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Parallels Between Lector and De Kock
Parallels Between Lector and De Kock
According to AFI’s 100 Years 100 Heroes and Villains, Dr. Hannibal Lector from The Silence of the Lambs, 1991, is the number one villain of the past 100 years of film. Competing with classic villains like Darth Vader or Norman Bates from Psycho, Lector’s cannibalistic sociopathic mannerisms surpassed them all. The Silence of the Lambs, directed by Jonathan Demme won the top five most prestigious Academy Awards: Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director and Best Picture. Anthony Hopkins won for Best Actor which is odd because even though he had a chilling presence throughout the film he actually only appeared in 17 minutes of it. The Silence of the Lambs is a film that will be remembered for many generations, it is one of the horror movies that parents will tell their children about, explaining how as a child it was one of the most frightening movies they saw. The plot of the movie may at first seem odd, Dr. Hannibal Lector, the number one villain, and yet his movie does not even seem to be about his murders. For most of the movie FBI trainee, Clarice Starling, played by Jodie Foster, interviews Lector from his cell in the insane asylum. She was sent to interview him because it was believed that he could give advice on catching a killer coined named “Buffalo Bill,” who kidnaps women and then after three days kills and skins them. When Starling begins her interviews she notices how polite and civil Lector appears. For a man who is known to have killed and ate his victims this comes as a surprise to her, but should it have, he was after all a psychiatrist. He was intelligent; he had a way with words, a way of messing with people’s minds, he almost appeared normal but at the same time completely psychotic. The interviews between Starling and Lector had striking similarities to those between Pumla and Eugene de Kock in the novel A Human Being Died The Night. In both situations the imprisoned man seemed to have a clean, polite, almost normal appearance. They both seemed to enjoy speaking, sharing and learning, both cautious not to reveal too much about themselves. While de Kock contributed to mass murders he did not kill anyone who he did not feel deserved it, to him that meant sparing the children. To him children were innocent; they did not deserve to loose their lives over a situation that was out of their control. Lector on the other hand had similar qualities. He wanted to learn about Starling’s past, he needed to understand her, he even grew to like her, maybe even respect her. After he escaped he contacted her, explaining that he would not come after her, if she did not search for him. This relationship with Starling, de Kock seemed to have with his family and with children. Both men felt that certain people did not deserve to be murdered. This commonality between them seems to be a personality trait often seen in the villains of a story. The really intelligent, conniving “bad guys” on the surface seem to be normal, even exceed normal, maybe brilliant and it is only through deep analysis that one discovers the monster hidden beneath.
posted on Jan 15, 2008 10:36 PM ()
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