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Manhunter (film)
Encyclopedia
Manhunter is a 1986 American thriller film based on Thomas Harris
's novel Red Dragon. Written and directed by Michael Mann, it stars William Petersen
as Will Graham
and features Brian Cox as Hannibal Lecktor
. When asked to investigate a killer known as "The Tooth Fairy," FBI
profiler Will Graham comes out of retirement to lend his talents to the case—in doing so he must confront the specter of his past and meet with a jailed killer who nearly counted Graham amongst his victims. Dennis Farina
co-stars as Jack Crawford
, Graham's superior at the FBI, while serial killer Francis Dollarhyde
—"The Tooth Fairy"—is portrayed by Tom Noonan
.
Manhunter focuses on the forensic work carried out by the FBI to track down the killer, and shows the long-term effects that cases like this have on Graham, highlighting the similarities between him and his quarry. The film features heavily-stylized use of color to convey this sense of duality, and the nature of the characters' similarity has been explored in academic readings of the film. This was not the first adaptation of a Harris novel for the screen—the 1975 novel Black Sunday, a story of a terrorist attack on the Super Bowl
, was adapted to film
in 1977—but this was the first film to feature the serial killer "Hannibal the Cannibal" who would later appear in The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal
, Red Dragon
and Hannibal Rising.
Opening to mixed reviews, Manhunter fared poorly at the box office at the time of its release, making only $8.6 million in the United States on a $15 million budget. However, it has since been reappraised in more recent reviews and now enjoys a more favorable reception, with both the acting and the stylized visuals having gained appreciation in later years. Its resurgent popularity, which may be due to later adaptations of Harris' books and Petersen's success in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
, has seen it labelled as a cult film
.
(William Petersen
) is a former FBI criminal profiler who has retired due to a breakdown after being attacked by a cannibalistic
serial killer
, Dr. Hannibal Lecktor
(Brian Cox). He is approached at his Florida home by his former FBI superior Jack Crawford
(Dennis Farina
), who is seeking help with a new serial killer case. Promising his wife (Kim Greist
) that he will do nothing more than examine evidence and not risk physical harm, Graham agrees to visit the most recent crime scene in Atlanta, attempting to enter the mindset of the killer, now dubbed the "Tooth Fairy" by the police for the bite-marks left on his victims.
After finding the killer's fingerprints, Graham meets with Crawford. They are accosted by tabloid journalist Freddie Lounds (Stephen Lang
), with whom Graham has a bitter history. Lounds' paper had run photographs of Graham taken secretly while he was hospitalized. Graham pays a visit to the cell of Lecktor, a former psychiatrist, asking for his insight into the killer's motivations. After a tense conversation, Lecktor agrees to look at the case file. Lecktor is later able to deceitfully obtain Graham's home address.
Graham travels to the first crime scene in Birmingham, Alabama, where he is contacted by Crawford, who tells him of Lounds' tabloid story on the case. Crawford also patches Graham through to Frederick Chilton
(Benjamin Hendrickson
), Lecktor's warden, who has found a note in Lecktor's personal effects. Reading it they realize it is from the Tooth Fairy, expressing admiration for Lecktor—and an interest in Graham. Crawford brings Graham to the FBI Academy
at Quantico, where a missing section of the note is analyzed to determine what Lecktor has removed. It is found to be an instruction to communicate through the personals section of the National Tattler, Lounds' newspaper. The FBI set up a fake advertisement to replace Lecktor's response. Graham also organizes an interview with Lounds during which he gives a false and derogatory profile of the Tooth Fairy in order to incite him. After a sting operation fails to catch the killer, Lounds is kidnapped by the Tooth Fairy (Tom Noonan
). Waking in the killer's home, he is shown a slideshow of William Blake
's "The Great Red Dragon" paintings
, along with the Tooth Fairy's past victims and slides of a family the killer identifies as his next targets. Lounds is forced to tape-record a statement before being set alight in a wheelchair and killed, his flaming body rolled into the parking garage of the National Tattler as a warning.
Graham is told by Crawford that they have cracked Lecktor's coded message to the Tooth Fairy—it is Graham's home address with an instruction to kill the family. Graham rushes home to find his family safe but terrified. He tries to explain to his son Kevin why he had retired previously. At his job in a St. Louis film lab, Francis Dollarhyde
—The Tooth Fairy—approaches a blind co-worker, Reba McClane (Joan Allen
), and ends up offering her a ride. They go to Dollarhyde's home, where Reba is oblivious to the fact that Dollarhyde is watching home-movie footage of his planned next victim. She kisses him and they make love. Dollarhyde is confused by this newfound relationship, though it helps suppress his bloodlust. Just as Graham comes to realize how much the Tooth Fairy's desire for acceptance factors into the murders, Dollarhyde watches as Reba is escorted home by another co-worker. Mistakenly believing them to be kissing, Dollarhyde murders the man and abducts Reba. When she calls him Francis, he tells her "Francis is gone. Forever."
Desperately trying to figure out a connection between the murdered families, Graham realizes that someone must have seen their home movies. He and Crawford deduce where the videos were processed. They identify the lab in St. Louis and fly there immediately. Dollarhyde has been casing the victims' homes through home videos, enabling him to prepare for the break-ins in extreme detail. Graham is able to determine which employee has seen these films, and obtains Dollarhyde's home address, which he and Crawford travel to with a police escort. Reba is terrified at Dollarhyde's home as he contemplates what to do with her. As he struggles to kill Reba with a piece of broken mirror glass, police teams assemble around the house. Able to see that Dollarhyde has someone inside with him, Graham lunges through a window. He is quickly subdued by Dollarhyde, who retrieves a shotgun and uses it to wound Crawford and kill two police officers. Wounded in the firefight, Dollarhyde returns to the kitchen to shoot Graham, but misses due to his injuries, and is killed in return. Graham, Reba, and Crawford are tended to by paramedics before Graham returns home, this time permanently retired.
changed the title after Michael Cimino
's De Laurentiis-produced Year of the Dragon
bombed
at the box office in 1985. William Petersen has commented that the title was changed to also avoid being confused for a karate movie. "At the time, Bruce Lee was knocking out Dragon movies, and Dino, in his wisdom, decided people would think it was a kung-fu movie," he later recalled. Brian Cox, who played jailed killer Hannibal Lecktor, has also expressed disdain for the film's title, calling it "bland" and "cheesy".
William Petersen
worked with the Chicago Police Department
Violent Crimes Unit and the FBI Violent Crimes Unit in preparation for his role, talking to the officers and reading some of their crime files. He spoke to the investigators on the Richard Ramirez
case about how they coped with the effects these disturbing cases had on them and how they learned to "compartmentalize" their working and personal lives. "Of course you don’t really turn it off," he recalled. "At the end of the day, even if you’re just a regular policeman, it takes a toll". During the three years he spent working on the script, Michael Mann also spent time with the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit
, where he claimed to have met people very like the character of Will Graham. This level of research has led to the film being described as "one of the most competent blends of cutting-edge forensic science and criminal profiling at the time". Mann also spent several years corresponding with imprisoned murderer Dennis Wayne Wallace. Wallace had been motivated by his obsession for a woman he barely knew, and believed that Iron Butterfly
's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
" was "their song"; this connection led to Mann including the song in the film.
Tom Noonan
, who played the killer Francis Dollarhyde, initially researched other serial killers to study for the role, but felt put off by this. He then decided to play the character with the sense that he felt he was doing right by his victims, not harming them. "I wanted to feel this guy was doing the best he could", Noonan explained, "that he was doing this out of love". Joan Allen, who played Dollarhyde's blind love interest Reba McClane, recalls meeting with representatives of the New York Institute for the Blind
in preparation for her role. She spent time walking around New York wearing a mask over her eyes in order to get accustomed to walking as though she were blind.
John Lithgow
, Mandy Patinkin
, William Friedkin
, and Brian Dennehy
were all considered for the role of Hannibal Lecktor
; although Brian Cox was cast after being recommended to Mann by Dennehy. Cox based his portrayal on Scottish serial killer
Peter Manuel
who he stated "didn't have a sense of right and wrong." Cox has also suggested that he was given the role due to his nationality, claiming that characters who are "a little bit nasty" are best played by Europeans. Mann kept the role of Lecktor very short, believing that it was "such a charismatic character that [he] wanted the audience almost not to get enough of him". For the role of Will Graham, De Laurentiis had expressed interest in Richard Gere
, Mel Gibson
and Paul Newman
, but Michael Mann, having seen footage of William Petersen's role in To Live and Die in L.A., championed Petersen for the part. Tom Noonan credits his casting in the role of Francis Dollarhyde to improvisation during his audition, recalling that he was reading lines alongside a young woman. During a reading of the scene featuring the torture of Freddie Lounds, Noonan noticed the woman rehearsing with him beginning to seem frightened, and deliberately tried to scare her more, believing this is what secured the role for him.
approach. The scene, in which Petersen's character Will Graham falls asleep whilst studying crime scene photographs during a flight, required the use of an airplane during shooting. Michael Mann had been unable to gain permission to use a plane for the scene and booked tickets for the crew on a flight from Chicago to Florida. Once on board the crew used their equipment, checked in as hand luggage, to shoot the scene quickly while keeping the plane's passengers and crew mollified with Manhunter crew jackets.
Cinematographer Dante Spinotti
made strong use of color tints in the film, using a cool "romantic blue" tone to denote the scenes featuring Will Graham and his wife, and a more subversive green hue, with elements of purple or magenta, as a cue for the unsettling scenes in the film, mostly involving Dollarhyde. William Petersen has stated that Mann wanted to create a visual aura to bring the audience into the film, so that the story would work on an interior and emotional level. Mann also made use of multiple frame rate
s in filming the climactic shootout, with multiple cameras recording the scene at 24, 36, 72 and 90 frames per second, giving the final scene what Spinotti has called an "off tempo", "staccato" feel.
During principal photography
, Noonan asked that no one in the cast who played his victims or his pursuers be allowed to see him, whilst those he did speak to would address him by his character's name, Francis. The first time Noonan met Petersen was when Petersen jumped through a large window during the filming of the climactic fight scene. Noonan admits that, because of his request, the atmosphere on set became so tense that people actually became afraid of him. The actor had also begun body-building to prepare for the role, felt that his size intimidated the crew when filming began, as the first scene to be shot was his character's interrogation and murder of another. Noonan also claims this led to him taking separate flights and staying in separate hotels from the rest of the cast; and while on the film's sets, he would remain in his trailer alone in the dark to prepare himself, sometimes joined by a silent Mann.
Petersen recalled filming the climactic shoot-out scene at the end of principal photography, at which point most of the crew had already left the production, due to time constraints. With no special effects crew to provide the blood spatter for the gunshots, Petersen described how the remaining crew would blow ketchup across the set through hoses when the effects were needed. Joan Allen also related that Michael Mann would simulate the impacts of gunfire in Dollarhyde's kitchen by throwing glass jars across the surfaces so they would shatter where he needed them to; one of these broken jars left a shard of glass impaled in Petersen's thigh during filming. The pool of blood forming around Noonan's character at the end of this scene was intended to allude to the "Red Dragon
" tattoos worn by the character in the novel. This shot left Noonan lying in the corn syrup stage blood for so long that he became stuck to the floor.
when framing shots evokes "the emotional situation in the film at that particular time", noting the director's focus on the particular shape or color of elements of the set when shooting. He has also called to attention the scene in which Graham visits Lecktor in his cell, noting the constant position of the cell bars within the frame even as the shots cut back and forth between the two characters. "There is nothing in Manhunter ... which is just a nice shot," says Spinotti. "[It] is all focused into conveying that particular atmosphere; whether it's happiness, or delusion, or disillusion". This "manipulation of focus and editing" has become a visual hallmark of the film.
Despite having initially filmed the scenes involving Francis Dollarhyde with an elaborate tattoo across actor Tom Noonan's chest, Mann and Spinotti felt that the finished result seemed out of place and that it "trivialize[d] the struggle" the character faced. Mann cut the scenes in which the character appeared bare-chested, and quickly re-shot additional footage to replace what had been removed. Spinotti noted that in doing so, scenes which he felt had been captured with a "beautiful" aesthetic were lost, as the production did not have the time to recreate the original lighting conditions for the removed content.
Petersen had difficulty ridding himself of the Will Graham
character after principal photography wrapped. While rehearsing for a play in Chicago, he felt that the old character "always coming out" instead of his new role. To try and rid himself of the character, Petersen went to a barbershop where he had them shave his beard, cut his hair and dye it blond so that he could look into the mirror and see a different person. He initially felt it was due to the rigorous shooting schedule for Manhunter, but later realized that the character "had creeped in".
's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida", Shriekback's "This Big Hush", and Red 7's "Heartbeat". In March 2010, Intrada Records
announced that they were releasing the Manhunter soundtrack on CD for the first time. An extra track, "Jogger's Stakeout" by The Reds, has been added to the listing.
The Reds were contacted about contributing to the film's soundtrack after submitting their music for possible use on Miami Vice. The band recorded their score over a period of two months, in studios in New York and Los Angeles. They recorded a total of 28 minutes of music for the film, however several cues were replaced later on with music by Shriekback and Michel Rubini. "Comfortably Numb
" by Pink Floyd
and "I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)
" by The Electric Prunes
have both been cited by The Reds' vocalist Rick Shaffer as influences on the film's soundtrack. "Strong as I Am" by The Prime Movers was selected for the film by Mann, who later funded the filming of a music video for the song's release as a single.
The soundtrack was one of the 1980s film soundtracks used by Zack Snyder
and Tyler Bates
for inspiration whilst writing the score to the 2009 film Watchmen
, along with those of To Live and Die in L.A.
and Blade Runner
.
Music in the film's screen credits which are not listed above included:
Academic studies of the film tend to draw attention to the relationship between the characters of Graham and Dollarhyde, noting, for example, that the film "chooses to emphasize the novel's symbiotic relationships between Graham, Lecter and Dolarhyde [sic] by visual techniques and screen acting where subtlety plays a key role". In his book Hearths of Darkness: The Family in the American Horror Film, Tony Williams praises the depth of the film's characterizations, calling Dollarhyde a "victim of society" with his portrayal "undermining convenient barriers between monster and human". Philip L. Simpson echoes this sentiment in his book Psycho Paths: Tracking the Serial Killer through Contemporary American Film, calling Manhunter a "profoundly ambiguous and destabilizing film" which creates "uncomfortable affinities between protagonist and antagonist". Mark T. Conard's The Philosophy of Film Noir follows this same idea, claiming that the film presents the notion that "what it takes to catch a serial killer is tantamount to being one".
and saw wide release on 24 February 1989. In France, the film was screened at the 1987 Cognac Festival du Film Policier on April 9, where it was awarded the Critics Prize. It was also shown at the 2009 Camerimage
Film Festival in Łódź, Poland
. On 19 March 2011, the film was screened at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre
in Hollywood to celebrate the 25th anniversary of its release. Michael Mann was present for discussion at the event.
in 1986. It was released on VHS
several times, including by BMG on 10 October 1998, and by Universal Studios
in 2001. It has also been available on DVD in various versions. Anchor Bay
released a Limited Edition 2-DVD set in 2000. A standard edition, an individual release for the first disc of the 2-disc set, was also released at the same time. In 2003, Anchor Bay released the "Restored Director's Cut" which is very close to the "Director's Cut" on the 2000 disc but omits one scene. It does, however, feature a commentary track by Mann.
In 2004, MGM
(current holders of The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal
) released a pan and scan
ned version of the film that was the one seen in theaters. The theatrical cut was finally released on DVD for the first time in 2007 by MGM in widescreen as part of The Hannibal Lecter Collection, along with The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal. It was also released by itself on 11 September 2007. Manhunter, The Silence of the Lambs, and Hannibal were released by MGM on Blu-ray disc format as a three-pack set called "The Hannibal Lecter Collection" in September 2009.
for Best Motion Picture.
A common criticism in the initial reviews was that the film overemphasized the music and stylistic visuals; Petersen's skill as a lead actor was also called into question. Particularly critical of the film's stylistic approach was the New York Times, who called attention to the film's "taste for overkill", branding Mann's stylized approach as "hokey" and little more than "gimmicks". Chicago Tribune
writer Dave Kehr noted that director Michael Mann "believes in style so much that he has very little belief left over for the characters or situations of his film, which suffers accordingly", adding that the film's focus on style serves to "drain any notion of credibility" from its plot. Sheila Benson of the Los Angeles Times
was critical of the film's visuals and soundtrack, comparing it unfavourably to Miami Vice
, and describing it as a "chic, well-cast wasteland" that "delivers very little". The film's stylistic similarity to Miami Vice was also point out by Film Threat
s Dave Beuscher, who felt it was the chief reason for the film's poor box office results. Writing for the San Francisco Chronicle
, Steve Winn derided the film, claiming its lack of a strong lead role caused it to " fall apart like the shattered mirrors that figure in the crimes". Time
was more favorable in its review, praising the "intelligent camerabatics" and "bold, controlled color scheme". Leonard Maltin
gave the film three stars, calling it "gripping all the way through and surprisingly nonexploitive", although adding that "the holes start to show through" if looked for "too carefully".
Modern appreciation of the film has seen its standing among critics improve. Salon.com
has called Mann's original the best of the Lecter series; whilst Slate
magazine described it as "mesmerizing", positing that it directly inspired television series such as Millennium
and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
, though calling attention to its "Miami-Vice-like overreliance on synthesized sludge". The Independent
called it "the most aestheticised film of the 1980s", and noted its "chilly integrity". British television channel and production company Film4
has called it "the most refined screen adaptation of Harris' books", despite finding the film's contemporary soundtrack "dated". Sky Movies
also echoed this sentiment, summing up their review with the quote "although it still remains a classic, the film has dated slightly." Retrospective reviews of the film tend to be less critical of its stylized visuals, with BBC
's Ali Barclay calling the film "a truly suspenseful, stylish thriller", awarding it four out of five stars; and Total Films Nathan Ditum describing it as "complex, disturbing and super-stylish", adding that the 2002 remake "can't compete" with it. Empire
editor Mark Dinning gave the film five stars out of five, praising the "subtlety" of the acting and the "neon angst" of the visuals. Television channel Bravo named Dollarhyde's interrogation of Freddie Lounds as one of its 30 Even Scarier Movie Moments in 2007; whilst Noonan's portrayal of Dollarhyde has been praised by UGO Networks' Simon Abrams as "a highlight of his career".
Despite its low gross upon its initial release, Manhunter has grown in popularity in recent years. Its resurgence has led to its inclusion in several books and lists of cult film
s. These reappraisals tend to cite the success of Silence of the Lambs and its sequels as the reason for the increased interest in Manhunter, whilst still favoring the earlier film over its successors. Telling of this resurgence in appreciation are the film's ratings on review aggregation sites such as Metacritic
or Rotten Tomatoes
. Compiled mostly from recent reviews for the film, Manhunter has a metascore of 78 on Metacritic, based on ten reviews, and a 94% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes
, from 33 reviews.
, also featuring William Petersen, which was "inspired, or at least influenced" by the forensic-oriented scenes in Manhunter. Petersen's sympathetic portrayal of profiler Will Graham has also been noted as helping to influence a "shift in the image of the pop-culture FBI agent" that would continue throughout the 1980s and 90s. The film has also been noted as a thematic precursor to the series Millennium
, John Doe
, Profiler
, and The X-Files
; as well as films such as Copycat
, Switchback
, The Bone Collector
, Seven
and Fallen
.
The Silence of the Lambs, a film adaptation
of Harris' next Lecter novel, was released in 1991. However, this film does not have any of Manhunters cast reprising their roles, although characters such as Lecter and Chilton do return with new actors. Actors Frankie Faison
and Dan Butler
appear in both films, but as different and unrelated characters. The film earned several awards and accolades, including the Academy Award for Best Picture
. It is one of only three films to have won the Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Actress, and Best Screenplay. The Silence of the Lambs was followed in turn by a sequel
and two prequel
s; Hannibal
, Red Dragon
and Hannibal Rising.
Of these later films, 2002's Red Dragon, adapted from the same novel as Manhunter, was released to a generally positive critical reception and successful box office receipts; making $209,196,298 on a $78 million budget. Based on recent reviews, Red Dragon currently has a 68% rating from 183 reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, and a 60% rating based on 36 reviews on Metacritic. Manhunters cinematographer
Dante Spinotti
also served as the director of photography on this version.
Thomas Harris
Thomas Harris is an American author and screenwriter, best known for a series of suspense novels about his most famous character, Hannibal Lecter...
's novel Red Dragon. Written and directed by Michael Mann, it stars William Petersen
William Petersen
William Louis Petersen is an American actor and producer, best known for playing Dr. Gilbert "Gil" Grissom on the hit CBS series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. He portrayed President John F...
as Will Graham
Will Graham
Will Graham is a fictional character and the main protagonist in Thomas Harris' 1981 novel Red Dragon. He is an FBI profiler responsible for the original capture of the serial killer Hannibal Lecter and the man who is assigned to locate killer Francis Dolarhyde.Although successful, Graham is...
and features Brian Cox as Hannibal Lecktor
Hannibal Lecter
Hannibal Lecter M.D. is a fictional character in a series of horror novels by Thomas Harris and in the films adapted from them.Lecter was introduced in the 1981 thriller novel Red Dragon as a brilliant psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer...
. When asked to investigate a killer known as "The Tooth Fairy," FBI
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
profiler Will Graham comes out of retirement to lend his talents to the case—in doing so he must confront the specter of his past and meet with a jailed killer who nearly counted Graham amongst his victims. Dennis Farina
Dennis Farina
Dennis Farina is an American actor of film and television and former Chicago police officer. He is a character actor, often typecast as a mobster or police officer. His most known film roles are those of mobster Jimmy Serrano in the comedy Midnight Run and Ray "Bones" Barboni in Get Shorty...
co-stars as Jack Crawford
Jack Crawford (character)
Jack Crawford is a fictional character who appears in the Hannibal Lecter series of books by Thomas Harris, in which Crawford is the Agent-in-Charge of the Behavioral Science Unit of the FBI in Quantico, Virginia. He is modeled after John E...
, Graham's superior at the FBI, while serial killer Francis Dollarhyde
Francis Dolarhyde
Francis Dolarhyde is a fictional character and the main antagonist featured in the Thomas Harris novel Red Dragon.-Character overview:Dolarhyde is a serial killer nicknamed "The Tooth-Fairy" due to his tendency to bite his victims' bodies, the uncommon size and sharpness of his teeth and other...
—"The Tooth Fairy"—is portrayed by Tom Noonan
Tom Noonan
Tom Noonan is an American actor and film writer-director.-Early life:Noonan was born in Greenwich, Connecticut, the son of Rosaleen and Tom Noonan, who worked as a dentist and jazz musician respectively...
.
Manhunter focuses on the forensic work carried out by the FBI to track down the killer, and shows the long-term effects that cases like this have on Graham, highlighting the similarities between him and his quarry. The film features heavily-stylized use of color to convey this sense of duality, and the nature of the characters' similarity has been explored in academic readings of the film. This was not the first adaptation of a Harris novel for the screen—the 1975 novel Black Sunday, a story of a terrorist attack on the Super Bowl
Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the championship game of the National Football League , the highest level of professional American football in the United States, culminating a season that begins in the late summer of the previous calendar year. The Super Bowl uses Roman numerals to identify each game, rather...
, was adapted to film
Black Sunday (1977 film)
Black Sunday is a 1977 American thriller film directed by John Frankenheimer and based on the novel by Thomas Harris. The film starred Robert Shaw, Bruce Dern, and Marthe Keller and was nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Motion Picture in 1978...
in 1977—but this was the first film to feature the serial killer "Hannibal the Cannibal" who would later appear in The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal
Hannibal (film)
Hannibal is a 2001 psychological thriller film directed by Ridley Scott, adapted from the Thomas Harris novel of the same name. It is a sequel to the 1991 Academy Award-winning film The Silence of the Lambs that returns Anthony Hopkins to his iconic role as serial killer Hannibal Lecter...
, Red Dragon
Red Dragon (film)
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....
and Hannibal Rising.
Opening to mixed reviews, Manhunter fared poorly at the box office at the time of its release, making only $8.6 million in the United States on a $15 million budget. However, it has since been reappraised in more recent reviews and now enjoys a more favorable reception, with both the acting and the stylized visuals having gained appreciation in later years. Its resurgent popularity, which may be due to later adaptations of Harris' books and Petersen's success in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is an American crime drama television series, which premiered on CBS on October 6, 2000. The show was created by Anthony E. Zuiker and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer...
, has seen it labelled as a cult film
Cult film
A cult film, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but specific group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside the small fanbases; however, there have been exceptions that have managed to gain fame among mainstream audiences...
.
Plot
Will GrahamWill Graham
Will Graham is a fictional character and the main protagonist in Thomas Harris' 1981 novel Red Dragon. He is an FBI profiler responsible for the original capture of the serial killer Hannibal Lecter and the man who is assigned to locate killer Francis Dolarhyde.Although successful, Graham is...
(William Petersen
William Petersen
William Louis Petersen is an American actor and producer, best known for playing Dr. Gilbert "Gil" Grissom on the hit CBS series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. He portrayed President John F...
) is a former FBI criminal profiler who has retired due to a breakdown after being attacked by a cannibalistic
Cannibalism
Cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh of other human beings. It is also called anthropophagy...
serial killer
Serial killer
A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...
, Dr. Hannibal Lecktor
Hannibal Lecter
Hannibal Lecter M.D. is a fictional character in a series of horror novels by Thomas Harris and in the films adapted from them.Lecter was introduced in the 1981 thriller novel Red Dragon as a brilliant psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer...
(Brian Cox). He is approached at his Florida home by his former FBI superior Jack Crawford
Jack Crawford (character)
Jack Crawford is a fictional character who appears in the Hannibal Lecter series of books by Thomas Harris, in which Crawford is the Agent-in-Charge of the Behavioral Science Unit of the FBI in Quantico, Virginia. He is modeled after John E...
(Dennis Farina
Dennis Farina
Dennis Farina is an American actor of film and television and former Chicago police officer. He is a character actor, often typecast as a mobster or police officer. His most known film roles are those of mobster Jimmy Serrano in the comedy Midnight Run and Ray "Bones" Barboni in Get Shorty...
), who is seeking help with a new serial killer case. Promising his wife (Kim Greist
Kim Greist
Kimberley Bret "Kim" Greist is an American actress.-Early acting career:Greist was born in Stamford, Connecticut, the daughter of Norma M. and E. Harold Greist...
) that he will do nothing more than examine evidence and not risk physical harm, Graham agrees to visit the most recent crime scene in Atlanta, attempting to enter the mindset of the killer, now dubbed the "Tooth Fairy" by the police for the bite-marks left on his victims.
After finding the killer's fingerprints, Graham meets with Crawford. They are accosted by tabloid journalist Freddie Lounds (Stephen Lang
Stephen Lang (actor)
Stephen Lang is an American actor and playwright. He started in theatre on Broadway but is well known for his film portrayals of Stonewall Jackson in Gods and Generals and George Pickett in Gettysburg , as well as for his 2009 roles as Colonel Miles Quaritch in Avatar and as Texan lawman Charles...
), with whom Graham has a bitter history. Lounds' paper had run photographs of Graham taken secretly while he was hospitalized. Graham pays a visit to the cell of Lecktor, a former psychiatrist, asking for his insight into the killer's motivations. After a tense conversation, Lecktor agrees to look at the case file. Lecktor is later able to deceitfully obtain Graham's home address.
Graham travels to the first crime scene in Birmingham, Alabama, where he is contacted by Crawford, who tells him of Lounds' tabloid story on the case. Crawford also patches Graham through to Frederick Chilton
Frederick Chilton
Dr. Frederick Chilton is a fictional character appearing in Thomas Harris' novels Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs.-Red Dragon:...
(Benjamin Hendrickson
Benjamin Hendrickson
Benjamin Hendrickson was an American actor known for playing Harold "Hal" Munson, Jr., the Chief of Detectives for the mythical town of Oakdale on the daytime soap opera, As the World Turns.- Theater and film :...
), Lecktor's warden, who has found a note in Lecktor's personal effects. Reading it they realize it is from the Tooth Fairy, expressing admiration for Lecktor—and an interest in Graham. Crawford brings Graham to the FBI Academy
FBI Academy
The FBI Academy, located in Quantico, Virginia, is the training site for new Special Agents of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation. It was first opened for use in 1972 on 385 acres of woodland. It is a relatively small government academy, housing three dormitory buildings and...
at Quantico, where a missing section of the note is analyzed to determine what Lecktor has removed. It is found to be an instruction to communicate through the personals section of the National Tattler, Lounds' newspaper. The FBI set up a fake advertisement to replace Lecktor's response. Graham also organizes an interview with Lounds during which he gives a false and derogatory profile of the Tooth Fairy in order to incite him. After a sting operation fails to catch the killer, Lounds is kidnapped by the Tooth Fairy (Tom Noonan
Tom Noonan
Tom Noonan is an American actor and film writer-director.-Early life:Noonan was born in Greenwich, Connecticut, the son of Rosaleen and Tom Noonan, who worked as a dentist and jazz musician respectively...
). Waking in the killer's home, he is shown a slideshow of William Blake
William Blake
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
's "The Great Red Dragon" paintings
The Great Red Dragon Paintings
The Great Red Dragon Paintings are a series of watercolour paintings by the English poet and painter William Blake, painted between 1805 and 1810. It was during this period that Blake was commissioned to create over a hundred paintings intended to illustrate books of the Bible...
, along with the Tooth Fairy's past victims and slides of a family the killer identifies as his next targets. Lounds is forced to tape-record a statement before being set alight in a wheelchair and killed, his flaming body rolled into the parking garage of the National Tattler as a warning.
Graham is told by Crawford that they have cracked Lecktor's coded message to the Tooth Fairy—it is Graham's home address with an instruction to kill the family. Graham rushes home to find his family safe but terrified. He tries to explain to his son Kevin why he had retired previously. At his job in a St. Louis film lab, Francis Dollarhyde
Francis Dolarhyde
Francis Dolarhyde is a fictional character and the main antagonist featured in the Thomas Harris novel Red Dragon.-Character overview:Dolarhyde is a serial killer nicknamed "The Tooth-Fairy" due to his tendency to bite his victims' bodies, the uncommon size and sharpness of his teeth and other...
—The Tooth Fairy—approaches a blind co-worker, Reba McClane (Joan Allen
Joan Allen
Joan Allen is an American actress. She worked in theatre, television and film during her early career, and achieved recognition for her Broadway debut in Burn This, winning a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play in 1989.She has received three Academy Award nominations;...
), and ends up offering her a ride. They go to Dollarhyde's home, where Reba is oblivious to the fact that Dollarhyde is watching home-movie footage of his planned next victim. She kisses him and they make love. Dollarhyde is confused by this newfound relationship, though it helps suppress his bloodlust. Just as Graham comes to realize how much the Tooth Fairy's desire for acceptance factors into the murders, Dollarhyde watches as Reba is escorted home by another co-worker. Mistakenly believing them to be kissing, Dollarhyde murders the man and abducts Reba. When she calls him Francis, he tells her "Francis is gone. Forever."
Desperately trying to figure out a connection between the murdered families, Graham realizes that someone must have seen their home movies. He and Crawford deduce where the videos were processed. They identify the lab in St. Louis and fly there immediately. Dollarhyde has been casing the victims' homes through home videos, enabling him to prepare for the break-ins in extreme detail. Graham is able to determine which employee has seen these films, and obtains Dollarhyde's home address, which he and Crawford travel to with a police escort. Reba is terrified at Dollarhyde's home as he contemplates what to do with her. As he struggles to kill Reba with a piece of broken mirror glass, police teams assemble around the house. Able to see that Dollarhyde has someone inside with him, Graham lunges through a window. He is quickly subdued by Dollarhyde, who retrieves a shotgun and uses it to wound Crawford and kill two police officers. Wounded in the firefight, Dollarhyde returns to the kitchen to shoot Graham, but misses due to his injuries, and is killed in return. Graham, Reba, and Crawford are tended to by paramedics before Graham returns home, this time permanently retired.
Cast
- William PetersenWilliam PetersenWilliam Louis Petersen is an American actor and producer, best known for playing Dr. Gilbert "Gil" Grissom on the hit CBS series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. He portrayed President John F...
as Will GrahamWill GrahamWill Graham is a fictional character and the main protagonist in Thomas Harris' 1981 novel Red Dragon. He is an FBI profiler responsible for the original capture of the serial killer Hannibal Lecter and the man who is assigned to locate killer Francis Dolarhyde.Although successful, Graham is...
. Richard GereRichard GereRichard Tiffany Gere is an American actor. He began acting in the 1970s, playing a supporting role in Looking for Mr. Goodbar, and a starring role in Days of Heaven. He came to prominence in 1980 for his role in the film American Gigolo, which established him as a leading man and a sex symbol...
, Mel GibsonMel GibsonMel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. Born in Peekskill, New York, Gibson moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia when he was 12 years old and later studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art.After appearing in...
and Paul NewmanPaul NewmanPaul Leonard Newman was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian, professional racing driver and auto racing enthusiast...
were considered for the role, but Mann cast Petersen after seeing footage from To Live and Die in L.A.. Petersen spent time with officers of the Chicago Police DepartmentChicago Police DepartmentThe Chicago Police Department, also known as the CPD, is the principal law enforcement agency of Chicago, Illinois, in the United States, under the jurisdiction of the Mayor of Chicago. It is the largest police department in the Midwest and the second largest local law enforcement agency in the...
researching for his role. - Kim GreistKim GreistKimberley Bret "Kim" Greist is an American actress.-Early acting career:Greist was born in Stamford, Connecticut, the daughter of Norma M. and E. Harold Greist...
as Molly Graham. Greist, who reviews felt was "wasted in a tiny role", had previously worked with Mann on an episode of Miami Vice. - Joan AllenJoan AllenJoan Allen is an American actress. She worked in theatre, television and film during her early career, and achieved recognition for her Broadway debut in Burn This, winning a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play in 1989.She has received three Academy Award nominations;...
as Reba McClane. Allen spent time with the New York Institute for the BlindNew York Institute for the BlindThe New York Institute for the Blind was founded in 1831 as a school for blind children by Samuel Wood, a Quaker philanthropist, Samuel Akerly, a physician, and John Dennison Russ, a philanthropist and physician....
, learning to walk through New York blindfolded in preparation for her role. Allen had previously worked with co-star William Petersen on stage, in the 1980 Steppenwolf Theatre CompanySteppenwolf Theatre CompanySteppenwolf Theatre Company is a Tony Award-winning Chicago theatre company founded in 1974 by Gary Sinise, Terry Kinney and Jeff Perry in the basement of a church in Highland Park, Illinois. It has since relocated to Chicago's Halsted Street, in the Lincoln Park neighborhood. Its name comes from...
production of Balm in GileadBalm in GileadBalm in Gilead is a 1965 play written by American playwright Lanford Wilson.-Dramatic structure:Wilson's first full-length effort, Balm in Gilead centers on a cafe frequented by heroin addicts, prostitutes and thieves...
. - Brian Cox as Dr. Hannibal LecktorHannibal LecterHannibal Lecter M.D. is a fictional character in a series of horror novels by Thomas Harris and in the films adapted from them.Lecter was introduced in the 1981 thriller novel Red Dragon as a brilliant psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer...
. Actors John LithgowJohn LithgowJohn Arthur Lithgow is an American actor, musician, and author. Presently, he is involved with a wide range of media projects, including stage, television, film, and radio...
, Mandy PatinkinMandy PatinkinMandel Bruce "Mandy" Patinkin is an award-winning American actor of stage and screen and a tenor vocalist. He is a noted interpreter of the musical works of Stephen Sondheim, and is best-known for his work in musical theatre, originating iconic roles such as Georges Seurat in Sunday in the Park...
, and Brian DennehyBrian DennehyBrian Mannion Dennehy is an American actor of film, stage and screen.-Early years:Dennehy was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the son of Hannah and Edward Dennehy, who was a wire service editor for the Associated Press; he has two brothers, Michael and Edward. Dennehy is of Irish ancestry and was...
, and director William FriedkinWilliam FriedkinWilliam Friedkin is an American film director, producer and screenwriter best known for directing The French Connection in 1971 and The Exorcist in 1973; for the former, he won the Academy Award for Best Director...
were also considered for the part of Lecktor, whose named was changed from the novel's 'Lecter' for unknown reasons. Cox based his performance on Scottish serial killerSerial killerA serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...
Peter ManuelPeter ManuelPeter Thomas Anthony Manuel was a United States-born Scottish serial killer who is known to have murdered nine people across Lanarkshire and southern Scotland between 1956 and his arrest in January 1958, although he is suspected of having killed as many as eighteen...
. Cox was asked to audition with his back turned to the casting agents, as they felt they needed to focus on the power of his voice when considering him for the part. - Dennis FarinaDennis FarinaDennis Farina is an American actor of film and television and former Chicago police officer. He is a character actor, often typecast as a mobster or police officer. His most known film roles are those of mobster Jimmy Serrano in the comedy Midnight Run and Ray "Bones" Barboni in Get Shorty...
as Jack CrawfordJack Crawford (character)Jack Crawford is a fictional character who appears in the Hannibal Lecter series of books by Thomas Harris, in which Crawford is the Agent-in-Charge of the Behavioral Science Unit of the FBI in Quantico, Virginia. He is modeled after John E...
. Farina had already worked with Michael Mann before, having made his acting début in 1981's ThiefThief (film)Thief is a 1981 neo-noir film written and directed by Michael Mann and based on the novel The Home Invaders by "Frank Hohimer"...
, before appearing in Crime StoryCrime Story (TV series)Crime Story is an NBC TV drama created by Gustave Reininger and Chuck Adamson. The executive producer was Michael Mann, who had left Miami Vice to oversee Crime Story and direct the film Manhunter. The show premiered with a two hour pilot — a movie which had been exhibited theatrically —...
and several episodes of Miami ViceMiami ViceMiami Vice is an American television series produced by Michael Mann for NBC. The series starred Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas as two Metro-Dade Police Department detectives working undercover in Miami. It ran for five seasons on NBC from 1984–1989...
. Farina had already read the novel Red Dragon, and was called to audition at the same time as Brian Cox. - Tom NoonanTom NoonanTom Noonan is an American actor and film writer-director.-Early life:Noonan was born in Greenwich, Connecticut, the son of Rosaleen and Tom Noonan, who worked as a dentist and jazz musician respectively...
as Francis DollarhydeFrancis DolarhydeFrancis Dolarhyde is a fictional character and the main antagonist featured in the Thomas Harris novel Red Dragon.-Character overview:Dolarhyde is a serial killer nicknamed "The Tooth-Fairy" due to his tendency to bite his victims' bodies, the uncommon size and sharpness of his teeth and other...
. Noonan credits his casting for his ability to improvise during his rehearsals, and began body-building to physically prepare for the part. He began preparation for his role by studying other serial killers, but quickly rejected this approach. Whilst shooting the film, Noonan remained in character at all times, and kept away from those cast members playings his pursuers. - Stephen LangStephen Lang (actor)Stephen Lang is an American actor and playwright. He started in theatre on Broadway but is well known for his film portrayals of Stonewall Jackson in Gods and Generals and George Pickett in Gettysburg , as well as for his 2009 roles as Colonel Miles Quaritch in Avatar and as Texan lawman Charles...
as Freddy Lounds. Lang had previously starred in Band of the HandBand of the HandBand of the Hand is an American 1986 crime film directed by Paul Michael Glaser.The film turned into a theatrical release after it failed as a television pilot....
, on which Michael Mann was executive producer, would also go on to appear in the Mann-produced Crime Story with Farina, as well as Mann's 2009 film Public Enemies.
Pre-production
The film was originally going to use the novel's title Red Dragon. Michael Mann, who called the film's title "inferior", said producer Dino De LaurentiisDino De Laurentiis
Agostino "Dino" De Laurentiis was an Italian film producer.-Early life:He was born at Torre Annunziata in the province of Naples, and grew up selling spaghetti produced by his father...
changed the title after Michael Cimino
Michael Cimino
Michael Cimino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer and author. He is best known for writing and directing Academy Award-winning The Deer Hunter and the infamous Heaven's Gate. His films are characterized by their striking visual style and controversial subject...
's De Laurentiis-produced Year of the Dragon
Year of the Dragon (film)
Year of the Dragon is a 1985 film directed by Michael Cimino, starring Mickey Rourke, Ariane Koizumi and John Lone. The screenplay was written by Cimino and Oliver Stone and adapted from the novel by Robert Daley....
bombed
Box office bomb
The phrase box office bomb refers to a film for which the production and marketing costs greatly exceeded the revenue regained by the movie studio. This should not be confused with Hollywood accounting when official figures show large losses, yet the movie is a financial success.A film's financial...
at the box office in 1985. William Petersen has commented that the title was changed to also avoid being confused for a karate movie. "At the time, Bruce Lee was knocking out Dragon movies, and Dino, in his wisdom, decided people would think it was a kung-fu movie," he later recalled. Brian Cox, who played jailed killer Hannibal Lecktor, has also expressed disdain for the film's title, calling it "bland" and "cheesy".
William Petersen
William Petersen
William Louis Petersen is an American actor and producer, best known for playing Dr. Gilbert "Gil" Grissom on the hit CBS series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. He portrayed President John F...
worked with the Chicago Police Department
Chicago Police Department
The Chicago Police Department, also known as the CPD, is the principal law enforcement agency of Chicago, Illinois, in the United States, under the jurisdiction of the Mayor of Chicago. It is the largest police department in the Midwest and the second largest local law enforcement agency in the...
Violent Crimes Unit and the FBI Violent Crimes Unit in preparation for his role, talking to the officers and reading some of their crime files. He spoke to the investigators on the Richard Ramirez
Richard Ramirez
Ricardo "Richard" Muñoz Ramírez is a convicted serial killer awaiting execution on California's death row at San Quentin State Prison...
case about how they coped with the effects these disturbing cases had on them and how they learned to "compartmentalize" their working and personal lives. "Of course you don’t really turn it off," he recalled. "At the end of the day, even if you’re just a regular policeman, it takes a toll". During the three years he spent working on the script, Michael Mann also spent time with the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit
Behavioral Science Unit
The Behavioral Science Unit is one of the instructional components of the FBI's Training Division at Quantico, Virginia. Its mission is to develop and provide programs of training, research, and consultation in the behavioral and social sciences for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and law...
, where he claimed to have met people very like the character of Will Graham. This level of research has led to the film being described as "one of the most competent blends of cutting-edge forensic science and criminal profiling at the time". Mann also spent several years corresponding with imprisoned murderer Dennis Wayne Wallace. Wallace had been motivated by his obsession for a woman he barely knew, and believed that Iron Butterfly
Iron Butterfly
Iron Butterfly is a US psychedelic rock band best known for the 1968 hit "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida".Their heyday was the late 1960s, but the band has been reincarnated with various members. In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida is the 31st best-selling album in the world, selling more than 25 million copies.-History:The...
's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
"In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" is a song by Iron Butterfly, released on their 1968 album In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.At a little over seventeen minutes, it occupies the entire second side of the In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida album. The lyrics are simple, and heard only at the beginning and the end...
" was "their song"; this connection led to Mann including the song in the film.
Tom Noonan
Tom Noonan
Tom Noonan is an American actor and film writer-director.-Early life:Noonan was born in Greenwich, Connecticut, the son of Rosaleen and Tom Noonan, who worked as a dentist and jazz musician respectively...
, who played the killer Francis Dollarhyde, initially researched other serial killers to study for the role, but felt put off by this. He then decided to play the character with the sense that he felt he was doing right by his victims, not harming them. "I wanted to feel this guy was doing the best he could", Noonan explained, "that he was doing this out of love". Joan Allen, who played Dollarhyde's blind love interest Reba McClane, recalls meeting with representatives of the New York Institute for the Blind
New York Institute for the Blind
The New York Institute for the Blind was founded in 1831 as a school for blind children by Samuel Wood, a Quaker philanthropist, Samuel Akerly, a physician, and John Dennison Russ, a philanthropist and physician....
in preparation for her role. She spent time walking around New York wearing a mask over her eyes in order to get accustomed to walking as though she were blind.
John Lithgow
John Lithgow
John Arthur Lithgow is an American actor, musician, and author. Presently, he is involved with a wide range of media projects, including stage, television, film, and radio...
, Mandy Patinkin
Mandy Patinkin
Mandel Bruce "Mandy" Patinkin is an award-winning American actor of stage and screen and a tenor vocalist. He is a noted interpreter of the musical works of Stephen Sondheim, and is best-known for his work in musical theatre, originating iconic roles such as Georges Seurat in Sunday in the Park...
, William Friedkin
William Friedkin
William Friedkin is an American film director, producer and screenwriter best known for directing The French Connection in 1971 and The Exorcist in 1973; for the former, he won the Academy Award for Best Director...
, and Brian Dennehy
Brian Dennehy
Brian Mannion Dennehy is an American actor of film, stage and screen.-Early years:Dennehy was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the son of Hannah and Edward Dennehy, who was a wire service editor for the Associated Press; he has two brothers, Michael and Edward. Dennehy is of Irish ancestry and was...
were all considered for the role of Hannibal Lecktor
Hannibal Lecter
Hannibal Lecter M.D. is a fictional character in a series of horror novels by Thomas Harris and in the films adapted from them.Lecter was introduced in the 1981 thriller novel Red Dragon as a brilliant psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer...
; although Brian Cox was cast after being recommended to Mann by Dennehy. Cox based his portrayal on Scottish serial killer
Serial killer
A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...
Peter Manuel
Peter Manuel
Peter Thomas Anthony Manuel was a United States-born Scottish serial killer who is known to have murdered nine people across Lanarkshire and southern Scotland between 1956 and his arrest in January 1958, although he is suspected of having killed as many as eighteen...
who he stated "didn't have a sense of right and wrong." Cox has also suggested that he was given the role due to his nationality, claiming that characters who are "a little bit nasty" are best played by Europeans. Mann kept the role of Lecktor very short, believing that it was "such a charismatic character that [he] wanted the audience almost not to get enough of him". For the role of Will Graham, De Laurentiis had expressed interest in Richard Gere
Richard Gere
Richard Tiffany Gere is an American actor. He began acting in the 1970s, playing a supporting role in Looking for Mr. Goodbar, and a starring role in Days of Heaven. He came to prominence in 1980 for his role in the film American Gigolo, which established him as a leading man and a sex symbol...
, Mel Gibson
Mel Gibson
Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. Born in Peekskill, New York, Gibson moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia when he was 12 years old and later studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art.After appearing in...
and Paul Newman
Paul Newman
Paul Leonard Newman was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian, professional racing driver and auto racing enthusiast...
, but Michael Mann, having seen footage of William Petersen's role in To Live and Die in L.A., championed Petersen for the part. Tom Noonan credits his casting in the role of Francis Dollarhyde to improvisation during his audition, recalling that he was reading lines alongside a young woman. During a reading of the scene featuring the torture of Freddie Lounds, Noonan noticed the woman rehearsing with him beginning to seem frightened, and deliberately tried to scare her more, believing this is what secured the role for him.
Filming
Petersen has claimed in an interview that one of the film's scenes forced the crew to adopt a guerrilla filmmakingGuerrilla filmmaking
Guerrilla filmmaking refers to a form of independent filmmaking characterized by low budgets, skeleton crews, and simple props using whatever is available...
approach. The scene, in which Petersen's character Will Graham falls asleep whilst studying crime scene photographs during a flight, required the use of an airplane during shooting. Michael Mann had been unable to gain permission to use a plane for the scene and booked tickets for the crew on a flight from Chicago to Florida. Once on board the crew used their equipment, checked in as hand luggage, to shoot the scene quickly while keeping the plane's passengers and crew mollified with Manhunter crew jackets.
Cinematographer Dante Spinotti
Dante Spinotti
Dante Spinotti, A.S.C., A.I.C. is a cinematographer.Spinotti was born in Tolmezzo, Italy. Among the more notable films he has worked on are The Last of the Mohicans, Heat, and L.A. Confidential...
made strong use of color tints in the film, using a cool "romantic blue" tone to denote the scenes featuring Will Graham and his wife, and a more subversive green hue, with elements of purple or magenta, as a cue for the unsettling scenes in the film, mostly involving Dollarhyde. William Petersen has stated that Mann wanted to create a visual aura to bring the audience into the film, so that the story would work on an interior and emotional level. Mann also made use of multiple frame rate
Frame rate
Frame rate is the frequency at which an imaging device produces unique consecutive images called frames. The term applies equally well to computer graphics, video cameras, film cameras, and motion capture systems...
s in filming the climactic shootout, with multiple cameras recording the scene at 24, 36, 72 and 90 frames per second, giving the final scene what Spinotti has called an "off tempo", "staccato" feel.
During principal photography
Principal photography
thumb|300px|Film production on location in [[Newark, New Jersey]].Principal photography is the phase of film production in which the movie is filmed, with actors on set and cameras rolling, as distinct from pre-production and post-production....
, Noonan asked that no one in the cast who played his victims or his pursuers be allowed to see him, whilst those he did speak to would address him by his character's name, Francis. The first time Noonan met Petersen was when Petersen jumped through a large window during the filming of the climactic fight scene. Noonan admits that, because of his request, the atmosphere on set became so tense that people actually became afraid of him. The actor had also begun body-building to prepare for the role, felt that his size intimidated the crew when filming began, as the first scene to be shot was his character's interrogation and murder of another. Noonan also claims this led to him taking separate flights and staying in separate hotels from the rest of the cast; and while on the film's sets, he would remain in his trailer alone in the dark to prepare himself, sometimes joined by a silent Mann.
Petersen recalled filming the climactic shoot-out scene at the end of principal photography, at which point most of the crew had already left the production, due to time constraints. With no special effects crew to provide the blood spatter for the gunshots, Petersen described how the remaining crew would blow ketchup across the set through hoses when the effects were needed. Joan Allen also related that Michael Mann would simulate the impacts of gunfire in Dollarhyde's kitchen by throwing glass jars across the surfaces so they would shatter where he needed them to; one of these broken jars left a shard of glass impaled in Petersen's thigh during filming. The pool of blood forming around Noonan's character at the end of this scene was intended to allude to the "Red Dragon
The Great Red Dragon Paintings
The Great Red Dragon Paintings are a series of watercolour paintings by the English poet and painter William Blake, painted between 1805 and 1810. It was during this period that Blake was commissioned to create over a hundred paintings intended to illustrate books of the Bible...
" tattoos worn by the character in the novel. This shot left Noonan lying in the corn syrup stage blood for so long that he became stuck to the floor.
Post-production
Spinotti has commented on how Mann's use of mise en scèneMise en scène
Mise-en-scène is an expression used to describe the design aspects of a theatre or film production, which essentially means "visual theme" or "telling a story"—both in visually artful ways through storyboarding, cinematography and stage design, and in poetically artful ways through direction...
when framing shots evokes "the emotional situation in the film at that particular time", noting the director's focus on the particular shape or color of elements of the set when shooting. He has also called to attention the scene in which Graham visits Lecktor in his cell, noting the constant position of the cell bars within the frame even as the shots cut back and forth between the two characters. "There is nothing in Manhunter ... which is just a nice shot," says Spinotti. "[It] is all focused into conveying that particular atmosphere; whether it's happiness, or delusion, or disillusion". This "manipulation of focus and editing" has become a visual hallmark of the film.
Despite having initially filmed the scenes involving Francis Dollarhyde with an elaborate tattoo across actor Tom Noonan's chest, Mann and Spinotti felt that the finished result seemed out of place and that it "trivialize[d] the struggle" the character faced. Mann cut the scenes in which the character appeared bare-chested, and quickly re-shot additional footage to replace what had been removed. Spinotti noted that in doing so, scenes which he felt had been captured with a "beautiful" aesthetic were lost, as the production did not have the time to recreate the original lighting conditions for the removed content.
Petersen had difficulty ridding himself of the Will Graham
Will Graham
Will Graham is a fictional character and the main protagonist in Thomas Harris' 1981 novel Red Dragon. He is an FBI profiler responsible for the original capture of the serial killer Hannibal Lecter and the man who is assigned to locate killer Francis Dolarhyde.Although successful, Graham is...
character after principal photography wrapped. While rehearsing for a play in Chicago, he felt that the old character "always coming out" instead of his new role. To try and rid himself of the character, Petersen went to a barbershop where he had them shave his beard, cut his hair and dye it blond so that he could look into the mirror and see a different person. He initially felt it was due to the rigorous shooting schedule for Manhunter, but later realized that the character "had creeped in".
Soundtrack
Manhunters soundtrack "dominates the film", with the music being "explicitly diegetic the entire way". Steve Rybin has noted the film's music is not intended to correlate with the intensity of the action portrayed alongside it, but rather to denote when the viewer should react with a "degree of aesthetic distance" from the film, or be "suture[d] into the diegetic world" more closely. The soundtrack album was released in limited quantities in 1986, on MCA Records (#6182). It was not, however, released on compact disc at the time, being released only on cassette tape and vinyl record. On 19 March 2007, a 2-CD set entitled Music from the Films of Michael Mann was released that features four tracks from Manhunter: The Prime Movers' "Strong As I Am", Iron ButterflyIron Butterfly
Iron Butterfly is a US psychedelic rock band best known for the 1968 hit "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida".Their heyday was the late 1960s, but the band has been reincarnated with various members. In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida is the 31st best-selling album in the world, selling more than 25 million copies.-History:The...
's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida", Shriekback's "This Big Hush", and Red 7's "Heartbeat". In March 2010, Intrada Records
Intrada Records
Intrada Records is an American record company based in Oakland, California. Intrada Records is an American record company based in Oakland, California. Intrada Records is an American record company based in Oakland, California...
announced that they were releasing the Manhunter soundtrack on CD for the first time. An extra track, "Jogger's Stakeout" by The Reds, has been added to the listing.
The Reds were contacted about contributing to the film's soundtrack after submitting their music for possible use on Miami Vice. The band recorded their score over a period of two months, in studios in New York and Los Angeles. They recorded a total of 28 minutes of music for the film, however several cues were replaced later on with music by Shriekback and Michel Rubini. "Comfortably Numb
Comfortably Numb
"Comfortably Numb" is a song by the English rock band Pink Floyd, which first appears on the 1979 double album, The Wall. It was also released as a single in the same year with "Hey You" as the B-side. It is one of only three songs on the album for which writing credits are shared between Roger...
" by Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...
and "I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)
I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)
"I Had Too Much to Dream " is a song written by Annette Tucker and Nancie Mantz, which was recorded in late 1966 by The Electric Prunes...
" by The Electric Prunes
The Electric Prunes
The Electric Prunes are an American rock band who first achieved international attention as an experimental psychedelic group in the late 1960s. Their song "Kyrie Eleison" was featured on the soundtrack of Easy Rider...
have both been cited by The Reds' vocalist Rick Shaffer as influences on the film's soundtrack. "Strong as I Am" by The Prime Movers was selected for the film by Mann, who later funded the filming of a music video for the song's release as a single.
The soundtrack was one of the 1980s film soundtracks used by Zack Snyder
Zack Snyder
Zachary Edward "Zack" Snyder is an American actor, film director, screenwriter, and producer. After making his feature film debut with the 2004 remake Dawn of the Dead, he gained wide recognition with the 2007 box office hit 300, adapted from writer-artist Frank Miller's Dark Horse Comics...
and Tyler Bates
Tyler Bates
Tyler Bates is a music producer and composer for films. His most known work includes "The Hangman's Song" and various other tracks from the zombie horror film Dawn of the Dead, and 2008's Day of the Dead...
for inspiration whilst writing the score to the 2009 film Watchmen
Watchmen (film)
Watchmen is a 2009 superhero film directed by Zack Snyder and starring Malin Åkerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Patrick Wilson. It is an adaptation of the comic book of the same name by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons...
, along with those of To Live and Die in L.A.
To Live and Die in L.A. (soundtrack)
The To Live and Die in L.A. soundtrack is Wang Chung's third album and second on Geffen Records. Instead of following up on the success that Points on the Curve landed them, Wang Chung switched gears to produce an original motion picture soundtrack. The switch allowed for them to experiment with...
and Blade Runner
Blade Runner
Blade Runner is a 1982 American science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and Sean Young. The screenplay, written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, is loosely based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K...
.
Music in the film's screen credits which are not listed above included:
Themes
Visually, Manhunter is driven by strong color-cues and the use of tints, including the hallmark blue of Michael Mann's work. Dante Spinotti has noted that these visual cues were meant to invoke different moods based on the tone of the scenes in which they were used—cool blue tones were used for the scenes shared between Will Graham and his wife Molly, and unsettling greens and magentas were used for the scenes with the killer Francis Dollarhyde. Steven Rybin has noted that "blue is associated with Molly, sex, and the Graham family home"; whilst green denotes "searching and discovery", pointing out the color of Graham's shirt when the investigation begins, and the green tone of the interior shots in the Atlanta police station. The effect of this has been noted as aiding to identify the character of Graham with the "goodness" of the natural world, and Dollarhyde with the city, "where sickness thrives". This strongly-stylized approach initially drew criticisms from reviewers, but has since been seen as a hallmark of the film and lauded more positively.Academic studies of the film tend to draw attention to the relationship between the characters of Graham and Dollarhyde, noting, for example, that the film "chooses to emphasize the novel's symbiotic relationships between Graham, Lecter and Dolarhyde [sic] by visual techniques and screen acting where subtlety plays a key role". In his book Hearths of Darkness: The Family in the American Horror Film, Tony Williams praises the depth of the film's characterizations, calling Dollarhyde a "victim of society" with his portrayal "undermining convenient barriers between monster and human". Philip L. Simpson echoes this sentiment in his book Psycho Paths: Tracking the Serial Killer through Contemporary American Film, calling Manhunter a "profoundly ambiguous and destabilizing film" which creates "uncomfortable affinities between protagonist and antagonist". Mark T. Conard's The Philosophy of Film Noir follows this same idea, claiming that the film presents the notion that "what it takes to catch a serial killer is tantamount to being one".
Box office
Manhunter was released in the United States on 15 August 1986. It opened in 779 theaters and grossed $2,204,400 in its opening weekend. The film eventually grossed a total of $8,620,929 domestically, making it the 76th highest-grossing film that year. As such, it failed to earn over its $15,000,000 budget. Due to internal problems at De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, the film's UK premiere was postponed for over a year. It was screened in November 1987 as part of the London Film FestivalLondon Film Festival
The BFI London Film Festival is the UK's largest public film event, screening more than 300 features, documentaries and shorts from almost 50 countries. The festival, , currently in its 54th year, is run every year in the second half of October under the umbrella of the British Film Institute...
and saw wide release on 24 February 1989. In France, the film was screened at the 1987 Cognac Festival du Film Policier on April 9, where it was awarded the Critics Prize. It was also shown at the 2009 Camerimage
Camerimage
The International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography CAMERIMAGE is a festival dedicated to cinematography and its creators cinematographers.The first seven events were held in Toruń, Poland. The next ten events were held in Łódź...
Film Festival in Łódź, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
. On 19 March 2011, the film was screened at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre
Grauman's Egyptian Theatre
Grauman's Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California, is one of the world's most famous movie theatres. Opened in 1922, it was the venue for the first-ever Hollywood premiere.- History :...
in Hollywood to celebrate the 25th anniversary of its release. Michael Mann was present for discussion at the event.
Home media
Manhunter was released in a widescreen edition on laserdiscLaserdisc
LaserDisc was a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. Initially licensed, sold, and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in North America in 1978, the technology was previously referred to interally as Optical Videodisc System, Reflective Optical Videodisc, Laser Optical...
in 1986. It was released on VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
several times, including by BMG on 10 October 1998, and by Universal Studios
Universal Studios Home Entertainment
Universal Studios Home Entertainment is the home video division of Universal Pictures...
in 2001. It has also been available on DVD in various versions. Anchor Bay
Anchor Bay Entertainment
Anchor Bay Entertainment is a U.S. based home entertainment and production company and is a division of Starz Media, which is a unit of Starz, LLC. It was previously owned by IDT Entertainment until 2006 when IDT was purchased by Starz Media. Anchor Bay markets and sells feature films, series,...
released a Limited Edition 2-DVD set in 2000. A standard edition, an individual release for the first disc of the 2-disc set, was also released at the same time. In 2003, Anchor Bay released the "Restored Director's Cut" which is very close to the "Director's Cut" on the 2000 disc but omits one scene. It does, however, feature a commentary track by Mann.
In 2004, MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
(current holders of The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal
Hannibal (film)
Hannibal is a 2001 psychological thriller film directed by Ridley Scott, adapted from the Thomas Harris novel of the same name. It is a sequel to the 1991 Academy Award-winning film The Silence of the Lambs that returns Anthony Hopkins to his iconic role as serial killer Hannibal Lecter...
) released a pan and scan
Pan and scan
Pan and scan is a method of adjusting widescreen film images so that they can be shown within the proportions of a standard definition 4:3 aspect ratio television screen, often cropping off the sides of the original widescreen image to focus on the composition's most important aspects...
ned version of the film that was the one seen in theaters. The theatrical cut was finally released on DVD for the first time in 2007 by MGM in widescreen as part of The Hannibal Lecter Collection, along with The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal. It was also released by itself on 11 September 2007. Manhunter, The Silence of the Lambs, and Hannibal were released by MGM on Blu-ray disc format as a three-pack set called "The Hannibal Lecter Collection" in September 2009.
Reception
Upon its release, Manhunter was met with mixed-to-negative reviews, and was initially seen as overly stylish, owing largely to Mann's '80s-trademark usage of pastel colors, art-deco architecture and glass brick. The film performed poorly at the box office, earning only $8,620,929 domestically from a $15 million budget. On its opening weekend, Manhunter was screened in 779 cinemas in America, but grossed only $2,204,400 domestically, making it the number eight film for that week. The film did however earn director Michael Mann the Critics Choice award at the 1987 Cognac Festival du Film Policier and was nominated for the 1987 Edgar AwardEdgar Award
The Edgar Allan Poe Awards , named after Edgar Allan Poe, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America...
for Best Motion Picture.
A common criticism in the initial reviews was that the film overemphasized the music and stylistic visuals; Petersen's skill as a lead actor was also called into question. Particularly critical of the film's stylistic approach was the New York Times, who called attention to the film's "taste for overkill", branding Mann's stylized approach as "hokey" and little more than "gimmicks". Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
writer Dave Kehr noted that director Michael Mann "believes in style so much that he has very little belief left over for the characters or situations of his film, which suffers accordingly", adding that the film's focus on style serves to "drain any notion of credibility" from its plot. Sheila Benson of the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
was critical of the film's visuals and soundtrack, comparing it unfavourably to Miami Vice
Miami Vice
Miami Vice is an American television series produced by Michael Mann for NBC. The series starred Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas as two Metro-Dade Police Department detectives working undercover in Miami. It ran for five seasons on NBC from 1984–1989...
, and describing it as a "chic, well-cast wasteland" that "delivers very little". The film's stylistic similarity to Miami Vice was also point out by Film Threat
Film Threat
Film Threat is a former print magazine and, now, webzine which focuses primarily on independent film, although it also reviews DVDs of mainstream films and Hollywood movies in theaters. It first appeared as a photocopied zine in 1985, created by Wayne State University students Chris Gore and André...
s Dave Beuscher, who felt it was the chief reason for the film's poor box office results. Writing for the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
, Steve Winn derided the film, claiming its lack of a strong lead role caused it to " fall apart like the shattered mirrors that figure in the crimes". Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
was more favorable in its review, praising the "intelligent camerabatics" and "bold, controlled color scheme". Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin is an American film and animated film critic and historian, author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives.-Personal life:...
gave the film three stars, calling it "gripping all the way through and surprisingly nonexploitive", although adding that "the holes start to show through" if looked for "too carefully".
Modern appreciation of the film has seen its standing among critics improve. Salon.com
Salon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
has called Mann's original the best of the Lecter series; whilst Slate
Slate (magazine)
Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...
magazine described it as "mesmerizing", positing that it directly inspired television series such as Millennium
Millennium (TV series)
Millennium is an American television series created by Chris Carter, creator of The X-Files. Millennium aired on the Fox Network from 1996 to 1999. The series was filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, though most episodes were ostensibly set in or around Seattle, Washington...
and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is an American crime drama television series, which premiered on CBS on October 6, 2000. The show was created by Anthony E. Zuiker and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer...
, though calling attention to its "Miami-Vice-like overreliance on synthesized sludge". The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
called it "the most aestheticised film of the 1980s", and noted its "chilly integrity". British television channel and production company Film4
Film4
Film4 is a free digital television channel available in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, owned and operated by Channel 4, that screens films.-Programming:...
has called it "the most refined screen adaptation of Harris' books", despite finding the film's contemporary soundtrack "dated". Sky Movies
Sky Movies
Sky Movies is the collective name for the premium subscription television movie channels operated by Sky Television, and later British Sky Broadcasting. It has around 5 million subscribers, via satellite, cable and IPTV in the UK and Ireland...
also echoed this sentiment, summing up their review with the quote "although it still remains a classic, the film has dated slightly." Retrospective reviews of the film tend to be less critical of its stylized visuals, with BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
's Ali Barclay calling the film "a truly suspenseful, stylish thriller", awarding it four out of five stars; and Total Films Nathan Ditum describing it as "complex, disturbing and super-stylish", adding that the 2002 remake "can't compete" with it. Empire
Empire (magazine)
Empire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media. From the first issue in July 1989, the magazine was edited by Barry McIlheney and published by Emap. Bauer purchased Emap Consumer Media in early 2008...
editor Mark Dinning gave the film five stars out of five, praising the "subtlety" of the acting and the "neon angst" of the visuals. Television channel Bravo named Dollarhyde's interrogation of Freddie Lounds as one of its 30 Even Scarier Movie Moments in 2007; whilst Noonan's portrayal of Dollarhyde has been praised by UGO Networks' Simon Abrams as "a highlight of his career".
Despite its low gross upon its initial release, Manhunter has grown in popularity in recent years. Its resurgence has led to its inclusion in several books and lists of cult film
Cult film
A cult film, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but specific group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside the small fanbases; however, there have been exceptions that have managed to gain fame among mainstream audiences...
s. These reappraisals tend to cite the success of Silence of the Lambs and its sequels as the reason for the increased interest in Manhunter, whilst still favoring the earlier film over its successors. Telling of this resurgence in appreciation are the film's ratings on review aggregation sites such as Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
or Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
. Compiled mostly from recent reviews for the film, Manhunter has a metascore of 78 on Metacritic, based on ten reviews, and a 94% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, from 33 reviews.
Legacy
Manhunters focus on the use of forensic science in a criminal investigation has been cited as a major influence on several films and television series that have come after it—most notably CSI: Crime Scene InvestigationCSI: Crime Scene Investigation
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is an American crime drama television series, which premiered on CBS on October 6, 2000. The show was created by Anthony E. Zuiker and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer...
, also featuring William Petersen, which was "inspired, or at least influenced" by the forensic-oriented scenes in Manhunter. Petersen's sympathetic portrayal of profiler Will Graham has also been noted as helping to influence a "shift in the image of the pop-culture FBI agent" that would continue throughout the 1980s and 90s. The film has also been noted as a thematic precursor to the series Millennium
Millennium (TV series)
Millennium is an American television series created by Chris Carter, creator of The X-Files. Millennium aired on the Fox Network from 1996 to 1999. The series was filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, though most episodes were ostensibly set in or around Seattle, Washington...
, John Doe
John Doe (TV series)
John Doe is an American science fiction drama television series that aired on Fox during the 2002–2003 TV season.-Synopsis:"I woke up in an island off the coast of Seattle. I didn't know how I got there ... or who I was. But I did seem to know everything else. There were things about me I didn't...
, Profiler
Profiler (TV series)
Profiler was an American crime drama that aired on NBC from 1996 to 2000. The series follows the exploits of a criminal profiler working with the fictional FBI's Violent Crimes Task Force based in Atlanta, Georgia....
, and The X-Files
The X-Files
The X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...
; as well as films such as Copycat
Copycat (film)
Copycat is an American psychological thriller, starring Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter. The film was directed by Jon Amiel, with a score composed by Christopher Young.-Plot:...
, Switchback
Switchback (film)
Switchback is a 1997 thriller starring Dennis Quaid, Danny Glover, Jared Leto, Ted Levine, William Fichtner and R. Lee Ermey, set in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of Colorado, and Amarillo, Texas, USA. It was directed by Jeb Stuart.-Plot:...
, The Bone Collector
The Bone Collector
The Bone Collector is a 1999 thriller film starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie, directed by Phillip Noyce and produced by Martin Bregman....
, Seven
Seven (film)
Seven is a 1995 American thriller film, which also contains horror and neo-noir elements, directed by David Fincher and written by Andrew Kevin Walker. It was distributed by New Line Cinema and stars Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow, R...
and Fallen
Fallen (film)
Fallen is a 1998 supernatural thriller film, directed by Gregory Hoblit, and starring Denzel Washington, John Goodman and Donald Sutherland.-Plot:...
.
The Silence of the Lambs, a film adaptation
Film adaptation
Film adaptation is the transfer of a written work to a feature film. It is a type of derivative work.A common form of film adaptation is the use of a novel as the basis of a feature film, but film adaptation includes the use of non-fiction , autobiography, comic book, scripture, plays, and even...
of Harris' next Lecter novel, was released in 1991. However, this film does not have any of Manhunters cast reprising their roles, although characters such as Lecter and Chilton do return with new actors. Actors Frankie Faison
Frankie Faison
Frankie Russel Faison , often credited as Frankie R. Faison, is an American actor.-Personal life:Faison was born in Newport News, Virginia, the son of Carmena and Edgar Faison. He studied drama at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Illinois, where he joined Theta Chi Fraternity...
and Dan Butler
Dan Butler
Daniel Eugene "Dan" Butler is an American playwright and actor known for his role as Bob "Bulldog" Briscoe on the TV series Frasier.- Life and career :...
appear in both films, but as different and unrelated characters. The film earned several awards and accolades, including the Academy Award for Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
. It is one of only three films to have won the Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Actress, and Best Screenplay. The Silence of the Lambs was followed in turn by a sequel
Sequel
A sequel is a narrative, documental, or other work of literature, film, theatre, or music that continues the story of or expands upon issues presented in some previous work...
and two prequel
Prequel
A prequel is a work that supplements a previously completed one, and has an earlier time setting.The widely recognized term was a 20th-century neologism, and a portmanteau from pre- and sequel...
s; Hannibal
Hannibal (film)
Hannibal is a 2001 psychological thriller film directed by Ridley Scott, adapted from the Thomas Harris novel of the same name. It is a sequel to the 1991 Academy Award-winning film The Silence of the Lambs that returns Anthony Hopkins to his iconic role as serial killer Hannibal Lecter...
, Red Dragon
Red Dragon (film)
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....
and Hannibal Rising.
Of these later films, 2002's Red Dragon, adapted from the same novel as Manhunter, was released to a generally positive critical reception and successful box office receipts; making $209,196,298 on a $78 million budget. Based on recent reviews, Red Dragon currently has a 68% rating from 183 reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, and a 60% rating based on 36 reviews on Metacritic. Manhunters cinematographer
Cinematography
Cinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography...
Dante Spinotti
Dante Spinotti
Dante Spinotti, A.S.C., A.I.C. is a cinematographer.Spinotti was born in Tolmezzo, Italy. Among the more notable films he has worked on are The Last of the Mohicans, Heat, and L.A. Confidential...
also served as the director of photography on this version.
See also
- Offender profiling in popular culture
- 1986 in film1986 in film-Events:*April 12 - Actor Morgan Mason marries The Go-Go's Belinda Carlisle.*April 26 - Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger marries television journalist Maria Shriver.*May - Actress Heather Locklear marries Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee....