Death By Adaptation: Red Dragon (2002) and Manhunter (1986)
The image of the “great red dragon” from the Book of Revelation is a disturbing one: a winged being with seven heads and ten horns, with seven crowns on its heads. Famed painter and poet William Blake was commissioned to illustrate the Bible, and, between 1805 and 1810, he created a series of watercolour paintings about this imposing creature. The most famous of these works of art, The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun, was a source of inspiration for Thomas Harris’ second novel, Red Dragon.
Published in 1981, this crime novel was quite the success, becoming a commercial and critical hit. The story of former FBI profiler Will Graham, and his quest to capture the serial murderer known as “Tooth Fairy”, caught readers’ imagination with the perverse nature of the killings and graphic descriptions of the crime scenes. Harris crafts an intriguing psychological profile for Graham: he is a man who needs to get into the minds of the criminals he is chasing if he wants to get them behind bars, slowly losing his grasp on reality because of that.
What sets Red Dragon apart from other police procedurals of the time is that the identity of the “Tooth Fairy” is revealed early on, with many chapters of the book spent not only following killer Francis Dolarhyde, but also diving into his twisted psyche and tormented past – as cliched as the “abusive grandmother” and “scarred face” explanations can be. This way, the novel is less of a mystery whodunnit, and more of a tense cat-and-mouse game, where the reader is always aware of the games that each side is playing against the other.
While the book became very successful thanks to its nail-biting action, compelling characters, and disturbing violence, the one element that fans loved was the introduction of Hannibal Lecter, a man who loves reading people as much as he does eating them. This cannibalistic killer was the source of Will’s pain, and the two are collaborating to bring down Dolarhyde. Lecter’s alluring demeanour and eloquence, mixed with his taboo-breaking obsession, lingered with everyone who experienced the novel.
The success of Red Dragon made a cinematic adaptation the logical next step. Directed by Michael Mann and released in 1986, the title was changed to Manhunter to avoid confusion with martial arts pictures and to distance the project from producer Dino De Laurentiis’ previous flop, Year of the Dragon. This change did very little since Manhunter bombed at the box office and was generally disliked by critics.
However, like most of Mann’s work, it has since been reappraised as one of his strongest films, and for good reason: the pulpier tone of the novel was elevated into a highly stylised viewing experience, with Dante Spinotti’s cinematography using strong colour cues and tints to create a sense of heightened reality, courtesy also of a synth-heavy atmospheric soundtrack. A staple of Mann’s work is the attention to detail in the procedures, and here, every move that Graham makes to get closer to Dolarhyde feels real and believable.
This, however, does not sacrifice the more psychological aspects of the novel. Quite the opposite, really: Will’s obsession with capturing this killer, and the subsequent rejection of society for how he acts is not unlike Francis’ own exclusion from the lives of the others. They are two sides of the same coin, only that one acts for good and the other for evil. The two performances also complement each other wonderfully: William Petersen sells the disturbed psyche of detective Graham very convincingly, while Tom Noonan is unforgettable as Francis Dolarhyde.
Hannibal Lecter (here confusingly named Lecktor) is played by Brian Cox. His is a menacing turn that is often overlooked when compared to future interpretations, unfairly so. The cold and calculated stares that he exchanges with Petersen are bone-chilling and, even though his scenes are pretty much kept intact from the novel, he still manages to leave a lasting impression long after the credits have finished rolling.
Manhunter is quite faithful to Harris’ writing, removing primarily Dolarhyde’s backstory, some digressions from the case, the killer’s obsession with Blake’s painting – to the point of actually eating the original watercolour – and all the story of sleazy reporter Freddy Lounds (here played by a young Stephen Lang). Some scenes, however, are even better than in the book: Dolarhyde bringing the blind Reba McClane to pet a sedated tiger is already strong on paper, but the delicacy and lyricism that Mann infuses on the screen is outstanding, crafting a true moment of grace in an otherwise dark and grim film, thanks also to emotional acting by Joan Allen.
The ending is also a step up compared to the book. Harris misleads readers into thinking that Dolarhyde, driven by the newfound humanity that his love for Reba has brought out, killed himself, only to appear at Will Graham’s house to kill him and his family. This twist works more as a shock, but the knowledge that the killer would have ended his own life for love would have been an effective and poignant way to close the novel, where connection and acceptance from society are core themes.
Mann’s script changes that to a more standard climax inside Dolarhyde’s glass house, where Graham confronts him while Iron Butterfly’s “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” is blasting from a stereo. The editing of the scene is rather shoddy, and it removes some of the minimal empathy felt for the serial killer, but it is consistent with the film’s style and tone, with the song’s repetitive melody almost putting audiences into a state of trance.
Despite the financial failure of this artistic and extravagant adaptation, Harris was inspired to write another story set in this same universe, leading to the making of The Silence of the Lambs. The book was so beloved that a film was quickly rushed into production, directed by Jonathan Demme, and starring Jodie Foster as special agent Clarice Sterling and Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal the Cannibal. Unlike Mann’s film, this film was a massive success, going on to win the five biggest Academy Awards. Studios and audiences wanted more of Clarice and Hannibal, so in 1999 Thomas Harris released Hannibal, a sequel that was all about the man-eating psychiatrist and his twisted relationship with Clarice.
Ridley Scott directed this adaptation in 2001, with only Anthony Hopkins coming back from the main cast. Audiences were enamoured with Hopkins’ rendition of this psychopath, to the point that the line between good and evil became so blurry, he unofficially became an anti-hero. Both because of studio greed and the actor’s desire to make the character a villain again, a remake of Red Dragon was fast-tracked into production, with Silence’s screenwriter Ted Tally coming back to pen the script.
A year later, Red Dragon came to the big screen, courtesy of Hollywood’s blandest workman: Brett Ratner. Right from the opening, which shows a different retelling of how Graham caught Hannibal, it is clear that the filmmaker and screenwriter are more interested in using any possible excuse to justify Anthony Hopkins getting top billing, rather than properly adapting Harris’ novel. While his performance was unnerving in 1991, here he is a borderline caricature, with constant food-related jokes and shameless callbacks to Demme’s film, to the point that the cinematography features shots ripped out of that film, without any rhyme or reason.
The cinematography itself is shockingly dull, a disappointment considering that Dante Spinotti himself came back for this. Comparing the camerawork with that of Manhunter is night and day, emblematic of how rushed and careless this production was. The script itself is more faithful to the novel, but the execution is completely lacking in tension and emotion: Edward Norton is unconvincing as Will Graham, Danny Elfman’s score relies too much on strings that sound like stock horror music, the ending manages to somehow be even worse than that of the novel – with Graham shouting homophobic slurs phrases to Dolarhyde to get him to drop his son – and any sense of nuance or poetry is completely lost.
The only ones salvaging this sluggish and boring watch are Ralph Fiennes, Emily Watson, and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman. Fiennes has incredible presence as Francis Dolarhyde, managing to give him a very physical presence and threatening aura, much more unhinged than Noonan’s take. Watson gets a chance to play more into the sensual side of Reba McClane, which was absent from Manhunter, while Hoffman is very convincing as sleazebag Freddy Lounds, and his torture scene with Fiennes is a definite highlight of the picture.
On its own, Ratner’s Red Dragon could be taken as a pedestrian and banal adaptation of Thomas Harris’ novel. However, the existence of Manhunter negates that, as the 2002 film pales in comparison to the 1986 version. Michael Mann made art, a piece that was carefully thought out, with calculated changes and plenty of beauty and poetry amidst the carnage. Brett Ratner made a piece of entertainment for a money-hungry studio, relying too much on the success of Silence of the Lambs, miscasting its protagonist, and showing a shallow understanding of the character depths of the novel. It is unforgivable to believe that what Mann did is lesser than the newer one.