#179
Post
by colinr0380 » Mon Dec 30, 2019 10:03 am
I revisited Manhunter again last night and still enjoy it a lot. This time around I was really struck by the climactic irony of the way that the duality between the serial killer and the cop putting himself into their mindset in order to track them down turns into the cops themselves stealthily skulking (almost blundering) through the woods behind the killer's house before Will does his own version of a home invasion by leaping and smashing through the glass window! I kind of love that despite having that affinity with his prey that our cop hero just smashes his way in regardless of safety or alerting the killer, compared to the meticulous way that the Tooth Fairy used glass cutting equipment to gain entry into the homes of the families that he killed. I suppose it is the element of time being on one's side, or not, that decides the angle of attack in the respective situations!
That kind of reveals Will Graham's essential difference in humanity, and difference from the monsters he is sharing mindspace with, though. I think one of the things that I most appreciate about Manhunter is its 'discretion', in not revelling in showing us the murderous actions of the killer visually whilst still trying to understand their actions mentally in some depth. We get a lot of aftermath details but really the film is discreet about actually showing the murders being committed directly. There are moments of horrible imagery - I'm thinking about the crime scene photographs on the airplane, shown in flashes - but even there it is to show Will being forced back into such soul destroying work by the effect that such images have on a child sitting next to him and accidentally seeing the photographs as the folder opens whilst Will is napping, his mind briefly elsewhere.
I particularly love the 'journey' of the Leeds house throughout the film, with the film beginning with the pre-credits scene of the nocturnal entry of the killer until the woman wakes up as the torch is levelled on her (which later on gets replayed as the first of the killer's two 'ecstatic fantasy' mirroring moments). Then we get Will Graham visiting the still fresh crime scene, bodies removed but the walls still sprayed with arterial gouts of blood and stains from where bodies were propped up. And then near to the end to really get into the mind of the killer, Graham returns once more to re-trace the killer's steps, only now through the fully cleaned up and wiped down, ready for the estate agents to market with no trace of its previous human occupants remaining except in memory, house. Which is perhaps more upsetting than the bloody crime scene in some ways. This also all contrasts against continually returning to pore through the VHS tapes of the family home movies for clues, of the time when the house actually was a functioning home. Tapes which end up becoming clues in themselves after the investigator pulls back far enough to see the woods rather than the individual trees. I guess if being uncharitable someone could say that Michael Mann has always been a director focused on style and surface images than exploring characters, but I really think this illustrates the way that the style and locations often are the characterisation in his films, often for characters unable to articulate themselves verbally. In this case because they're dead.
And there is a lot of sympathy there for the killer, whilst not absolving him for his crimes (as well put in the comment that Graham makes about him), which perhaps also brings us to the use of the Hannibal "Lecktor" character in Manhunter. I particularly like that Lecktor is truly used as a supporting character here, who takes the opportunity to attack Will Graham and his family again even from behind maximum security bars, but who in talking to Will again almost accidentally provides the clue to him about how to track down the Tooth Fairy. I love that final telephone call as Will has the revelation about halfway through Lecktor's speech teasing him, which suddenly turns the tables. Lecktor has no more information to give, or role to play, at this point even whilst he is still talking away, and indeed he disappears from the film, his role finished. That is perhaps the major contrast against the Brett Ratner Red Dragon remake from 2002, which despite being a prequel has to flesh out the Hannibal Lector character more (by explicitly showing the violent attack on Will Graham in its prologue, again contrasting against Manhunter's discretion in just a verbal description of it, to a child no less (another example of innocence being in close proximity to the darkest parts of human nature, and needing protection for everyone's sake to match the child on the plane), being enough to chill the bones) and really turn all of the material into a showcase for Anthony Hopkins in his final portrayal of the character. Despite being chronologically the first in the series, Red Dragon only filmically makes sense coming after The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal made Lector into the world's favourite serial killer. Manhunter, coming years before that iconic status, treats "Lecktor" as the manipulative monster that the police investigator only uses for as long as he has to, and even then it is incredibly dangerous to be in close proximity to for even that limited amount of time.
I love the tragic romance between the Dolarhyde and Reba too. It is so heartbreaking to think that this relationship with a superficially 'damaged' (by being blind) colleague could have been what could have saved the more deeply damaged Francis from committing his crimes. His focus on the visual as the ultimate sensory experience could have complimented Reba's blindness, but it all came far too late for him, and of course he horribly misinterprets the moment of a colleague brushing a bit of pollen from Reba's hair as a lover's betrayal (the second 'ecstatic fantasy' moment), which even though he is already a monstrous serial killer and the police are on their way to him already at this point, sort of shows that Dolarhyde himself if left to his own devices was going to have destroyed his one possibility of redemption anyway. That's sort of the Michael Mann theme running through all of his films (I think I mentioned it back on the Blackhat thread a few years ago), that the female characters are often in supporting roles and marginalised for the foregrounded stuff of men clashing together and often having punch ups or shoot outs, but they are often always portrayed as characters in their own right, often tormented by the way that they just cannot get through to the men in their lives and stop them from wrecking everything by following their prescribed moral codes, or going on that bank heist. Or from the demons in their own heads.
That's really why the domestic relationship between Will and Molly plays out the way it does. She cannot stop him from carrying out this investigation through to the bitter end even if it puts her and their son in danger too, and she can see the consequences that going down this path has on Will himself. Similarly Reba is the figure used as the possible saviour for Francis, even if she is rather unaware of her redemptive role in his life until he has fully turned away from her and become the Red Dragon, the murderous side that needs her to die to continue to exist within Francis. That's the tragedy of the film, even if it is happening to a man who is already pretty much irredeemable because he has butchered two entire families by that point. Perhaps the third family he was going to have murdered on that full moon cycle was going to have been the one he potentially could have had with Reba. In the end Francis gets remained as a single, incel-avant-la-lettre, 'worryingly single, possibly gay and wanting to be a woman himself' (not particularly endorsed by the film, particularly because it heartbreakingly focuses on the consumated love scene between Francis and Reba, but which does get used by the police colleagues calling the killer by the effeminate name of "Tooth Fairy" over the killer's preferred "Red Dragon" and even by Will in that tabloid magazine interview to infuriate the killer into revealing himself. Which also rather interestingly/worryingly contrasts against Buffalo Bill being exactly that kind of figure 'played straight' in Silence of the Lambs) figure who is wanting to be wanted by women already in happy family relationships because he is jealous of the life they have and love that they are providing. Francis for all of the Red Dragon ideas of being able to become something more ironically gets reduced into a petty nothing, which might be the appropriate fate for a villain wanting more power than they can handle (which is probably where the fate of the Nazi officers in Michael Mann's previous film The Keep could also come in as a carried over theme into this film).
Last edited by
colinr0380 on Sun May 03, 2020 5:47 am, edited 7 times in total.
. Same again, I didn't know that Tangerine Dream had done the music for this show and I liked it because it felt very different to other shows that were around at the time that are more fresh in my memory. Another very interesting thing was that Rex Smith was the original Daredevil, in The Trial of the Incredible Hulk.