film's appeal is that audiences ''like'' Hannibal Lecter...He may be a cannibal, but as a dinner party guest he would give value for money (if he didn't eat you). He does not bore, he likes to amuse, he has his standards, and he is the smartest person in the movie... He bears comparison, indeed, with such other movie monsters as [[Nosferatu]], [[Frankenstein's monster|Frankenstein]]... [[King Kong]] and [[Norman Bates]]. They have two things in common: They behave according to their natures, and they are misunderstood. Nothing that these monsters do is "evil" in any conventional moral sense, because they lack any moral sense. They are hard-wired to do what they do. They have no choice. In the areas where they do have choice, they try to do the right thing.<ref>Ebert, pg. 419</ref></blockquote>
In the winter of 1944-1945, when Lecter was twelve, his parents, governess, tutor, and family retainers died in the crossfire between a German [[Stuka]] Bomber and a Soviet [[T-34]] tank. Shortly thereafter, the lodge which his family had used as shelter from the war became invaded by a group of former Lithuanian collaborators, now tuned looters. Lecter, his sister, and other local children were rounded up by the looters to be killed and used as food during the cold [[Baltic region|Baltic]] winter. Four year old Mischa was killed and cannibalized, but young Lecter escaped. It is believed that this event would shape the rest of Lecter's life; Harris writes that when they had taken Mischa from the barn, Lecter had prayed to God to see his sister alive again, but instead he witnessed the deserters decapitate her with an axe. This destroyed his faith in [[God]], and he believed from then on that there was no real [[justice]] in the world. This event would later enable him to commit his first murders, acts of murder and even his first acts of cannibalism in order to avenge Mischa. Years later, he would come to see [[Clarice Starling]] as a surrogate for his beloved sister.
[[Image:Hannibal Rising (shot).jpg|thumb|left|200px|Gaspard Ulliel as Hannibal Lecter in the prequel ''Hannibal Rising'']]


==Appearances==
After the looters fled in their half-track, Hannibal wandered the forests until he was found by a single Soviet [[KV-1]] tank. The soldiers cut the chain around his neck, but it came away with pieces of his skin, a scar that never truly healed.


===Novels===
The Soviets returned Lecter to his family's castle, which he had not seen in four years. In the wake of the German shelling it had been converted into a Soviet orphanage. Often these orphanages were filled with hundreds, even thousands, of eastern European children left parentless by the war, children whose lives were marked by hostile and traumatic events, and who were angry and ready to lash out at any who came near. Such men became bullies; Hannibal, surprisingly, did not, but he was most certainly violent. While living there, he frequently attacked and severely wounded many of his fellow orphans, but only those who bullied, hurt or insulted others. Clearly the leader of the long-gone group of looters, Vladis Grutas, continued to haunt his thoughts, for as he said to Grutas himself much later, "''I put your face on every bully I ever hurt''." The little children, on the other hand, he treated quite respectfully, often letting them tease him a little, letting them believe him to be a crazed deaf-mute. He even gave them the few treats he had or could find in the squalor of the orphanage.
====''Red Dragon''====
In the backstory of the 1981 novel ''[[Red Dragon (novel)|Red Dragon]]'', [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] profiler [[Will Graham (character)|Will Graham]] interviews Lecter about one of his patients who was murdered by a serial killer, before intuiting that Lecter is the culprit; he sees the antique medical diagram "[[Wound Man]]" in Lecter's office, and remembers that the victim suffered the same injuries depicted in the drawing. Realizing that Graham is on to him, Lecter creeps up behind Graham and stabs him with a [[linoleum knife]], nearly disemboweling him.


Graham survives, but is so traumatized by the incident that he takes early retirement from the FBI. Lecter is charged with a series of nine murders, but is found [[not guilty by reason of insanity]]. He is institutionalized in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane under the care of Dr. [[Frederick Chilton]], a pompous, incompetent psychologist whom he despises, and who subjects him to a series of petty cruelties.
A short time later, he was taken to [[France]] by his uncle, and the new Count, Robert Lecter, a famous artist. Hannibal developed a close relationship to his aunt and adoptive mother, the [[Lady Murasaki (Hannibal)|Lady Murasaki]]. At age 13, he attacked a local butcher, Paul Momund, in retaliation for an obscene insult to his aunt. In doing so, he attracted the attention of his first lawman, Inspector Popil. Popil intuitively grasped what Lecter had become and, when Momund subseqently became Lecter's first murder victim (Lecter slashed him twice in the stomach with a [[katana]] and then beheaded him), Popil pressed him to admit his guilt. Lecter proved impenetrable, however, even passing a [[lie-detector]] test.


Some years later, Graham comes out of retirement and consults Lecter in order to catch another serial killer, [[Francis Dolarhyde]], known by the nickname "the Tooth Fairy". Through the [[classifieds]] of a [[Tabloid journalism|tabloid]] called ''The National Tattler'', Lecter provides Dolarhyde with Graham's home address; Dolarhyde later uses this information to break into Graham's home, stab him in the face, and threaten his family before Graham's wife Molly shoots him dead. At the end of the novel, Lecter sends Graham a letter, saying that he hopes Graham "won't be very ugly".
In 1951, Lecter returned to Lithuania and the scene of his sister's murder. While examining the ground, he unearthed remains of Mischa, and the dog-tags of the group of deserters who had killed her. One member of the group, Enrikas Dortlich, now an officer in the Soviet Border Guards, arrived at the scene intent on killing Lecter. Lecter surprised and murdered him (decapitation), however, dispensing poetic justice by consuming him, his first willful act of cannibalism. Dortlich's cheeks were removed and eaten ''en brochette'', grilled over the fire on a skewer in the classic French fashion, with wild [[morel]]s, fungi prized in French cuisine.


====''The Silence of the Lambs''====
Dortlich's murder put the group in alert; Grutas dispatched a second member of the group, Zigmas Milko, to eliminate the problem by either bribing Lecter or killing him. Lecter killed Milko instead, drowning him in [[formaldehyde]]. Grutas kidnapped Lady Murasaki and used her as a lure to draw Lecter to his death. Lecter, donning the [[tanto]] of his aunt's ancestor [[Date Masamune]], tracked Grutas to his houseboat. In a final confrontation, Grutas revealed that Lecter too had consumed his sister in broth fed to him by the soldiers. Enraged, Lecter eviscerated him by repeatedly carving his sister's initial into his body, howling "M for Mischa" over and over. He tried to reassure Lady Murasaki that he loved her. "What is left in you to love?" she demanded, before fleeing him by diving into [[Seine|the Seine]].
In the 1988 sequel ''[[The Silence of the Lambs (novel)|The Silence of the Lambs]]'', Lecter assists FBI agent-in-training [[Clarice Starling]] in catching a serial killer, Jame Gumb, known by the nickname "[[Buffalo Bill (character)|Buffalo Bill]]". Lecter is fascinated by Starling, and they form an unusual relationship in which he provides her with a [[Offender profiling|profile]] of the killer and his ''[[modus operandi]]'' in exchange for details about her unhappy childhood.


Lecter had previously met Gumb, the former lover of his patient (and eventual victim) Benjamin Raspail. He does not reveal this information directly, instead giving Starling vague clues to help her figure it out for herself. In return for Lecter's assistance, the FBI and Chilton arrange for him to be transferred to a federal institution with better living conditions.
Popil arrested Lecter for the murders, but there was little incentive for a trial; no evidence could be conclusively tied to him, and all the victims had been slavers and [[war crimes|war criminals]]. Lecter left France, killing the final member of the group, Bronys Grentz, while on a vacation in [[Montreal]], before returning to his internship at Baltimore.


Lecter escapes while in transit, however, killing and mutilating his guards and using one of their faces as a mask to fool police and paramedics before killing the latter and escaping. While in hiding, he writes one letter to Starling wishing her well, a second to Barney (his primary orderly at the asylum), thanking him for his courteous treatment, and a third to Chilton, promising gruesome revenge; Chilton disappears soon afterward.
===American career===
Lecter's drawings led to an internship at [[Johns Hopkins Hospital|Johns Hopkins Medical Center]] in [[Baltimore, Maryland]], where he graduated with a degree in [[medicine]] and eventually settled. Lecter established a [[psychiatry|psychiatric]] practice in Baltimore in the 1970s. He became a leading figure in Baltimore society and indulged his extravagant tastes, which he financed by influencing some of his patients to bequeath him large sums of money in their [[will (law)|will]]s. He became world-renowned as a brilliant psychiatrist, but he himself apparently had nothing but disdain for [[psychology]]; he would later criticize it as "puerile" and "on level with [[phrenology]]," and comment that most psychology departments were filled with "[[amateur radio|ham radio]] enthusiasts and other personality-deficient buffs."


====''Hannibal''====
Lecter killed at least nine people before his capture, becoming known in the Baltimore and Chesapeake area as "The [[Chesapeake]] Ripper". Only three of his victims survived, including Graham, an [[FBI]] profiler who was Lecter's captor and who figures largely in the [[plot]] of ''Red Dragon''. Another one of these, [[Mason Verger]], figures largely in the plot of ''Hannibal''.
In the third novel, 1999's ''[[Hannibal (Harris novel)|Hannibal]]'', Lecter lives in a [[palazzo]] in [[Florence]], [[Italy]], and works as a [[museum]] [[curator]] under the alias "Dr. Fell". One of Lecter's two surviving victims, [[Mason Verger]]&mdash;a wealthy, [[Sadistic personality disorder|sadistic]] [[Pedophilia|pedophile]] whom Lecter had brutalized during a court-ordered therapy session, leaving him a horrifically disfigured [[quadriplegic]]&mdash;offers a huge reward for anyone who apprehends Lecter, whom he intends to feed to [[wild boar]]s specially bred for the purpose.


Verger enlists the help of Rinaldo Pazzi, a disgraced Italian police inspector, and Paul Krendler, a corrupt [[United States Department of Justice|Justice Department]] official and Starling's boss. Lecter kills Pazzi and returns to the United States to escape Verger's [[Sardinia]]n henchmen, only to be captured. Starling follows them, intent on apprehending Lecter personally, and is injured in a gunfight with Verger's henchmen. Lecter escapes, thanks to Starling's help, and persuades Verger's younger sister Margot&mdash;his former patient, whom Verger had [[Child molestation|molested]] and [[rape]]d years earlier&mdash;to kill her brother, promising to take the blame.
Only two of his nine pre-incarceration victims after he came into the United States are known by name in the books: Benjamin Raspail and Verger. Mason was the son of Molston Verger, a very wealthy and influential businessman who owned a meat-packing empire. Mason went through psychiatric counseling with Lecter as part of a court-order after being convicted of [[Sexual abuse#Child sexual abuse|child molestation]]. Mason invited Lecter to his home in [[Owings Mills]] one night after a session. Lecter drugged Mason and suggested he try cutting off his own face with a mirror shard. Mason complied and, again at Lecter's suggestion, ate it and fed some to his [[Doberman]]s. Lecter then broke Mason's neck with a rope used for [[auto-erotic asphyxiation]] and left him to die. Later, the dogs were taken to an animal shelter to have their stomachs pumped which led to the retrieval of Mason's nose, lips and parts of his forehead, however, the [[skin graft]] was unsuccessful. Verger survived, but was left hideously disfigured and forever confined to a [[life support]] machine.


Lecter rescues the wounded Starling and takes her to his rented house on the Chesapeake shore to treat her, subjecting her to a regimen of [[classical conditioning|behavioral conditioning]] and [[psychoactive drug]]s to make her believe that she is his long-dead younger sister Mischa. One day, he invites her to a formal dinner where the guest and first course is Krendler, whose brain they consume together. On this night, Starling refuses to let her personality be subsumed, telling Lecter that Mischa's memory can live within him. She then offers him her breast, and they become lovers.
Raspail was Lecter's ninth and final (known) victim in the Chesapeake series before his [[prison|incarceration]]. Raspail was a not-so-talented [[flautist]] with the Baltimore Philharmonic Orchestra, and it is believed that Lecter killed Raspail because his musicianship, or lack thereof, spoiled his enjoyment of the orchestra's concerts. Raspail's body would be discovered sitting in a [[church]] [[pew]] with his [[thymus]] and [[pancreas]] missing, and his [[heart]] pierced. It is believed Lecter served these organs at a dinner party he held for the orchestra's [[board of directors]]. Raspail claimed to have killed a man whose head was found years later in Raspail's rented storage garage in Baltimore, but Lecter suspected him of covering up for his former lover, Jame Gumb, who would later be involved in Lecter's life as the serial killer dubbed "[[Buffalo Bill (fictional serial killer)|Buffalo Bill]]". (Raspail's role in the film versions has been inconsistent; he may have been killed by Buffalo Bill in the film version of ''Silence of the Lambs'', which Lecter seemed to suggest, but by Lecter in the adaptations of ''Hannibal'' and ''Red Dragon''. The inconsistency has never been explained.)


Three years later, former orderly Barney, on vacation in [[Buenos Aires]], sees Lecter and Starling entering the [[Teatro Colón]] opera house together. Fearing for his life, Barney leaves Buenos Aires immediately, never to return. The reader then learns that Lecter and Starling live together in an "exquisite" [[Beaux-Arts architecture|Beaux Arts]] mansion, where they have a “splendid structure” of a sex life and build their own respective [[Method of loci|memory palaces]].
The novels also mention a few details about Lecter's other victims. One, who initially survived, was taken to a private [[mental institution|mental hospital]] in [[Denver, Colorado]]. Others include a bow hunter, a [[census]] taker whose liver he famously ate with "[[fava beans]] and a big [[Amarone]]" (in the movie, the wine he had for this particular meal was "a nice [[Chianti]]"), and a [[Princeton University|Princeton]] student whom he buried. Lecter was given [[sodium amytal]] by the FBI in the hopes of learning where he buried the student; he gave them a [[recipe]] for [[potato chips|potato chip]] dip. He committed his last three known murders within nine days.


===Incarceration===
====''Hannibal Rising''====
Harris wrote a 2006 prequel, ''[[Hannibal Rising]]'', after film producer [[Dino De Laurentiis]] (who owned the cinematic rights to the Lecter character) announced an intended film project depicting Lecter's childhood and development into a serial killer with or without Harris' help. Harris would also write the film's screenplay.


The novel chronicles Lecter's early life, from his birth into a family of the [[Lithuanian nobility]] in 1933, to being orphaned, along with his beloved younger sister Mischa, in 1944 when a [[Nazi]] [[Stuka]] bomber attacks a [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] [[tank]] in front of their forest hideaway. Shortly thereafter, he and Mischa are captured by a band of [[Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy|Nazi collaborators]], who murder and cannibalize Mischa before her brother's eyes; Lecter later learns that the collaborators also fed him Mischa's remains.
Lecter was caught in March or April 1975 by FBI Special Investigator Will Graham. Graham was investigating a series of [[cannibalism|cannibalistic]] murders in the Baltimore area committed by a serial killer, and had been corresponding with Lecter for professional advice. When Graham questioned Lecter at his psychiatric practice, he noticed some [[Antiques|antique]] medical books in his office. Upon seeing these, Graham knew Lecter was the killer he sought; the sixth victim had been killed in his workshop and laced to a pegboard in a manner reminiscent of [[Wound Man]], an illustration used in many early medical books. Graham left to call the police, but Lecter crept up from behind and stabbed him with a [[stiletto]], nearly disembowling him. Graham mangaged to shoot Lecter several times during the struggle, and both were rushed to the hospital, Lecter being apprehended after his recovery.


Irreparably traumatized, Lecter escapes from the deserters and wanders through the forest, dazed and unable to speak. He is found and taken back to his family's old castle, which had been converted into a Soviet [[orphanage]], where he is bullied by the other children and [[Child abuse|abused]] by the dean.
The courts found Lecter [[insanity|insane]]. Thus, he was spared [[prison]] and sent to the Chesapeake State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, under administrator [[Frederick Chilton]]. (The second book in the series changes the name to Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane for reasons unknown). Many of the families of his victims pursued [[lawsuit]]s against Lecter to have their files destroyed. The FBI investigated four more patients who had died under Lecter's care. He was nicknamed '''"Hannibal the Cannibal"''' in the ''National Tattler'', a [[tabloid]] that also published unauthorized photos of Graham in the hospital after being attacked by Lecter. Another officer retired from the FBI after being the first to discover Lecter's basement. Lecter's [[electroencephalogram]] (EEG) showed a bizarre pattern and, given his history, was ultimately branded "a pure sociopath" by Chilton, even though the author stated that Lecter doesn't fit seamlessly into any specific mental diagnosis.


He is adopted by his uncle Robert and Robert's [[Japanese people|Japanese]] wife, Lady Murasaki, who nurses him back to health and teaches him to speak again. Robert dies shortly after adopting Lecter, who forms a close, pseudo-romantic relationship with Murasaki. During this time he also shows great intellectual aptitude, entering medical school at a young age and distinguishing himself.
Lecter, while in custody, was said to be "far too sophisticated" for most forms of psychological evaluation, especially as he enjoyed staying abreast of all of the latest developments in his field. Since he knew how the tests worked, he could easily come up with the typical answers that would brand him as not being psychologically disturbed, and he also mocked the psychiatrists' attempts to profile him by folding their tests into [[origami]]. Much to Chilton's disappointment, Lecter was never psychologically profiled simply because of his superior intellect and his ability to trick the tests. It was because of this that he remained one of the most frightening serial killer [[enigma|enigmas]] in custody.
[[Image:willandgram.jpg|300px|thumb|Hannibal Lecter assisting Will Graham during the 'Tooth Fairy' investigation.]]
Lecter was a model patient until the afternoon of [[July 8]], [[1976]]. After complaining of chest pains, he was taken to the infirmary. After his restraints were removed for his [[electrocardiogram]] (ECG) he attacked a [[nurse]], tearing out an eye and dislocating her jaw. Chilton would later note that Lecter's [[pulse]] never went above 85 [[beats per minute]] "even when he ate her tongue." During the struggle with the orderlies, his shoulder was [[dislocation (medicine)|dislocated]]. Following the incident, Lecter was treated very carefully by the hospital staff, often outfitted with heavy restraints, a [[straitjacket]] and [[muzzle_(device)|muzzle]]-like mask, and transported only when strapped to a hand-truck.


Despite his seemingly comfortable life, Lecter is consumed by a savage obsession with avenging Mischa's death. He kills for the first time as a teenager, using a [[katana]] [[sword]] beheading a [[Racism|racist]] fishmonger who insulted Murasaki. He then methodically tracks down, [[torture]]s, and murders each of the men who had killed his sister. In the process of taking his revenge, he forsakes his relationship with Murasaki and seemingly loses all traces of his humanity. The novel ends with Lecter being accepted to [[Johns Hopkins Hospital]].
Chilton and Lecter's relationship was marked by mutual hatred; Chilton's mediocrity and inflated self-importance offended Lecter, who often humiliated his keeper, while Lecter's constant mind games and slipperiness infuriated Chilton, who punished him by removing his books and toilet seat. At the end of ''Red Dragon'', Lecter diagnosed this form of punishment as indicative of the damnation of society by half-measures: "Any rational society would kill me, or give me my books." By contrast, Lecter reached a mutual respect with his primary caregiver and warden, Barney Matthews, and the two often shared thoughts over Barney's [[correspondence course]]s. During the investigation of Buffalo Bill, the two would also discuss Clarice Starling. It is also implied at the end of the novel and of the film adaptation that Lecter seeks revenge on Chilton for the mistreatment that he endured at Chesapeake. Moreover, On the second-last page of the novel (366), Harris writes:


===In film===
<blockquote>"Next, he dropped a note to Dr. Frederick Chilton in federal protective custody, suggesting that he would be paying Dr. Chilton a visit in the near future. After this visit, he wrote, it would make sense for the hospital to tattoo feeding instructions on Chilton's forehead to save paperwork."
{{main|Hannibal Lecter (franchise)}}
</blockquote>
[[File:Heyes.jpg|thumb|right|Hopkins as Lecter in ''The Silence of the Lambs''|225x225px]]
''Red Dragon'' was first adapted to film in 1986 as the [[Michael Mann]] film ''[[Manhunter (film)|Manhunter]]'', although the spelling of Lecter's name was changed to "'''Lecktor'''". He was played by actor [[Brian Cox (actor)|Brian Cox]].<ref>{{cite interview |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccPeC-uRI2c |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/ccPeC-uRI2c| archive-date=2021-12-11 |url-status=live|last=Cox |first=Brian |subject-link=Brian Cox (actor) |interviewer=[[Terry Wogan]] |title=Brian Cox: Interview (Manhunter)|work=Wogan Now and Then |publisher=[[BBC]] |location=London, England |date=March 10, 2009 }}{{cbignore}}</ref> Cox based his performance on Scottish serial killer [[Peter Manuel]].<ref>{{cite journal|first=James|last=Mottram|title=Manhunter|journal=[[Total Film]]|publisher=[[Future Publishing]]|location=Bath, England|date=January 20, 2011|issue=177|pages=112–116}}</ref>


In 1991, [[Orion Pictures]] produced a [[Jonathan Demme]]-directed adaptation of ''[[The Silence of the Lambs (film)|The Silence of the Lambs]]'', in which Lecter was played by actor [[Anthony Hopkins]]. Hopkins' Academy Award-winning performance made Lecter into a cultural icon. In 2001, ''[[Hannibal (Harris novel)|Hannibal]]'' was adapted to film, with Hopkins reprising his role. In the [[Hannibal (2001 film)|film adaptation]], the ending is revised: Starling attempts to apprehend Lecter, who escapes after cutting off his own hand to free himself from her handcuffs. In 2002, ''Red Dragon'' was adapted again, this time [[Red Dragon (2002 film)|under its original title]], with Hopkins again as Lecter and [[Edward Norton]] as [[Will Graham (character)|Will Graham]]. Hopkins wrote a screenplay for another sequel, ending with Starling killing Lecter.<ref>{{cite news|first=Ann|last=Oldenburg|url=http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/movies/2002-10-03-red-dragon-cover_x.htm|title=Marquee names serve up another helping of Hannibal|work=[[USA Today]]|date=October 3, 2002|access-date=April 19, 2013}}</ref> In 2016, Hopkins said, "I made the mistake of doing two more [Hannibal Lecter movies] and I should have only done one."<ref>{{Cite web|first=James|last=Hibberd|date=December 7, 2016|title='Westworld' Finale: Anthony Hopkins on Dr. Ford's Fate|url=https://ew.com/article/2016/12/07/westworld-anthony-hopkins-finale/|access-date=November 12, 2020|magazine=[[Entertainment Weekly]]|language=EN}}</ref>
===Aiding the FBI===
[[Image:SOTLClariceLecter.jpg|thumb|left|Lecter and his frequent visitor, [[Clarice Starling]], portrayed by [[Jodie Foster]].]]


In late 2006, the novel ''[[Hannibal Rising]]'' was [[Hannibal Rising (film)|adapted into a film]], which portrayed Lecter's development into a serial killer. In the film, which was finished by 2007, eight-year-old Lecter is portrayed by Aaran Thomas, while [[Gaspard Ulliel]] portrays him as a young man. Both the novel and film, as well as Ulliel's performance as Lecter, received generally negative reviews.<ref>{{Rotten Tomatoes|qid=Q3114616|title=Hannibal Rising}}</ref> In an interview Hopkins stated that he was approached about a narrative role in the film but declined the offer.
During his stay in Baltimore State Hospital, Lecter would help with four FBI cases. Graham came out of retirement in [[1978]] to offer his insight on the "Tooth Fairy" case and upon arriving at a dead end, went to Lecter for help, as he had twice before after Dr. Lecter was in custody, but before Graham went into retirement. Lecter gave Graham some valuable insights into the Tooth Fairy, but upon learning about the case, secretly sent a [[code]]d message to the killer, [[Francis Dolarhyde]], to kill Graham and his family (which would later result in Graham's permanent disfigurement). Five years later, [[Jack Crawford (FBI)|Jack Crawford]] sent FBI trainee Clarice Starling to Lecter to administer a psychological questionnaire. Starling, initially assuming the assignment was related to her studies, ended up getting him to help the FBI in the Buffalo Bill case. In both of these cases, Lecter used wordplay and subtle clues to help Graham and Starling arrive at the conclusions themselves.


===In television===
Lecter's relationship with Starling, around which ''The Silence of the Lambs'' and ''Hannibal'' revolve, was part antagonism and part seduction. He saw in her tenacity and eagerness, in addition to an unseen power that fueled her motivation and drive into the FBI. Despite this, they quarreled routinely. Starling allowed Lecter into her mind in return for leads and information on Buffallo Bill, which Lecter found fascinating. Nevertheless, Lecter was not amused when Starling provided possibly the best [[psychoanalysis]] of him, observing:
{{main|Hannibal (TV series)}}
[[File:Mads Mikkelsen Cannes 2013 2.jpg|thumb|Mikkelsen at the [[2013 Cannes Film Festival]]]]
In February 2012, [[NBC]] gave a series order to ''Hannibal'', a television adaptation of ''Red Dragon'' to be written and executive-produced by [[Bryan Fuller]].<ref>{{cite magazine|first=Natalie|last=Abrams|url=http://www.tvguide.com/News/NBC-Hannibal-Notorious-Pilot-1043405.aspx|title=Pilot Season: NBC Orders Hannibal Straight to Series; Also Picks Up Notorious|magazine=[[TV Guide]]|date=February 14, 2012|access-date=March 26, 2017}}</ref> [[Mads Mikkelsen]] plays Lecter,<ref>{{cite magazine|first=James|last=Hibberd|url=http://www.ew.com/article/2012/06/04/cast-hannibal|title=NBC casts Bond villain as Hannibal Lecter|magazine=[[Entertainment Weekly]]|publisher=[[Meredith Corporation]]|location=New York City|date=June 4, 2012|access-date=July 23, 2018}}</ref> opposite [[Hugh Dancy]] as Will Graham.<ref>{{cite web|first=Morgan|last=Jeffrey|url=http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/news/a372800/hannibal-lecter-tv-series-casts-hugh-dancy-as-will-graham.html|title=Hannibal Lecter TV series casts Hugh Dancy as Will Graham|website=[[Digital Spy]]|publisher=[[Hearst Magazines UK]]|location=London, England|date=March 23, 2012|access-date=July 23, 2018}}</ref> In the TV series, which depicts Lecter prior to his capture, he consults with Graham to help him profile and catch serial killers. He is fascinated with Graham’s ability to empathize with psychopaths, and subtly manipulates his fragile sanity in an attempt to turn him into a killer himself. The series also portrays a love triangle between Lecter, Graham, and Dr. Alana Bloom, one of Lecter’s former students, and his ongoing battle of wits with Mason Verger.


Fuller commented on Mikkelsen's version of Lecter:
<blockquote>"''You see a lot, Dr. Lecter. I won’t deny anything you’ve said. But here’s the question you’re answering for me right now, whether you mean to or not: Are you strong enough to point that high-powered perception at yourself? It’s hard to face. I’ve found that out in the last few minutes. How about it? Look at yourself and write down the truth. What more fit or complex subject could you find? Or maybe you’re afraid of yourself''."</blockquote>


<blockquote>What I love about Mads' approach to the character is that, in our first meeting, he was adamant that he didn't want to do Hopkins or Cox. He talked about the character not so much as 'Hannibal Lecter the cannibal psychiatrist', but as [[Satan]] – this [[fallen angel]] who's enamoured with mankind and had an affinity for who we are as people, but was definitely not among us – he was [[other (philosophy)|other]]. I thought that was a really cool, interesting approach, because I love science fiction and horror and – not that we'd ever do anything deliberately to suggest this – but having it subtextually play as him being [[Lucifer]] felt like a really interesting kink to the series. It was slightly different than anything that's been done before and it also gives it a slightly more epic quality if you watch the show through the prism of, 'This is Satan at work, tempting someone with the apple of their psyche'. It appealed to all of those genre things that get me excited about any sort of entertainment.<ref>{{cite web|first=Morgan|last=Jeffery|url=http://www.digitalspy.com/ustv/interviews/a478343/bryan-fuller-hannibal-qa-lecter-is-like-satan-at-work.html|title=Bryan Fuller 'Hannibal' Q&A: 'Lecter is like Satan at work'|website=[[Digital Spy]]|publisher=[[Hearst Magazines UK]]|location=London, England|date=May 3, 2013|access-date=May 11, 2013}}</ref></blockquote>
Buffallo Bill's last kidnappee would be Catherine Martin, daughter of Senator Ruth Martin. Lecter told Chilton he would reveal Buffalo Bill's real name to Martin and was promptly flown to [[Memphis, Tennessee]], and held at the Shelby County Courthouse. During his stay in Memphis, Lecter lied to Martin, giving her the fake name "William Rubin," or "Billy Rubin" ([[Bilirubin]] is a [[pigment]] found in [[feces]], the same color as Chilton's hair, Lecter's hint that the name was fake. The film adaptation changed the name to "Louis Friend," an [[anagram]] for "iron sulfide" - [[pyrite|fool's gold]].) Starling then visited Lecter at his makeshift cell, and he gave her some final clues before making a bloody escape, killing two police officers during the ordeal. He escaped by making a "mask" from the face of one of the officers, donning the officer's uniform and pretending to be his own still-living victim so that he would be hurried away by [[ambulance]] while the authorities still hunted for him.


[[CBS]] later developed the television series ''[[Clarice (TV series)|Clarice]]'', based on the character Clarice Starling (from the novels and films) after her graduation from the FBI academy, as a sequel to ''[[The Silence of the Lambs (film)|The Silence of the Lambs]]'' set in 1993, starring Rebecca Breeds as Starling. The show does not acknowledge or feature Hannibal Lecter due to complicated rights issues of franchise characters between [[Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer]] and the [[Dino De Laurentiis|Dino de Laurentiis Company]]; it premiered in 2021.
After [[plastic surgery]] and the removal of a distinctive [[Polydactyly|sixth finger]], Lecter relocated in [[Florence, Italy]]. Lecter avoided reconstruction of his nose to protect his uncanny perception of fragrances. In Florence, he took the [[pseudonym]] "Dr. Fell," a reference to the [[Tom Brown (satirist)|Tom Brown]] translation of [[Martial]]'s [[epigram]] "Non amo te, Sabidi" ("I do not love thee, Doctor Fell / The reason why, I cannot tell.") As Dr. Fell, Lecter's dazzling charm won him the recently vacated position of museum [[curator]]; Lecter had, of course, murdered the position's previous occupant.


===Winning Clarice===
===In other media===
[[Donald Trump]] has repeatedly mentioned Lecter at rallies during his [[Donald Trump 2024 presidential campaign|2024 presidential campaign]], referring to him as "The late, great Hannibal Lecter", and then speaking of him as if he were a real person. Trump at times associates migrants coming into the United States with the fictional character, saying that they are being let out of "insane asylums" similar to that in which Lecter was detained, and thereafter fleeing to America.<ref>{{Cite web | first=David |last=Mouriquand| date=July 19, 2024 |title=What is it with Donald Trump's obsession with Hannibal Lecter? |url=https://www.euronews.com/culture/2024/07/19/what-is-it-with-donald-trumps-obsession-with-hannibal-lecter |access-date=July 20, 2024 |website=[[Euronews]] |language=en}}</ref>
[[Image:Hannibalc.jpg|thumb|right|Hannibal and Clarice.]]
Lecter's identity would be discovered by Florence detective Rinaldo [[Pazzi]] seven years after his escape from Memphis. Lecter had been going by the false name Dr. Fell and Pazzi, who had been disgraced when he bungled the "Il Mostro" case, saw a chance for redemption when he realized Dr. Fell's true identity. Pazzi struck a deal with the vengful Mason Verger, Lecter's fourth victim who survived having his neck broken and his face peeled off by Lecter. The deal was to get Lecter alive so that Verger could exact his revenge by feeding Lecter to a [[Boar (Thomas Harris)|group of specially trained boars]]. In his efforts to capture Lecter, Pazzi inadvertently informed Lecter of his plot to sell him to Mason Verger. After [[disembowel]]ing and hanging Pazzi, Lecter returns to the United States. Both Verger and Starling would hunt him, hoping to get to him before the other. Lecter ended up being captured by Verger's men, but was rescued by Starling, who was sedated with two darts during the ensuing gun fight. Lecter carries her away from the boars and convinces [[Margot Verger]] (Mason's distraught sister and a former patient of Lecter; after having been raped by Mason) to kill her brother. Lecter left a voice message claiming responsibility for Verger's death. (In the film adaptation of ''Hannibal'', Clarice is shot in the shoulder with a bullet instead of being shot by darts. Lecter also offers to spare the life of Verger's personal physician Cordell, on the condition that he kill Mason. Lecter, knowing Cordell's disdain of murder, offers to take the blame for his crime.)


==See also==
Lecter kept Starling in total isolation during the next few months, subjecting her to various [[conditioning]] techniques ("brainwashing"). His main goal was to systematically replace Starling's memories and personality and make her believe she was Lecter's deceased sister Mischa. After breaking Starling down, Lecter kidnapped her nemesis, [[Paul Krendler]], who was trying to discredit her, as a final test. At the rented home that Lecter was living in, Lecter performed a [[craniotomy]] on a drugged Krendler and tastefully prepared and shared his [[brain]]s with Starling and Krendler himself while Krendler was still alive.
{{Portal|Novels}}
* [[Bogeyman]]
* [[List of horror film antagonists]]


==References==
However, Lecter's plan to brainwash Starling ultimately failed, as he utterly underestimated her strong [[will (philosophy)|will]]; Starling refused to have her own personality [[sublimation (psychology)|sublimated]], mocking his efforts to turn her into his sister. Then, she exposed her breast to Lecter and seduced him.
{{Reflist|30em}}

The couple then vanished. In 1993, Lecter's former caretaker, Barney Matthews, spotted the two in [[Buenos Aires]], [[Argentina]]. It is often misenterprated that Starling domesticates Lecter, quieting his violent impulses with sex, but it is stated on the last page of the novel that both Lecter and Starling were capable of murder at any time. Around the time of the millenium, Starling sent an emerald ring to her former roommate [[Ardelia Mapp]].

The ending of ''Hannibal'' sparked much controversy. Harris wrote an alternate ending for the film adaptation: in the new ending, Lecter didn't try to brainwash Starling, and the infamous dinner party where Krendler's brain was served took place days, not months, after the death of Mason Verger. The police tracked Lecter down, and, in order to buy time, Starling handcuffed herself to Lecter. In the film's [[climax (narrative)|climax]], Lecter grabbed a meat cleaver and prepared to chop off Starling's hand to escape. She was defiant, so Lecter tested her: he asked her to beg him to turn himself in to the police and renounce his murderous ways. Starling refused, and Lecter thanked her for not disappointing him; he then chopped off his own hand so he could escape. The film ended with a scene from the middle part of the novel, where Lecter was on a plane and gave some food from his Dean & Deluca travel pack to a child sitting next to him. While the novel made it clear that Lecter gave the child [[liverwurst]], the film heavily implied it was left-overs from Krendler's brain. At the end of the film, Hannibal Lecter is still alive and at large.

{{endspoiler}}

==Traits and Abilities==
[[Image:Lecktor02.jpg|thumb|[[Brian Cox]] as Hannibal 'Lecktor' from Michael Mann's ''Manhunter''.]]
In the books, Lecter has been described as short, but with noticeable wiry strength and dignity of bearing that makes him seem more physically able than his age presents. He had [[Maroon (color)|maroon-colored]] eyes that reflected light and even rows of small white teeth. His "most ardent fan," Francis Dolarhyde, remarks that he is "the dark portrait of a [[Renaissance]] prince". In ''The Silence of the Lambs'', he is mentioned to have a [[Widows peak|widow's peak]], and dark hair. He had six fingers on his left hand (novel series only), the middle finger perfectly replicated, until he underwent surgery (in [[Rio de Janeiro]]) after his escape from custody to better mask his identity.

Lecter is a character who is portrayed to be intellectually brilliant (who lectures on [[Dante]] and plays the [[Goldberg Variations]], purported to be Lecter’s favorite piece of music), but at the same time, primal in his mannerisms. His natural posture is rigid and still, but swift when required, and he tilts his head to one side when listening. He is also noted to have inhuman [[hearing (sense)|hearing]], and more commonly noticed, an almost animalistic sense of [[olfaction|smell]] (being able to smell tiny amounts of blood or semen from up to a few yards away). Other unique traits include a remarkable [[photographic memory]], and in [[Hannibal Rising]], it is mentioned by a psychiatrist that Lecter can have 'several trains of thought at once, without distraction from any' due to the hemispheres of his brain acting independently. His voice is described as having a metallic ring to it, as though he spoke with a perpetual tension. After plastic surgery (novel series only), he has different hair and a minor alteration to his nose and cheeks. At the end of ''Hannibal'', when he is spotted with Starling by his former orderly Barney, he has had his face altered again. Lecter refrained from major alterations to his nose, because it would severly inhibit his incredible sense of smell.

His body count totals 21, 14 confirmed by the FBI, and four [[attempted murder]]s. Chilton was the first victim after Lecter's escape; at the end of the film version of "Silence of the Lambs", Lecter is seen following a vacationing Chilton after phoning Starling to tell her he was "having an old friend for dinner". An Italian musician also vanished not long before Pazzi's murder. It is assumed, by Signora Pazzi's comment that "They sound a hundred percent better with the new viola player," that Lecter killed the old viola player to improve the sound of the orchestra, as he did with the flautist from the Baltimore Philharmonic.

His native tongue was [[Lithuanian language|Lithuanian]] but his travels allowed him to gain fluency in a variety of different languages including [[Italian language|Italian]], [[German language|German]], [[Russian language|Russian]], [[Polish language|Polish]], [[French language|French]], [[English language|English]] and [[Spanish language|Spanish]]. He is also capable of passable [[Japanese language|Japanese]]. Even before the character's established backstory in ''Hannibal'', both Brian Cox and Anthony Hopkins portrayed Hannibal with distinctly European accents. Cox spoke with an impeccable British accent, whereas Hopkins spoke in a hybrid of British and American. His accent is never described in the books.

Though it is mentioned in ''Red Dragon'' that Lecter as a child displayed sadism toward animals, this is not confirmed at all by any of his later appearances. In fact, quite the opposite is shown. Back when he lived in Lithuania, he had formed a strong friendship with a horse named Cesar and used non harmful methods to intimidate swans from attacking his sister. In ''Hannibal'', he again displayed this affinity toward animals by staring down the boars Mason Verger had bred specifically for the task of killing him.

==Lecter as a cultural figure==
While Harris' novels ''Red Dragon'' and ''Silence of the Lambs'' were critically and commercially successful, it was not until the film adaptation of the latter was released in 1991 that Lecter, as played by Anthony Hopkins, became a cultural [[icon]]. In many ways, the character became the [[template]] for cinematic portrayals of serial killers from that point on as cold, calculating master criminals who live to play "cat and mouse" with the police, manipulating both their victims and the detectives who "hunt" them like pawns in a game of [[chess]]. Many real-life serial killers, such as [[Andrei Chikatilo]], [[Dennis Rader|BTK]], [[Robert Mawdsley]], and [[Jeffrey Dahmer]] have been compared to Lecter. His relationship with Starling set a precedent for the relationships between fictional murderers and police officers; it has by now become almost [[cliché]] for onscreen detectives to have "special relationships" with serial killers based on grudging respect and mutual obsession, and for police to consult with them in their cases in order to "think like their prey."

He has been the inspiration behind many subsequent villainous characters, primarily because he represents an unusually horrific brand of serial killer; while most real-life serial killers suffer from severe psychological difficulties which often impede their sociability and their capability to relate to other people (as exemplified by Francis Dolarhyde from ''Red Dragon''), Lecter fits in among an extremely limited range of sociopath: one who appears on the surface to be completely normal, or perhaps even brilliant; and who just happens to have a penchant for gruesome murder.

Indeed, Lecter's refined, [[aristocrat]]ic charm has made him something of a romantic figure, and his relationship with Starling has drawn many comparisons with the [[fairy tale]] ''[[Beauty and the Beast]].'' While portrayed as a [[sociopath]], that condition when referring to Lecter is considered to be very basic, because he doesn't display the typical characteristics of a true sociopath. It can also be noted that his murder style is not impulsive, and is perfectly able to choose to not kill and show [[compassion]]. Also, Lecter is not without compassion; he displays genuine affection toward Clarice Starling, mourns the loss of his dead sister Mischa, respects his caretaker named Barney Matthews, and shows honest concern for Margot Verger, when she is attempting to overcome her brother's [[abuse]]. In this sense, he has evolved from a [[villain]] into an [[antihero]] for whom audiences cheer. ''Red Dragon'' director [[Brett Ratner]] called him "the Huggy Bear of serial killers."

A large contribution to the appeal of Lecter as an anti-hero and even a role model is his sheer unfallability, this is a trait that appears in many heros and anti-heros, no matter what the circumstances, whether they be removing someones face with a shard of mirror or escaping a horde of man-eating pigs, Lecter is never out of his element. Also audiences may consider him to be more than a black and white killer due to the tragedies in his past. The fact that he is cultured and sophisticated may be seen as either grounds for making him seem more admirable or merely seen as qualifying him as amoral and therefore even more horrific.

==Trivia==
*Hannibal Lecter organizes his memories in an elaborate [[Method of loci|memory palace]]. In the novel [[Hannibal]], author Thomas Harris exposits Dr. Lecter's unique intellect and memory as being the product of well-developed ''Ars Memoriae'', or [[Memory Palace]] form of mnemonic discipline. The young Hannibal is taught this discipline by his tutor, Jakov, in [[Hannibal Rising]]. Exaggerating the potential of the memory palace by having Lecter read entire books and transcripts of interviews with patients, Thomas Harris also raised the fascinating, and possibly original proposition that the palace can be a dangerous place for its owner. In one scene Lecter retires to his palace in search of comfort only to become haunted by horrific memories he, or his subconcious mind has stored there in numerous oubliettes. He also uses it as a sanctuary; when he is being tortured with a cattle-prod, he enters his memory palace and lays his face against the coolness of a statue there.

*Harris based the Lecter-Starling relationship on the "consultations" between [[Offender profiling|profiler]] [[Robert D. Keppel|Robert Keppel]] and serial killer [[Ted Bundy]], in which Bundy offered to help Keppel track down the [[Gary Ridgway|Green River serial killer]]. Interestingly enough, Bundy is known to have owned a copy of ''Red Dragon'' while on [[death row]] in [[Starke, Florida]]. In his book ''Obsession'', profiler [[John E. Douglas|John Douglas]] suggests that Bundy's contacting Keppel was inspired by the Lecter-Graham relationship described in ''Red Dragon''.

*Actor [[Robert Duvall]] was the first actor asked to portray Hannibal Lecter in [[The Silence of the Lambs]]. [[Robert De Niro]] was asked to not only direct the movie, but portray Hannibal Lecter after the role had been turned down by Duvall. Both said that the character was too disturbing. [[Jonathan Demme]] (the project's new director) cast the lesser high-profile actor [[Anthony Hopkins]], who was delighted and humored to take on the Hannibal Lecter role.

*The infamous slurping noise that Hannibal Lecter makes after he tells Clarice Starling about him eating the census taker's liver was never in the original script. Hopkins added the noise as a joke, and didn't think that director [[Jonathan Demme]] would keep it in the final cut. This quote also was also voted as the 21st most famous movie quote of all time by the [[American Film Institute]].

==Related References==
*[[Aestheticization of violence]]
*[http://www.filmsite.org/afi100heroesvillb.html AFI's 100 Greatest Heros and Villains]
*[http://ofcs.rottentomatoes.com/pages/pr/top100villains The Online Film Critics Society Names the Greatest Screen Villain Of All Time: Darth Vader from Star Wars] Lecter is ranked second.


==External links==
==External links==
*[http://www.manhunter.net/ Information about Hannibal Lecter, with a strong central focus on Manhunter (1986)]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20170810042226/http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0001399/ Hannibal Lecter] on [[IMDb]]
* [https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89472698 NPR broadcast on Lecter]
*{{imdb title|id=0091474|title=Manhunter (1986)}}
* [http://www.denofgeek.us/movies/18119/brian-cox-interview-manhunter-hannibal-the-cannibal-adaptation-michael-mann-and-brett-ratner Brian Cox interview about portraying Hannibal Lecter]
*{{imdb title|id=0102926|title=The Silence of the Lambs (1991)}}
*{{imdb title|id=0212985|title=Hannibal (2001)}}
*{{imdb title|id=0289765|title=Red Dragon (2002)}}
*{{imdb title|id=0367959|title=Hannibal Rising (2007)}}
*[http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/weird/lecter/1.html?sect=3/ Crime Library profile of Lecter]
*[http://www.hannotations.com/ Hannotations]
*[http://www.doctorlecter.de/ German fanpage with downloads]


{{Hannibal}}
{{Hannibal}}
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Latest revision as of 09:02, 1 December 2024

Hannibal Lecter
Hannibal Lecter character
First appearanceRed Dragon (1981)
Created byThomas Harris
Portrayed by
In-universe information
Alias
  • Lloyd Wyman
  • Dr. Fell
  • Mr. Closter
Nickname
  • Hannibal the Cannibal
  • The Chesapeake Ripper
GenderMale
Title
  • Dr. Hannibal Lecter
  • Count Hannibal Lecter VIII
Occupation
Family
  • Count Lecter (father)
  • Simonetta Lecter (née Sforza) (mother)
  • Mischa Lecter (younger sister)
Significant others
Relatives
  • Count Robert Lecter (uncle)
  • Lady Murasaki (aunt-by-marriage)
  • Balthus (cousin)[1]
NationalityLithuanian-American

Dr. Hannibal Lecter is a character created by American novelist Thomas Harris. Lecter is a brilliant, cannibalistic serial killer and former forensic psychiatrist; after his incarceration, he is consulted by FBI agents Will Graham and Clarice Starling to help them find other serial killers.

Lecter first appeared in a small role as a villain in Harris' 1981 thriller novel Red Dragon, which was adapted into the film Manhunter (1986), with Brian Cox as Lecter (spelled "Lecktor"). Lecter had a larger role in The Silence of the Lambs (1988); the 1991 film adaptation starred Anthony Hopkins as Lecter, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. Hopkins reprised the role for the 2001 adaptation of the 1999 novel Hannibal, which sees Lecter evading recapture, and for a second adaptation of Red Dragon in 2002.

The fourth novel, Hannibal Rising (2006), explores Lecter's childhood and development into a serial killer. He was played in the 2007 film adaptation by Gaspard Ulliel. In the NBC television series Hannibal (20132015), which focuses on Lecter's relationship with Graham, Lecter was played by Mads Mikkelsen, who won the Saturn Award for Best Actor on Television for his performance.

In 2003, Lecter, as portrayed by Hopkins, was named the greatest villain in American cinema by the American Film Institute.[2] In 2010, Entertainment Weekly named him one of the 100 greatest characters of the preceding 20 years.[3] In 2019, Lecter, as portrayed by Mikkelsen, was named the 18th greatest villain in television history by Rolling Stone.[4]

Inspiration

[edit]

Working as a journalist for Argosy magazine in the 1960s, Thomas Harris traveled to Mexico to interview an American mental patient, Dykes Askew Simmons, who was being detained at Nuevo León State Prison in Monterrey for three murders. While jailed, Simmons had been shot by a prison guard, once in each calf, and he was treated by a skilled "prison-doctor" whom Harris had referred to as "Dr. Salazar". Harris described him as a "small, lithe man with dark red hair" who "stood very still" with "a certain elegance about him"; their interview eventually took a dark turn, Harris said, when Salazar started talking about “the nature of torment”. A prison guard later informed Harris that Salazar was, in fact, a convicted murderer who could "package his victim in a surprisingly small box".[5] Salazar inspired Harris to create a character with a "peculiar understanding of the criminal mind".[5]

Doctor Alfredo Ballí Treviño, a convicted murderer, was the inspiration for Lecter.

Salazar is believed to be Alfredo Ballí Treviño, the last criminal to be condemned to death in Mexico, in 1959.[5] Ballí was a surgeon and physician from an upper-class family who had murdered his colleague and lover, Jesus Castillo Rangel. Ballí had held a towel soaked in chloroform over Rangel’s face, causing him to lose consciousness; Ballí then transferred the body to an adjacent bathroom where he slit Rangel’s throat and drained his body completely of blood before dismembering his corpse. Ballí is suspected of killing and dismembering several hitchhikers in the countryside during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Harris incorporated some of these details into Buffalo Bill's development as a killer in The Silence of the Lambs.[6][7][8]

In her book Evil Serial Killers, Charlotte Greig asserts Lecter was inspired at least in part by the serial killer Albert Fish.[9] Greig also states that, to explain Lecter's pathology, Harris borrowed the possibly apocryphal story of serial killer and cannibal Andrei Chikatilo's brother Stepan being kidnapped and eaten by starving neighbors.[10] The location of the book Hannibal was inspired by the Monster of Florence and, while preparing the book, Harris traveled to Italy and was present at the trial of the main suspect, Pietro Pacciani.[11]

Character

[edit]

Hannibal Lecter is a child of Lithuanian nobility and of the Visconti and Sforza families of Italy, and he is also a cannibalistic serial killer. He is highly intelligent and cultured, with refined tastes and impeccable manners. He is deeply offended by rudeness, and often kills people who exhibit bad manners; according to the novel Hannibal, he "prefers to eat the rude".[12] Hopkins described Lecter as the "Robin Hood of killers", who kills "the terminally rude".[13]

In the novel Red Dragon, the protagonist, Will Graham, says that psychologists refer to Lecter as a sociopath "because they don't know what else to call him". Graham says "he has no remorse or guilt at all", and tortured animals as a child, but he does not exhibit any of the other criteria traditionally associated with sociopathy. Asked how he himself would describe Lecter, Graham responded, "he's a monster. I think of him as one of those pitiful things that are born in hospitals from time to time. They feed it, and keep it warm, but they don't put it on the machines and it dies. Lecter is the same way in his head, but he looks normal and nobody could tell."[14]

In The Silence of the Lambs, Lecter's keeper, Dr. Frederick Chilton, claims that Lecter is a "pure sociopath" ("pure psychopath" in the film adaptation). In the film adaptation of The Silence of the Lambs, protagonist Clarice Starling says of Lecter, "They don't have a name for what he is". Lecter's pathology is explored in greater detail in Hannibal and Hannibal Rising, which explains that he was traumatized as a child in Lithuania in 1944 when he witnessed his beloved sister, Mischa, being murdered and cannibalized by a group of deserting Lithuanian Hilfswillige, one of whom claimed that Lecter unwittingly ate his sister as well.

All media in which Lecter appears portray him as intellectually brilliant, cultured and sophisticated, with refined tastes in art, music and cuisine. He is frequently depicted preparing gourmet meals from his victims' flesh, the most famous example being his admission that he once ate a census taker's liver "with some fava beans and a nice Chianti" (a "big Amarone" in the novel). Prior to his capture and imprisonment, he was a member of Baltimore, Maryland's social elite, and a sitting member of the Baltimore Philharmonic Orchestra's Board of Directors.

In the novel The Silence of the Lambs, Lecter is described through Starling's eyes: "She could see that he was small, sleek; in his hands and arms she saw wiry strength like her own." The novel also reveals that Lecter's left hand has a rare condition called mid-ray duplication polydactyly, i.e. a duplicated middle finger.[15] In Hannibal, he performs plastic surgery on his own face on several occasions, and removes his extra digit. Lecter's eyes are a shade of maroon, and reflect the light in "pinpoints of red".[16] He has small white teeth[17] and dark, slicked-back hair with a widow's peak. He also has a keen sense of smell; in Red Dragon, he immediately recognizes Will Graham by his brand of aftershave, and in The Silence of the Lambs, he is able to identify through a plexiglass window with small holes the brand of perfume that Starling wore the day before. He has an eidetic memory with which he has constructed in his mind an elaborate "memory palace" to relive memories and sensations in rich detail.

According to The Guardian, before The Silence of the Lambs, films portrayed psychopathic killers as "claw-handed bogeymen with melty faces and rubber masks. By contrast, Lecter was highly intelligent with impeccable manners."[12] Anthony Hopkins, the actor most closely identified with Lecter, said he played him as "ultra sane, very still ... He has such terrifying physical power, and he doesn't waste an ounce of energy. He's so contained. He's all brain."[18] His performance was inspired by HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. The critic Roger Ebert elaborated on this comparison: "He is a dispassionate, brilliant machine, superb at logic, deficient in emotions."[19] In the same essay, Ebert wrote:

One key to the film's appeal is that audiences like Hannibal Lecter...He may be a cannibal, but as a dinner party guest he would give value for money (if he didn't eat you). He does not bore, he likes to amuse, he has his standards, and he is the smartest person in the movie... He bears comparison, indeed, with such other movie monsters as Nosferatu, Frankenstein... King Kong and Norman Bates. They have two things in common: They behave according to their natures, and they are misunderstood. Nothing that these monsters do is "evil" in any conventional moral sense, because they lack any moral sense. They are hard-wired to do what they do. They have no choice. In the areas where they do have choice, they try to do the right thing.[20]

Appearances

[edit]

Novels

[edit]

Red Dragon

[edit]

In the backstory of the 1981 novel Red Dragon, FBI profiler Will Graham interviews Lecter about one of his patients who was murdered by a serial killer, before intuiting that Lecter is the culprit; he sees the antique medical diagram "Wound Man" in Lecter's office, and remembers that the victim suffered the same injuries depicted in the drawing. Realizing that Graham is on to him, Lecter creeps up behind Graham and stabs him with a linoleum knife, nearly disemboweling him.

Graham survives, but is so traumatized by the incident that he takes early retirement from the FBI. Lecter is charged with a series of nine murders, but is found not guilty by reason of insanity. He is institutionalized in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane under the care of Dr. Frederick Chilton, a pompous, incompetent psychologist whom he despises, and who subjects him to a series of petty cruelties.

Some years later, Graham comes out of retirement and consults Lecter in order to catch another serial killer, Francis Dolarhyde, known by the nickname "the Tooth Fairy". Through the classifieds of a tabloid called The National Tattler, Lecter provides Dolarhyde with Graham's home address; Dolarhyde later uses this information to break into Graham's home, stab him in the face, and threaten his family before Graham's wife Molly shoots him dead. At the end of the novel, Lecter sends Graham a letter, saying that he hopes Graham "won't be very ugly".

The Silence of the Lambs

[edit]

In the 1988 sequel The Silence of the Lambs, Lecter assists FBI agent-in-training Clarice Starling in catching a serial killer, Jame Gumb, known by the nickname "Buffalo Bill". Lecter is fascinated by Starling, and they form an unusual relationship in which he provides her with a profile of the killer and his modus operandi in exchange for details about her unhappy childhood.

Lecter had previously met Gumb, the former lover of his patient (and eventual victim) Benjamin Raspail. He does not reveal this information directly, instead giving Starling vague clues to help her figure it out for herself. In return for Lecter's assistance, the FBI and Chilton arrange for him to be transferred to a federal institution with better living conditions.

Lecter escapes while in transit, however, killing and mutilating his guards and using one of their faces as a mask to fool police and paramedics before killing the latter and escaping. While in hiding, he writes one letter to Starling wishing her well, a second to Barney (his primary orderly at the asylum), thanking him for his courteous treatment, and a third to Chilton, promising gruesome revenge; Chilton disappears soon afterward.

Hannibal

[edit]

In the third novel, 1999's Hannibal, Lecter lives in a palazzo in Florence, Italy, and works as a museum curator under the alias "Dr. Fell". One of Lecter's two surviving victims, Mason Verger—a wealthy, sadistic pedophile whom Lecter had brutalized during a court-ordered therapy session, leaving him a horrifically disfigured quadriplegic—offers a huge reward for anyone who apprehends Lecter, whom he intends to feed to wild boars specially bred for the purpose.

Verger enlists the help of Rinaldo Pazzi, a disgraced Italian police inspector, and Paul Krendler, a corrupt Justice Department official and Starling's boss. Lecter kills Pazzi and returns to the United States to escape Verger's Sardinian henchmen, only to be captured. Starling follows them, intent on apprehending Lecter personally, and is injured in a gunfight with Verger's henchmen. Lecter escapes, thanks to Starling's help, and persuades Verger's younger sister Margot—his former patient, whom Verger had molested and raped years earlier—to kill her brother, promising to take the blame.

Lecter rescues the wounded Starling and takes her to his rented house on the Chesapeake shore to treat her, subjecting her to a regimen of behavioral conditioning and psychoactive drugs to make her believe that she is his long-dead younger sister Mischa. One day, he invites her to a formal dinner where the guest and first course is Krendler, whose brain they consume together. On this night, Starling refuses to let her personality be subsumed, telling Lecter that Mischa's memory can live within him. She then offers him her breast, and they become lovers.

Three years later, former orderly Barney, on vacation in Buenos Aires, sees Lecter and Starling entering the Teatro Colón opera house together. Fearing for his life, Barney leaves Buenos Aires immediately, never to return. The reader then learns that Lecter and Starling live together in an "exquisite" Beaux Arts mansion, where they have a “splendid structure” of a sex life and build their own respective memory palaces.

Hannibal Rising

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Harris wrote a 2006 prequel, Hannibal Rising, after film producer Dino De Laurentiis (who owned the cinematic rights to the Lecter character) announced an intended film project depicting Lecter's childhood and development into a serial killer with or without Harris' help. Harris would also write the film's screenplay.

The novel chronicles Lecter's early life, from his birth into a family of the Lithuanian nobility in 1933, to being orphaned, along with his beloved younger sister Mischa, in 1944 when a Nazi Stuka bomber attacks a Soviet tank in front of their forest hideaway. Shortly thereafter, he and Mischa are captured by a band of Nazi collaborators, who murder and cannibalize Mischa before her brother's eyes; Lecter later learns that the collaborators also fed him Mischa's remains.

Irreparably traumatized, Lecter escapes from the deserters and wanders through the forest, dazed and unable to speak. He is found and taken back to his family's old castle, which had been converted into a Soviet orphanage, where he is bullied by the other children and abused by the dean.

He is adopted by his uncle Robert and Robert's Japanese wife, Lady Murasaki, who nurses him back to health and teaches him to speak again. Robert dies shortly after adopting Lecter, who forms a close, pseudo-romantic relationship with Murasaki. During this time he also shows great intellectual aptitude, entering medical school at a young age and distinguishing himself.

Despite his seemingly comfortable life, Lecter is consumed by a savage obsession with avenging Mischa's death. He kills for the first time as a teenager, using a katana sword beheading a racist fishmonger who insulted Murasaki. He then methodically tracks down, tortures, and murders each of the men who had killed his sister. In the process of taking his revenge, he forsakes his relationship with Murasaki and seemingly loses all traces of his humanity. The novel ends with Lecter being accepted to Johns Hopkins Hospital.

In film

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Hopkins as Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs

Red Dragon was first adapted to film in 1986 as the Michael Mann film Manhunter, although the spelling of Lecter's name was changed to "Lecktor". He was played by actor Brian Cox.[21] Cox based his performance on Scottish serial killer Peter Manuel.[22]

In 1991, Orion Pictures produced a Jonathan Demme-directed adaptation of The Silence of the Lambs, in which Lecter was played by actor Anthony Hopkins. Hopkins' Academy Award-winning performance made Lecter into a cultural icon. In 2001, Hannibal was adapted to film, with Hopkins reprising his role. In the film adaptation, the ending is revised: Starling attempts to apprehend Lecter, who escapes after cutting off his own hand to free himself from her handcuffs. In 2002, Red Dragon was adapted again, this time under its original title, with Hopkins again as Lecter and Edward Norton as Will Graham. Hopkins wrote a screenplay for another sequel, ending with Starling killing Lecter.[23] In 2016, Hopkins said, "I made the mistake of doing two more [Hannibal Lecter movies] and I should have only done one."[24]

In late 2006, the novel Hannibal Rising was adapted into a film, which portrayed Lecter's development into a serial killer. In the film, which was finished by 2007, eight-year-old Lecter is portrayed by Aaran Thomas, while Gaspard Ulliel portrays him as a young man. Both the novel and film, as well as Ulliel's performance as Lecter, received generally negative reviews.[25] In an interview Hopkins stated that he was approached about a narrative role in the film but declined the offer.

In television

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Mikkelsen at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival

In February 2012, NBC gave a series order to Hannibal, a television adaptation of Red Dragon to be written and executive-produced by Bryan Fuller.[26] Mads Mikkelsen plays Lecter,[27] opposite Hugh Dancy as Will Graham.[28] In the TV series, which depicts Lecter prior to his capture, he consults with Graham to help him profile and catch serial killers. He is fascinated with Graham’s ability to empathize with psychopaths, and subtly manipulates his fragile sanity in an attempt to turn him into a killer himself. The series also portrays a love triangle between Lecter, Graham, and Dr. Alana Bloom, one of Lecter’s former students, and his ongoing battle of wits with Mason Verger.

Fuller commented on Mikkelsen's version of Lecter:

What I love about Mads' approach to the character is that, in our first meeting, he was adamant that he didn't want to do Hopkins or Cox. He talked about the character not so much as 'Hannibal Lecter the cannibal psychiatrist', but as Satan – this fallen angel who's enamoured with mankind and had an affinity for who we are as people, but was definitely not among us – he was other. I thought that was a really cool, interesting approach, because I love science fiction and horror and – not that we'd ever do anything deliberately to suggest this – but having it subtextually play as him being Lucifer felt like a really interesting kink to the series. It was slightly different than anything that's been done before and it also gives it a slightly more epic quality if you watch the show through the prism of, 'This is Satan at work, tempting someone with the apple of their psyche'. It appealed to all of those genre things that get me excited about any sort of entertainment.[29]

CBS later developed the television series Clarice, based on the character Clarice Starling (from the novels and films) after her graduation from the FBI academy, as a sequel to The Silence of the Lambs set in 1993, starring Rebecca Breeds as Starling. The show does not acknowledge or feature Hannibal Lecter due to complicated rights issues of franchise characters between Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and the Dino de Laurentiis Company; it premiered in 2021.

In other media

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Donald Trump has repeatedly mentioned Lecter at rallies during his 2024 presidential campaign, referring to him as "The late, great Hannibal Lecter", and then speaking of him as if he were a real person. Trump at times associates migrants coming into the United States with the fictional character, saying that they are being let out of "insane asylums" similar to that in which Lecter was detained, and thereafter fleeing to America.[30]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Weber, Eugen (20 June 1999). "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 4 March 2022.
  2. ^ "AFI's 100 Heroes & Villains". American Film Institute. June 2003. Retrieved 2007-02-12.
  3. ^ Vary, Adam B. (June 1, 2010). "The 100 Greatest Characters of the Last 20 Years: Here's our full list!". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved July 7, 2012.
  4. ^ "40 Greatest TV Villains of All Time". Rolling Stone. September 4, 2019. Retrieved January 1, 2020.
  5. ^ a b c Valdez, Maria G. (July 29, 2013). "Thomas Harris, 'Silence Of The Lambs' Author, Reveals Hannibal Lecter Was Inspired By Real Life Mexican Doctor". Latin Times. Retrieved November 12, 2020.
  6. ^ Osorno, Diego Enrique (July 29, 2013). "Hannibal Lecter es de Monterrey". VICE (in Spanish). Retrieved July 22, 2018.
  7. ^ Bacchi, Umberto (July 31, 2013). "Real Hannibal Lecter was Murderous Gay Mexican Doctor Alfredo Ballí Treviño". International Business Times. Retrieved July 22, 2018.
  8. ^ Valdez, Maria G. (July 30, 2013). "Who Was The Real Hannibal Lecter?". Latin Times. Retrieved July 22, 2018.
  9. ^ Grieg, Charlotte (2009). Evil Serial Killers: In the Minds of Monsters. London, England: Arcturus Publishing. p. 27. ISBN 978-1841932897.
  10. ^ Grieg, pg. 102
  11. ^ Preston, Douglas (July–August 2006). "The Monster of Florence". The Atlantic. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
  12. ^ a b Clarke, Cath (October 13, 2017). "An old friend for dinner ... why we're not scared of Hannibal Lecter any more". The Guardian. London, England. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved November 17, 2020.
  13. ^ Rose, Charlie (30 January 2001). "60 Minutes: Actors' Take On Ridley Scott". CBS News. Retrieved 8 June 2007.
  14. ^ Harris, Thomas (1988). Red Dragon. New York City: G. P. Putnam's Sons. p. 67. He's a monster. I think of him as one of those pitiful things that are born in hospitals from time to time. They feed it, and keep it warm, but they don't put it on the machines and it dies. Lecter is the same way in his head, but he looks normal and nobody could tell.
  15. ^ Harris, Thomas (1988). Silence of the Lambs. New York City: St. Martin's Press. p. 15. ISBN 9780312022822. Dr. Lecter has six fingers on his left hand
  16. ^ Harris, Thomas (1988). Silence of the Lambs. New York City: St. Martin's Press. p. 16. ISBN 9780312022822. Dr. Lecter's eyes are maroon, and they reflect the light in pinpoints of red
  17. ^ Harris, Thomas (1988). Silence of the Lambs. New York City: St. Martin's Press. p. 17. ISBN 9780312022822. He tapped his small white teeth against the card and breathed in its smell
  18. ^ Berkeman, Meredith (March 29, 1991). "Playing Hannibal Lecter". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved November 17, 2020.
  19. ^ Ebert, Roger (2003). The Great Movies. New York City: Broadway Books. p. 418. ISBN 978-0767910385. His approach to Lecter's personality, Hopkins says on his commentary track, was inspired by HAL 9000 in 2001: He is a dispassionate, brilliant machine, superb at logic, deficient in emotions.
  20. ^ Ebert, pg. 419
  21. ^ Cox, Brian (March 10, 2009). "Brian Cox: Interview (Manhunter)". Wogan Now and Then (Interview). Interviewed by Terry Wogan. London, England: BBC. Archived from the original on 2021-12-11.
  22. ^ Mottram, James (January 20, 2011). "Manhunter". Total Film (177). Bath, England: Future Publishing: 112–116.
  23. ^ Oldenburg, Ann (October 3, 2002). "Marquee names serve up another helping of Hannibal". USA Today. Retrieved April 19, 2013.
  24. ^ Hibberd, James (December 7, 2016). "'Westworld' Finale: Anthony Hopkins on Dr. Ford's Fate". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved November 12, 2020.
  25. ^ Hannibal Rising at Rotten Tomatoes Edit this at Wikidata
  26. ^ Abrams, Natalie (February 14, 2012). "Pilot Season: NBC Orders Hannibal Straight to Series; Also Picks Up Notorious". TV Guide. Retrieved March 26, 2017.
  27. ^ Hibberd, James (June 4, 2012). "NBC casts Bond villain as Hannibal Lecter". Entertainment Weekly. New York City: Meredith Corporation. Retrieved July 23, 2018.
  28. ^ Jeffrey, Morgan (March 23, 2012). "Hannibal Lecter TV series casts Hugh Dancy as Will Graham". Digital Spy. London, England: Hearst Magazines UK. Retrieved July 23, 2018.
  29. ^ Jeffery, Morgan (May 3, 2013). "Bryan Fuller 'Hannibal' Q&A: 'Lecter is like Satan at work'". Digital Spy. London, England: Hearst Magazines UK. Retrieved May 11, 2013.
  30. ^ Mouriquand, David (July 19, 2024). "What is it with Donald Trump's obsession with Hannibal Lecter?". Euronews. Retrieved July 20, 2024.
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