Salon.com > Frederick Barthelme http://www.salon.com Sat, 25 May 2013 13:00:00 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Digesting “Hannibal” http://www.salon.com/2001/03/03/barthelme_3/ http://www.salon.com/2001/03/03/barthelme_3/#comments Sat, 03 Mar 2001 20:07:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/feature/2001/03/03/barthelme We saw "Hannibal" on two different nights in two different cities. When we started exchanging e-mails about the movie, we realized that the critics had it all wrong. We began to think maybe we should try to get it right. We didn't, exactly, but we decided we'd share our e-mails in the hope that our dialogue -- which continues -- might at least advance the discussion from where it has been. Neither of us has read the Thomas Harris book on which the movie is based, and readers who have not seen the movie are advised that some pertinent plot points are discussed in detail below.

Frederick Barthelme: So I saw "Hannibal." Loved it. Thought it a sublime love story. It's the best Ridley Scott movie since "Blade Runner," which single-handedly defined the look and feel of "future" movies for the last 20 years, and which, like this one, managed to make a simple story hugely complex and defining. (Will anyone ever forget Rutger Hauer saying, "Time to die," releasing the bird, or telling Deckard the things he's seen -- "Troop ships on fire at the edge of Orion"? Answer: No.) And, as "Blade Runner" was in its moment, "Hannibal" is the best-looking movie in years, showing us new ways to see. The "Blade Runner" look was all cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth, I've been told, the future and rain and glitter and advertising that take your breath away. And here again the "look" of the film is a visual elaboration of the themes: "Hannibal" is all about the adoration of light, the elegance of shattered sound, the shadowed beauty of the world we live in but never really see.

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