Greatest Film Scenes
and Moments



Hannibal (2001)

 



Written by Tim Dirks

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Movie Title/Year and Scene Descriptions
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Hannibal (2001)

In Ridley Scott's follow-up sequel to the original The Silence of the Lambs (1991):

  • the sequence in which horribly disfigured, paralyzed, wheelchair-bound and wealthy Mason Verger (an uncredited and unrecognizable Gary Oldman), one of Lecter's many former victims, met with FBI agent Clarice Starling (Julianne Moore) in his secluded estate in Asheville, North Carolina, and told her (in flashback) how he had pervertedly engaged in a S&M session, including sexual asphyxiation (by hanging), drug use (under the influence of amyl nitrite), and after Lecter's suggestion - peeled the skin off his own face with a mirror shard ("It seemed like a good idea at the time") after which Lecter fed the pieces of flesh to the dogs
  • the scene of Clarice Starling's calm viewing of a security camera videotape of Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) escaping after assaulting an attendant at the Baltimore State Forensic Hospital - with bloody face-eating
  • the horrifying scene of the chloroforming capture and murder of Florence Italy's Chief Police Inspector Rinaldo Pazzi (Giancarlo Giannini) who was on Hannibal's trail (Lecter had disguised himself as Dr. Fell) - Pazzi was gagged and pushed out of a palace window while being hanged, after which Lecter cut his "bowels out" and his entrails were visible hanging down and splashing onto the cobblestone square
  • the scene of Dr. Lecter rescuing Clarice from wild ravenous boars that savagely attacked Verger's own men - and then consumed the disfigured Verger himself after he was pushed into the pit by Verger's own physician Dr. Cordell Doemling (Zeljko Ivanek), where he suffered a gruesome, grisly bloody death by carnivorous boars he had vengefully planned for Lecter (Verger told Lecter how he planned to have Lecter slowly consumed by wild pigs with "three pairs of incisors, one pair of elongated canines, three pairs of molars, four pairs of pre-molars, upper and lower, for a total of forty-four teeth")
  • the excruciating gourmet meal 4th of July dinner scene in which Justice Department representative Paul Krendler's (Ray Liotta) brain was neatly sliced open and exposed - and served as sauteed meat by sadistic serial killer Dr. Hannibal for the meal; Lecter assured Clarice: "The brain itself feels no pain." Krendler noted: "That smells great" and then ate his last meal -- a piece of his own brain when offered: ("It is good")
The Open Brain of Paul Krendler
(Ray Liotta)
  • after the meal, Clarice's handcuffing of Dr. Lecter's left wrist to hers, as he threatened: "I'm really pressed for time, so where's the key?" When she wouldn't answer, he reached for a meat cleaver, raised it in the air, and said as he grabbed her: "Above or below the wrist, Clarice. This is really gonna hurt." She appeared to scream in agony as he hacked with the cleaver, and the scene turned to black - in the next scene, it was revealed that Lecter had hacked off his own hand!

The Reason for Mason Verger's Disfiguration

Dr. Lecter's Cannibalism

Lecter's Murder of Chief Police Inspector Rinaldo Pazzi


Lecter's Rescue of Clarice and Verger's Consumption by Wild Pigs

Clarice Handcuffed to Dr. Lecter

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