Meet Tracey! (You can skip the boring stuff)

If the “Globes” are any indication, the Oscars will become particularly bleak and boring this year. Anticipating this, I decided to celebrate my personal best acting experience of the year, though it isn’t even something that came out this year but already a few years ago. Apparently, the second season of “Accused” came out on dvd in 2014, and was filmed already in 2012, so the rate these things go it’s already ancient history. But I was SO ESPECIALLY PLEASED to meet Tracey that she has to be commemorated in my little hall of fame. I’ll explain why, but there is still a bit of the boring stuff first.

Rereading my blog of the last months I discovered to my amazement that I hadn’t been kidding about the doctoral thesis – even less than I thought. At least not as to what the “internal value” of a doctoral thesis is in my opinion. Which is to find out something important about the subject I am interested in by investigating it. And this is EXACTLY what I did. I didn’t really know it, not even until now, though I began quite early on to describe it. But, going over my “Tempest” posts again, I realized that I had done more than I had seen until then. I realized that I had not only developed a strategy to improve my reading but “implemented” a method of interpretation as well by observing what I am actually doing reading and dealing with fiction. And I realized as well that the reason this really worked for the first time is in fact that I applied the CORRECT CONCEPT of the “nature” of a fictional text.

Now, to avoid the big lump this time I’ll cut it into smaller portions. So, this is the first bite of the boring stuff about the fundamental question:

WHAT IS THE TEXT?

The funny thing is that this question not only didn’t get addressed ONCE during my almost six years of studying literature but that I didn’t even miss it. At least this is how I remember it though, thinking about this now, it can hardly be true??? But, even though there certainly were a few theories hovering in the background, the question doesn’t appear to have been very important. And my teachers were probably right not to address it in a binding fashion. With these subjects, there is nothing so dangerous as commitment … Nonetheless it is funny, and kind of incredible, that I answered the question now, without asking it, about thirty years later.

The answer is, of course, breathtakingly simple:

THE TEXT IS WHAT WE READ.

I suppose there is even a greater fear of simple answers in an academic context than of commitment. Of course you can’t just repeat what everybody already knows. But neither that nor the consideration that it belongs to the dead-born theory of reader-response criticism makes it any less true. Now I remember that, having written my master thesis with zero success the way I saw it, I had this “epiphany” that all these theories are crap because – though they might FEEL convincing and sufficiently sophisticated – they are no use at all if you are looking for RESULTS. (And I told my professor so (in my oral exams!) – though, of course, not in these words. Funny, when I think about it …) I like it now that I actually LEARNED something writing my master thesis, and that I was mature enough even then to see through the bullshit. I didn’t, for a moment, consider that it might have been my fault that I hadn’t been successful. Well, confidence is good, but not always. I am still very suspicious of being so pleased with myself lately, though I know I don’t give this impression. But I can’t help feeling successful when I have got everything I ever really wanted, and one of the three things I ever wanted is being able to do THIS. Dealing with text in a sensible and productive fashion. (I suppose we never know what we REALLY want until we get it, there is always a big portion of sheer luck. But the outcome still feels like success.)

I think I even knew the reason(s) back then, why these theories are crap, but I was still too much involved in the bullshit to figure it out. As most fictional texts, and especially those that literary critics value, are incredibly sophisticated compared to “average” human thinking and feeling, critics tend to think that their theories have to be AS sophisticated. There are even good reasons for this thinking, especially if we look at what damage “stupid” theories like psychoanalysis – probably not stupid as such but a blunt instrument where fictional text is concerned! – can do to a text. Nonetheless, this is poor thinking, and there is no need for more than a bit of philosophical common sense to figure this out. It might be that deconstructivism has put an end to this dilemma once and for all BECAUSE it is a great theory. It is the first theory that took the potentially infinite “nature” of a fictional text into account. Nonetheless, what comes of it when it gets applied to fiction tends to be even more ludicrous than what usually comes of other doctrinal theories. I thought I understood why, but I don’t. I don’t think I even bothered with how it was supposed to work in the end. Intuitively, I wouldn’t be surprised if it had been in fact the end (and the undoing) of literary theory because everything somehow didn’t refer to anything but itself anymore. But I don’t pretend to know anything, I am out of touch now for more than twenty-five years. As it appears from “far off”, literary critics are now mostly preoccupied with ideological issues, like black women stuff, or subjects like eating and shitting in literature. Certainly all very important issues AS SUCH - where no need will arise to bother with the “basics” of text science ever again. And this would be exactly what was to be expected.

What I meant to say: there is nothing wrong with simple tools if they work. As long as something works and gets us the kind of results we want it can never be trivial. Theories are tools, in “text science” as well as in “serious” science. If they don’t work they will be discarded in the long run.

And the idea that only I – and every other person who actually READS a text – can make a valid description of it will never become trivial. I EXPERIENCED it as non-trivial because it made me look at the matter in an entirely different way.

First of all, it makes me view this description as a potentially impossible task – for probably even more reasons than those I have addressed in my post of November 2^nd 2017.  A fictional text is the one thing that can never be exhausted or completely understood. Sometimes this is just great, but it can be scary or uncomfortable as well. I’ll never be afraid of Virginia Woolf (because I’ll probably never read anything of her …) but I am still afraid of taking up “The Crucible” and actually read it, and I know why. It is that I know that, when I do this, the lay of the land will be completely different from what I remember seeing on the stage. And, for some reason, I don’t want to be changed, I want to stay where I am and understand where I am standing. Maybe I am still not through with it … The lay of the land WAS completely different when I took up “Hannibal” after one year, and it was great. In this case, the text suddenly made COMPLETE sense. And every time I take up “Austen” again the scene gets even worse, and I like this a lot. With “Shakespeare” there is often a sense of frustration or challenge at the beginning of something great. I know that I still don’t get “Macbeth” – though I have theories which I don’t take entirely seriously. How can I love something like this, and know it by heart, and not understand it at all??? But this is the nature of fictional texts, and, in this case, it cries for INTERPRETATION – which will be part two of the boring stuff. Rereading what I wrote about “The Tempest” I suddenly realized that I didn’t just struggle with interpretation but that there is in fact a METHOD of interpretation I apply, and have always applied, when it appears necessary. When I am not satisfied with my reading or my point of view gets challenged. Going over my posts I realized that it is always the same thing I do, and I was amused and pleased at the same time that it is exactly what I learned about Karl Popper’s theory of falsification in my first lecture at uni. (Big smiley face …) But this is already part two of the boring stuff. Now, actually: Meet Tracey!

I suppose “we” would all be a bit scared of Tracey – at least when we are under six foot tall (without the heels!) – if we met her in real life because she is an ageing transvestite - with the heels and the tits and the blond wig, and a whole face painted on, and a really BIG mouth on top of that – played by … Sean Bean! (Who would have thought …?)

The way I reacted (thrilled!) when I realized this showed me that my faith in him as an actor mysteriously hadn’t evaporated after about 15 years of seeing nothing of significance by him. I didn’t find Tracey looking for him, I found her following Christopher Eccleston who played the main character in the first episode of the first season of “Accused”. Ordering it, I realized that there was a second season with Sean Bean in it, and he was probably the reason why “Accused 2” made it to the top of my wish list for Christmas. Though this was a strange decision it turned out to be a good one. I didn’t even like “Accused” that much, and don’t care much about court drama, but there are interesting actors and some very good acting. Still, Tracey’s story stands out. It is filmed beautifully, more like a short arthouse film than a tv series. Very “poetic”, with a great soundtrack and a wonderful attention to detail. As if it was the most important thing in the world to give Tracey  a stage where she could emerge in her full glory. As, in fact, it was! She is one of these characters that are a real jewel for an actor, as well, I suppose, as damned difficult to play.

But this, of course, is often the same thing. I loved the frustration of the actor Kynaston in “Stage Beauty” about having to play male characters because: “What is the point in that?” It is always so gratifying to still discover traces of this vanishing kind of (stage)-acting in British actors. The only time I saw Sean Bean in the theatre (as Macbeth!) he was really bad (sorry!), but Tracey would have done beautifully on a stage. And she is just the kind of character that makes me forget every single disappointment of the past in a heartbeat. That was my first great satisfaction, of course, that I hadn’t been wrong. I knew I couldn’t have been wrong about “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” and “Clarissa” which are, basically, the two reasons I didn’t give up on him. I liked him as Boromir in “The Fellowship of the Ring”, but I think I liked the character more than the acting. Then I was so thrilled about him to play Ulysses in “Troy” because this is one of my favourite characters in literature (the Ulysses of the “Iliad”, not the “Odyssey”!), and Sean Bean would have been my dream cast for him. But the film turned out to be total crap, and it was certainly not his fault, but I was sorely disappointed. I think “Macbeth” came after “Troy”, and I should have given up on him then but, obviously, I didn’t. Sometimes I am really stubborn, and, if I am, I obviously know what I am doing. I remember that I saw him in “Far North” – a beautiful film but not mainly for the acting – and in “Cash” where he played twin brothers. I didn’t like it that much, but the acting was really good. And that was the first time, after all these years, that I thought I might have been right after all. But Oliver Mellors, though probably not as popular, is one of these great iconic and singular characters of English literature, like a Mr. Rochester, Mr. Darcy, or John Thornton. To bring him to life and make him feel absolutely right you need a really special actor who knows exactly what he is doing. Being capable of such mature acting at a young age cannot just “go away” – though experience shows that it does sometimes. But not in this case: As Tracey, the Sean Bean I had seen was finally back, with a vengeance.

Expertly strutting on high heels as if he did it every day might even have been the smallest challenge, but it never fails to impress me. (Of course, actresses have to learn it as well at some point, and I am never that impressed with their dexterity.) The voice is great as well, I don’t think it is easy to get this SO right. And the face, which is, of course, partly nature. This amazing face – which, in my opinion, has become more beautiful and expressive with age - is probably the reason why Tracey suited Sean Bean so well in the first place – or the other way round? But the “biggest” part of the face we see is always face-acting. Actors look as “nondescript” as the next person if we ever see them in the street. This is even more obvious when we are looking at Simon. Simon, as such, is not interesting at all, but without self-effacing Simon there would be no Tracey. Beautiful, brazen, vulnerable, scary, naughty, caring … Tracey. This contrast, and their strange relationship, makes Simon important in his own right. Looking nondescript is not enough. In my opinion, Sean Bean plays him very sensitively when he “slips on” the languorous beauty of Victorian poetry like a soft cocoon. Tracey has absolutely no respect for him and his “camouflage” which she refers to as “deedum shite”. But the cocoon is there to protect her own life, so that she can emerge from it and soar sky-high. We don’t know what will happen to her after she decides to tear it apart and “come out” in front of the court to avoid a prison-sentence …

Of course, this is exactly what I like: this kind of singular character that is so much larger than life – with so much more scope and variety than any real person could ever have. And that - even because of this! - appears so totally life-like. Though I have never met somebody like her, from the first moment I had an impression that I knew her. And I know that this is because I had been waiting for her  - because I wanted to meet her. Which is strange when I am thinking about it. If I met her in the street she would certainly intimidate me. I don’t think I would want to talk to her, neither would I know what to say. Nonetheless she impressed me more than any real or fictional person did in a long time. Even more: thinking of her warmed my heart – and still does. And what is the reason for that?

On the surface we don’t have much in common – if anything at all. The deliberate, artful, and painstaking creation of what somebody wants to be is something that I already found totally fascinating about the Red Dragon - my number one acting experience in 2016! - but it has nothing to do with me. Being deeply moved by Tracey as I was must have something to do with what I want to have in my own life, or understand “through” my own life. And of course I know what this is. By putting on this person, Tracey is actually able to change into what she really is. Not the “false” face, tits, hair and voice are the truth about Tracey, but the person she creates with their help. And this is the most beautiful thing about Sean Bean’s creation that he makes us believe in Tracey as she believes in herself. She knows that she is successful in establishing the truth about herself, and this is the reason she cannot be intimidated or diminished by others. Being who she is makes her vulnerable, and often scared, and it takes a lot of courage. She doesn’t hide, not before others nor before herself. Which means that she can be hurt, and will be hurt because what she wants and needs is hard to get – and will become harder to get the older she becomes. Many people are Simon because it is so much easier. I have to ask myself if I am one of them. Tracey is one of these rare beings that have got completely past the bullshit - at a high prize which she pays every day. It is what makes her more “real” than all the Simons sitting opposite us on the underground.

I know I could never be as brave as she is. Nonetheless she gives me courage, and I have to believe in my affection for her. What we have in common, though it was anything but spectacular in my case, is that I had to make this decision as well: the decision if I wanted to believe myself or others about who I really am and what I really want. 

(I just put “Broken” on my wish-list, by the way. I think I’ll risk it …)

Even more about the bad stuff: “Hannibal” revisited

After this big chunk of my last posts I was resolved not to push it into the new year, but I GOT pushed. I took up “Hannibal” again, just because I thought that it was the right month. (I am getting more and more convinced that the bleak seriousness of November deserves horror, and, since last year, one of my least favourite months of the year - not because of the weather but because of the increasing menace of Christmas - has temporarily become one of my favourites.) But when I finally took up “Hannibal” it was definitely “pre-Christmas” (cookies and snowmen and so on …) and I wasn’t in the mood anymore. And, as there was still “House of Cards” (which I always watch from the beginning when there is a new season) it took me until Mid-December to finish “Hannibal”. So, I just watched it “on principle”, without conviction. I even firmly expected that I wouldn’t enjoy it like I did seeing it the first time, and maybe there is no comparison. But I don’t really remember the surprise and the genuine enjoyment, and maybe, this time, something EVEN BETTER happened. So, I HAVE to write this.

Seeing it this time, I CONSCIOUSLY expected something. I expected not just that I wouldn’t enjoy it anymore but kind of dreaded that I wouldn’t understand anymore why I had enjoyed it so much. Sometimes I find it really weird how much I DISTRUST myself as a reader – though I know that a good deal of distrust is always in order because, as I have observed, significant reading CHANGES ME AS A READER. It always changes WHO I am as a reader. I knew this but never as I do now.

So, I wasn’t really looking forward to watching the series again, but I thought I should do it nonetheless, probably to see if I was right. And I reckoned that at least some of the beauty would still be there. What I couldn’t have predicted was how much more beautiful it would become by finally UNDERSTANDING it. THIS is what I didn’t expect at all: that there was still something crucial in there that I hadn’t (fully) understood, and that finally understanding it would make such a difference. What had happened while I neither watched it nor thought about it - except for moments to remember the “climactic” beauty – was that Hannibal’s fragile teacup had quietly come together, and I could watch and understand EVERYTHING in its TRUE beauty. (Very bad sentence which I keep because it has the advantage of being absolutely exact …)

I think, what makes the series so exceptional is that it takes an almost insane amount of patience to make the cup come together. One reason for this is that, to do this, we actually have to deal with ALL these people. In my opinion, it is one of the major advantages of series that there is so much time to develop ALL the characters and provide them with a human interest story. One of my absolute favourite moments of “Doctor Who” is in the Christmas special of the 6th series when somebody says about somebody else that they are not important, and Matt Smith as the Doctor remarks ruminantly: “Interesting – I have never met anybody who was not important!” So, in series there is, like in real life, room for everybody to become important if they want to, (and are played by the right actor with the potential to make them special …) But in “Hannibal” it is even more crucial than usual to treat everybody as equally important because practically everybody gets their own “becoming” in the end – (though, in some cases (Dr. Chilton!), “undoing” is probably more like it). And all these becomings are somehow tied to Hannibal. And only if we understand this structure, and read it (potentially) completely, the cup will come together in this way. As I missed the point when I first watched it, my reading was incomplete and what I read was mostly bullshit - as what I wrote was. I was absolutely right though about one thing: the importance of “participation”. But my concept of participation had still been incomplete. It isn’t just that it is ME who has to make the cup come together. To put it together LIKE THIS, “beautifully”, without any visible crack and blemish, it really is important HOW and IN WHAT EXACTLY I participate.

This structure of individual “becomings” was also, I think, what made the series so special for actors – judging by the amount of meaningful commentary. From one of the commentaries I inferred that they chose the actors more according to the potential of working with them in this way – rather then who would fit the type one might expect from the book. And THIS, I think, became the formula of success for this series. Because - I am almost sorry to say - the series is REALLY NOT about what is displayed on the surface. As, I think, I suspected from the beginning, it is about significant relationships between people which, in my opinion, don’t become less important because they are strange and “exotic” (at best!), but more so. In my experience, the “perverse” context doesn’t diminish but highlight the universal aspects of these relationships. This is, of course, difficult to “prove”, especially where it gets most important: in the relationship between Hannibal and Will Graham. So, I’ll begin with a less “demanding” example. The love story between Francis Dolarhyde and Reba McClane might be the best, most moving love story I have ever “read” (including the ones I invented myself!) just because of the beautiful simplicity of the fact that she gives him pie and he gives her the most precious and sophisticated gift anybody could possibly give her in return. And who can honestly say that something like this isn’t what they would like more than anything?! And, in fact, something like this - just still more extreme and “conscious” - applies to Hannibal and Will Graham. The highest form of love we can reach and receive is certainly not to be used to fill one of the many needs and deficiencies in another person’s live but, as it is called in the bible, to be “recognized” as absolutely special, and fully accepted as the person we are. What “we” would do, or not do, to get this is, in fact, the big question …

And there is so much meaning contained in these relationships that it is impossible to take it all in “at one bite”. Interestingly, my strategy of not taking anything people say in the series, or what is suggested about them, at face value proved right and wrong at the same time. It took an insane amount of (active) reading to explore the full semantic potential of what is happening and said. And “deferring” the process of drawing conclusions obviously bought me time to evaluate everything and finally come to a much more complete understanding than I would have just jumping to conclusions. Examples will follow …

Watching the series again, I was more “detached”, less driven by predilections (for actors), or fears, or moral concerns. This means I had more time to “read” and appreciate all the characters and, through the characters, detected a lot more meaningful context. Of course I was totally pleased to notice EVEN MORE how special Richard Armitage made the Red Dragon, and enjoyed to discover even more layers of acting that he put on this character. But for other characters I obviously had never found the time nor patience to deal with them in their own right and analyze their “becoming”. For example, I NOTICED the fundamental change in Alana Bloom between the second and third series as something I have never seen happen quite in this way. (In fact, I have seen it in REAL LIFE – when people I hadn’t met for twenty years and remembered as alive had changed into something like dead matter.) I noticed it, and admired it, but I didn’t really think about what it might MEAN. This time I actually traced when and how exactly she gets changed – from a bright (and innocent!) child into a knowing adult. What has changed her world is mirrored completely in the changed expression of the person she has become. And this - though it is not as spectacular as some of the other “stunts” in the series – is certainly some of the most significant acting I have seen. How significant it became – especially where the aspect of “growing up” is concerned – to understand the meaning of these relationships on its deepest level will be developed further. Not understanding the complete context Hannibal “gives” these characters, I mainly saw it as a destruction. We might not be able to control the manner we get changed in real life, but we decide how we deal with change. Without doubt Alana gets changed by trauma, but, if we look closely, we can see that she is finally changed into knowing who she is, and, KNOWING WHAT SHE WANTS, she is even able to find happiness. Though it might not LOOK like “happiness” at all … Appearances are deceiving in “Hannibal”. The “bone structure” of each character or relationship will be laid bare in the end.

I remember that, at some point during my last reading, I consciously turned my back on Hannibal and focused on Will Graham. And I am not sure why I did it. I thought it was because I felt uneasy about him – afraid of getting under his influence - but I think this was just a pretext. I even wrote, as I remember, that the things other people like about Hannibal didn’t impress me at all – which also might have been partially “self-protection”. In fact, I think it was that I got bored with Hannibal, not because of becoming bored with Mads Mikkelsen’s acting – which I still admired – but somehow not understanding the “fuss” everybody is making about him. I didn’t understand it, or him! – and why should I? (Seeing “The Silence of the Lambs” on Halloween made me think: I still don’t like Anthony Hopkins as an actor, but he is certainly good. At least he makes Hannibal genuinely SCARY. Making Hannibal so very civil and sophisticated in the series partly took the “spike” out of him.)

But, and this realization probably helped as well, Hannibal in the series isn’t AT ALL about what the Hannibal of “The Silence of the Lambs” is about. The reason I turned my back on Hannibal was probably that I couldn’t get anything out of him anymore at this point. But this was not because Mads Mikkelsen’s Hannibal doesn’t keep what he “promises”, rather that I was unable to understand him. OF COURSE he beat me, as he does (almost) everybody else! The most important thing I got out of watching Alana Bloom getting changed by Hannibal was the realization that Hannibal is in fact the KEY to understanding the series, and that all my attempts of “breaking in” through one back door or the other had to be futile.

There is nothing to indicate that Hannibal is pleased with Alana’s “becoming”, but I inferred from a different context that he might have been. I was fascinated from the beginning by how much Richard Armitage succeeded at showing the child in Francis Dolarhyde – making him appear genuinely dangerous and vicious at the same time. But, I think, only by looking at what happens to Alana did I realize why this is so crucial for the narrative, assisted by the precision of Mads Mikkelsen’s “commentary” of Hannibal on Francis Dolarhyde. I think he is totally fascinated and moved by the singularity and beauty of this becoming but nonetheless FAR from taking Francis seriously. But this is of course what Francis wants – not even to have a MEANINGFUL relationship with Hannibal (which is what Hannibal himself aspires to with other people, in his own, crooked way!) but to be recognized by him as what he thinks he is and to be taken seriously. I really noticed for the first time that he has IMAGINARY conversations with Hannibal all the time, respectively what this means. I should have done so before, especially as I might be the world champion of imaginary conversations as there is practically no opportunity for me to talk to people about things I really care about. So, even though I do my best to make them interesting, I observe that people in imaginary conversations tend to tell me what I want to hear. And this is of course how I should have noticed that Francis Dolarhyde’s “sessions” with Hannibal are imaginary IN THE FIRST PLACE, which I didn’t! Sometimes, I must admit, I can be quite thick … No good therapist would do this. If this applies to Hannibal is of course open to debate. As Hannibal is extremely intelligent, and dedicated to his “vocation” in his own way, he is at least TRYING to be a good therapist. We have to give him that. And if he was a real friend to Francis Dolarhyde he wouldn’t do this either. On the other hand, grown-up people KNOW that there is something wrong with imaginary conversations (- even if they like to have them …) Francis Dolarhyde clearly doesn’t.

In truth, Hannibal wouldn’t dream of taking Francis seriously, the way he is taking Will Graham, Abigail Hobbes, and Alana Bloom seriously (- AFTER he has changed them!) I imagine he is secretly smiling at Doctor Chilton trying to tell him that he is overshadowed by the Dragon. There is in fact at least one moment where he allows himself the smallest of condescending smiles. As Ralph Fiennes is the world champion of the (human) bad stuff, and Michael Fassbender of “pioneering” unknown human territory, Mads Mikkelsen is undisputed champion of the minimalist expression (with maximum effect). He didn’t need to do more for me to get the full statement after what I had already observed about Francis Dolarhyde. And then there is his beautiful sentence right at the end which I always forget to memorize about Francis Dolarhyde still dreaming his “beautiful child’s dream”. Maybe it is a kind thought that he dies dreaming, with his eyes open … It might not be the worst ending for him, but Hannibal certainly wouldn’t see it like this. He wouldn’t deem it dignified, after having lived wide awake and painfully conscious of himself all his life – exactly “the same in his own act and valour as he is in desire”. And he certainly prefers to die IN THE TRUTH of his relationship with Will Graham. It is in fact a fitting conclusion that he doesn’t die alone.

There was one other thing which I realized about Francis Dolarhyde for the first time. Of course I NOTICED it before because Richard Armitage gave special emphasis to this moment where Francis experiences Reba as a LIVING woman during and after their first intimate encounter, but I thought that this is just about the fact that he has never had sex with a living woman before. It probably is, but the depth of the epiphany when he is feeling her heart and recognizes her as a living being indicates something else. I think it means that he doesn’t usually recognize other people as living beings and that, up to this point, there hasn’t really been a living being in his live apart from himself. So, he doesn’t lie, neither to himself nor to others, when he speaks of “changing” people instead of killing them. As impossible this is to understand, killing is, for him, rather an innocent occupation. Hannibal isn’t “innocent” when he is killing. He is conscious of killing and enjoys it BECAUSE it is killing. He enjoys the moment of killing as a climactic moment because he knows very well that the person he is about to kill is alive and, after he has killed her or him, they are dead. This is the TRUTH about killing as a “relationship” between the killer and the victim. And, for Hannibal, killing (and eating) the other person can be part of a significant relationship, or even something that makes a relationship finally significant. And the truth about human relationships certainly is a major issue for him. As it is for me - I just didn’t want to go there where Hannibal is concerned. But this time I did, and maybe it wasn’t chance that I noticed for the first time that there is a repetition of “participating” in the third series when Bedelia DuMaurier “accuses” Will Graham of participating in Hannibal’s crimes.

I think, the “difficulty” of understanding Hannibal mainly results from the fact that he is supposed to be a psychopath. And “we” don’t want to understand psychopaths, respectively take them seriously. I am not so sure that Hannibal is, in fact, a psychopath, though he seems to apply this concept to himself. Maybe it gives him some kind of security in determining what he is – and, as a psychiatrist, he should know. But, in my opinion, a psychopath is somebody with a serious and potentially harmful deficiency in his relationship with himself and/or other people – the kind I just described about Francis Dolarhyde. Hannibal might be accused of many things, but certainly not of being DEFICIENT.

(The difference to real psychopaths – and why the series is, of course, mostly “bullshit” - is in both cases that psychopaths in real life are usually dull and unattractive, and mostly harmless. The only one I have known was one of the most unattractive and least interesting human beings I have ever met – though it isn’t unlikely that he had the same impression of me. Thinking about him now, I am intrigued by the realization that I have in fact known one of these strange beings and am asking myself if not almost everybody has (maybe thinking about “our” respective bosses might help …) In truth, psychopaths are what we really don’t want anything to do with – though the content of bestselling novels and major feature films suggest otherwise. I don’t think I would ever have recalled this guy if not this moving scene I described about Francis Dolarhyde had COMPELLED me to a deeper understanding of what a psychopath is, probably for the first time. I suppose I could have figured it out for myself IF I HAD WANTED TO, but I didn’t. And hours of tv footage on Anders Behring Breivik had zero effect in this respect, so there might be something to what I wrote about fiction and beauty and clever “shortcuts” … The most beautiful thing about “Hannibal” might even be that, unlike “Hollywood”, they took these issues seriously, kind of transcending the bullshit as well as the beauty towards the “real issue”.)

Whatever Hannibal’s own assessment of psychopaths, basically, he doesn’t think of Francis Dolarhyde as very special. Set aside the singularity and perfection of his becoming (which Hannibal doesn’t even SEE. Nobody but the audience ever sees his secret life with the dragon!), he is a very common brand of psychopath. And Hannibal, as a psychiatrist specializing in this field, realizes this without doubt and finds it ridiculous that other people are making so much of him just because of his spectacular murders. (Murder, as such, isn’t what intrigues Hannibal!) And this comparison, and “non”-relationship with Francis Dolarhyde left me with the strange conclusion that Hannibal is probably NOT a psychopath. I may say, WHERE I AM CONCERNED, he is not a psychopath because I wouldn’t understand him – I mean, CATEGORICALLY, as I couldn’t understand what it is like to be Francis Dolarhyde anymore than I can understand what it is like to be a bat … To cut a long strand of speculations short: if Hannibal WAS a psychopath I would never have CONSENTED to PARTICIPATE.

I think it is even somewhere in the series (Will Graham says it!): “Who wants to eat with the devil needs a long spoon.” I think the same rule applies to psychopaths. Having already seen Francis Dolarhyde in his attic with the dragon I would never have given him anything from my kitchen, or bowl of fruit, or whatever (– even though he is played by Richard Armitage! Strictly speaking, I am probably lying, as Richard Armitage was the reason I watched the series in the first place. As a rule, I don’t use a spoon with psychopaths, I usually keep my fingers (and cutlery) entirely out of this kind of text …) My personal theory is that Hannibal isn’t a psychopath because he is not somehow “less” than a normal human being, but more. And this is what makes him REALLY dangerous. He has something I definitely aspire to, and which is totally uncompromising honesty and truthfulness where his relationships with other people are concerned. As this is something definitely top of my list, I cannot but admire and envy Hannibal for having somehow got completely “past” the bullshit. But the way he got there matters as well, and I don’t think I realized for the first time that, as with every great thing, there is a big prize tag attached.

And - though I am afraid there is already more waiting in the pipeline – this is definitely all about the “bad stuff” for THIS year …