Red Dragon is a 2002 thriller film based on Thomas Harris' novel of the same name and featuring psychiatrist and serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter. It is a prequel to The Silence of the Lambs. The film was directed by Brett Ratner and written for the screen by Ted Tally, who also wrote the screenplay for the Oscar-winning The Silence of the Lambs. It stars Edward Norton as FBI agent Will Graham and Anthony Hopkins as Lecter, a role he had played twice before in The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal.
Storyline in brief:
In this film a retired FBI agent with psychological gifts is assigned to help track down "The Tooth Fairy", a mysterious serial killer. Helping him to solve the case is the imprisoned criminal genius Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter.
Stars and director: The stars of the film were Anthony Hopkins, Edward Norton and Ralph Fiennes. The film was directed by Brett Ratner and written for the screen by Ted Tally, who also wrote the screenplay for the Oscar-winning The Silence of the Lambs. It stars Edward Norton, as an FBI agent Will Graham and Anthony Hopkins who played the role of Lecter, a role he had, by then, played twice before in The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal.
Stars :
Edward Norton
Harvey Keitel
Emily Watson
And Editing by Mark Helfrich
The Motion Picture Rating is (MPAA) and it’s Rated R for violence, grisly images, language and some nudity and sexuality.
Box OfficeThe box office Budget was totalled to $90,000,000 in estimation.
The amount spent on Opening Weekend’s in the USA, on the 6th of October in 2002, amounted to $36,540,945, in a calculated 3357 screens.
Additionally, the Gross worldwide made up a sum of $107,000,000, from 16th of Febuary 2003, except for the USA.
Company CreditsThe Production Companies that worked on the Red Dragon were Universal Pictures, Dino De Laurentiis Company, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
DIRECTOR: Sir Ridley Scott (born 30 November 1937) is an English film director and producer. His films include The Duellists (1977), Alien (1979), Blade Runner (1982), Legend (1985), Thelma & Louise (1991), G. I. Jane (1997), Gladiator (2000), Black Hawk Down (2001), Hannibal (2001), Kingdom of Heaven (2005), American Gangster (2007), Body of Lies (2008), and Robin Hood (2010). Scott has been nominated for three Academy Awards for Directing, as well as Golden Globe and ‘Emmy’Awards. He was knighted in the 2003 New Year honours. In 2011, Scott is set to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The genres of the film were : Crime | Drama | Mystery | Thriller
A main Tagline: How It All Began!
Running time | 124 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $78 million |
Box office | $209,196,298 |
Hannibal Lecter is a fictional character in a series of horror novels by Thomas Harris and in the films adapted from them: Red Dragon, The Silence of the Lambs (1988), Hannibal(1999 and Hannibal Rising (2006), Lecter is the primary antagonist a brilliant psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer. The first film adapted from the Harris novels was Manhunter, based on Red Dragon, features Brian Cox as Lecter, spelled "Lecktor". In 2002, a second adaptation of Red Dragon was made under the original title, featuring Anthony Hopkins, who had played Lecter in the motion pictures The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal. Hopkins won an Academy Award for The Silence of the Lambs in 1991. In 2003, Hannibal Lecter (as portrayed by Hopkins) was chosen by the American Film Institute as the #1 movie villain.
Hannibal Lecter
Anthony Hopkins Biography
Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins, CBE is a Welsh film, stage and television actor. He is considered by many to be one of film's greatest living actors, he is arguably best known for his portrayal of cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter in the 1991 blockbuster The Silence of the Lambs, its sequel, Hannibal, and its prequel, Red Dragon. Other film credits include The Elephant Man, Bram Stoker's Dracula, The Remains of the Day, The Mask of Zorro, Hearts in Atlantis, Nixon and FractureHopkins was born in Margam, in Wales.
His parents were the late Richard Arthur Hopkins and Muriel Yeats, who was a distant relation of poet William Butler Yeats. He was encouraged to become an actor by Richard Burton, a famous actor, who he met aged 15. He subsequently enrolled at the College of Music and Drama in Cardiff, He graduated in 1957. After a two-year spell in the army, he moved to London where he trained at RADA, at the suggestion of Roy Marsden.
In 1965, he was spotted by Laurence Olivier, who invited him to join the National Theatre. Hopkins was given the opportunity to be Olivier's understudy, and got his chance to shine when the actor was became ill with appendicitis during a production of August Strindberg's “The Dance of Death”. Although Hopkins continued to perform in theatre he moved away from it to become more established as a television and film actor. He has since gone on to enjoy a long career, winning many awards for his performances.
In 1965, he was spotted by Laurence Olivier, who invited him to join the National Theatre. Hopkins was given the opportunity to be Olivier's understudy, and got his chance to shine when the actor was became ill with appendicitis during a production of August Strindberg's “The Dance of Death”. Although Hopkins continued to perform in theatre he moved away from it to become more established as a television and film actor. He has since gone on to enjoy a long career, winning many awards for his performances.
He was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 1987, and a Knight Bachelor in 1993. In 1996 Hopkins was awarded an honorary fellowship from the University of Wales, Lampeter. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2003 and was made a Fellow of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 2008.
Textual Analyisis
The trailer for the film Red Dragon, starring Anthony Hopkins, begins symbolically with a pitch black shot in which the diegetic sound of an electronic prison door being opened is heard. The sound is loud and disturbing, and rather unexpected. We are only able to distinguish what this sound is in the next shot which appears after a clean cut: In a medium shot, we see a glum looking young white man waiting for a prison door to be opened. He is dressed in a typical dark formal suit which indicates that he is an official.
The mis-en-scene in the opening shot is created by the setting of a prison, the seriousness of the man’s facial expression, the disturbing sound effects and the lighting, which is dark and dismal. The audience is able to identify from prior knowledge that this will be a dark, disturbing tale with the theme of crime running strong.
These shot cuts sharply to show the “Universal” film production company’s logo which is a familiar sight for movie lovers and highlights the success of the company producing this film. Non-diegetic music is now added to the background. The music is eerie sounding and the following sequence of shots are dubbed with a voice over, revealing the character’s thoughts and revelations regarding a number “highly organised” attacks which at first inspection seemed like a “killing frenzy”. An atmosphere of suspense is created by snippets of information being presented as well as a bombardment of singular images, such as an extreme close up of someone’s teeth in a grimace, a close up of a porcelain doll which zooms into the expressionless eyes, and medium shots of the man walking along the prison corridor.
The shots are interlinked with clean cut shots showing a pitch black screen. This is effective in many ways: the connotations of black such as death, evil, mystery, darkness create a thrilling undertone to the trailer. It also serves to break up the sequence of shots and presents the images in a fragmented and unconventional way which keeps the audience’s eyes glued to the screen. Thinking imaginatively, the black shots also seem like blinks of an eye and the suggestion may be that we are missing out on crucial information at this stage, or missing pieces of the puzzle, which will “come into light” at a later stage.
While the screen is one of these black shots, we hear the infamous voice of Hannibal Lecter, played by Anthony Hopkins, asking the question in a surprisingly calm voice saying: “you wanna know how he’s choosing them don’t you?”At this stage, the audience is led to believe that he may be willingly working with the police as an aid but the very next shot is a close up of his face expression, which displays a cunning and evil grin. This creates feelings of apprehension in the audience as we can determine how dangerous and psychopathic this man is.
As in “Silence of the lambs” Hannibal is represented clean shaven, every hair in place, and fully composed and in control. He is however, wearing prison attire and goes on to highlight how it is the man standing before him who caught him and hence imprisoned him. This information is cleverly provided in a dialogue between the two and serves to fill in any gaps in the audience’s knowledge and also as a reminder of the storyline beforehand. Those who have followed the earlier films will perhaps be surprised to see him so perfectly groomed. This sets the scene for the events to follow as we now understand that jail has not affected this murderer in any way and that he is still as dangerous as ever. To emphasize this even further, the man goes on to blatantly state to Hannibal face that he has a “disadvantage” as he is “insane”! Hannibal’s reaction is minimalistic: mouth slightly opened as if he going to say something and with a curious look in his eye he stares back, but before any action takes place the shot is swiftly cut away with dramatic sound effects and music. This implies perhaps that this conversation is not over but will be continued on Hannibal’s terms...
In the following sequence of shots, we hear Hannibal’s voice over as he describes the characteristics of the murderer the police are searching for. His words of experience and his advice is true as we are presented with visual evidence of the culprit fitting the description Hannibal gives: for example, he states that the person will have tattoos and have a facial disfigurement. At this stage, we are in awe, once again, of Hannibal’s insight and understanding of the criminal mind. Without wanting to, we applaud his success but are fearful of his reasons behind helping the police as we know too well from his previous actions, that nothing he does is for good!
His intenseness and mental instability is highlighted in a close-up shot where he suddenly lurches towards the police officer with his teeth, only being pulled back by the restraints holding him securely. This is a sudden and dramatic reminder of how he has killed his previous victims with his teeth as a weapon and eaten their body parts! Any miniscule respect we may have had for his actions in helping the police force now suddenly disintegrate as we are reminded of his psychopathic nature. The image of him lurching forward in an animalistic fashion is the last image we see of him and hence stays in our minds.
Next we see the red dragon imagery and the narrator’s eerie and dramatic voice reminds the audience of the previous films “Silence of the Lambs” and “Hannibal” while describing him as pure “evil” just in case we hadn’t gathered this! The film title fades into the shot, symbolically coloured with the word red appearing in red coloured capital font and dragon being presented in white font. The connotations of red are clear: blood and danger. However, the word “dragon” appearing in white may suggest how appearances can be deceiving. I think it is symbolic of Hannibal’s character as at surface level, by appearance, he appears like a stereotypical neatly presented elderly man. Yet, we know that underneath the surface, he is an intensely intelligent yet psychopathic serial killer and cannibal.
The predominant colour in the finishing credits to the trailer is black which connotates that this is a horror / thriller genre. The tension filled dramatic music in the background also emphasizes the suspense and this is followed by a tick-tock sound effect which on one hand creates the notion of time being crucial and ticking away, and on the other hand, sounds like a heart beat which emphasizes the dramatic nature of the film. It is interesting to note that the names of all the cast fade into the shots in white capitalised font, which is a break away from the convention as grammatically names should begin with a capital. This too is a device which reveals to the audience that this film will break away from expectations and will therefore be a film worth watching.
As the audience is presented with a full range of cast names and becomes familiar with the fading in and out of the names, a last shock is in store, when the screen is filled in a close up shot of Hannibal’s face wearing the horrific face guard, we were first introduced to in “Silence of the lambs”, used a device to stop him attacking people with his teeth. The image is bizarre and highlights that he is mentally unstable. The audience is captivated by his gaze who moves from the side to focusing straight ahead as if he can see through the screen and see the audience watching him. This is a scary thought and is an effective last shot before the simple information – the date of release “October 4” is revealed, followed by technical data.
No comments:
Post a Comment