The shudder-image: psyche-soma, sex and knowledge in Hannibal

Abstract

Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal (NBC, 2013–15) – an adaptation of Thomas Harris’s Hannibal Lecter novels, and their filmic interpretations – is one of the more formally experimental (and startlingly psychosexual) programmes to appear on US network television since the original two-season run of Twin Peaks (ABC, 1990–91).1 While critics have aligned Hannibal with the contemporary era of ‘Quality Television’ – which has provided examples of visually ambitious and thematically challenging programming such as Six Feet Under (HBO, 2001–05) or Mindhunter (Netflix, 2017–19) – the majority of these series appear on premium cable or streaming services such as HBO, AMC and Netflix.2Hannibal, by contrast, was commissioned by commercial broadcast network NBC, meaning that it faced significant limitations in terms of budget and censorship in comparison to many of its alleged ‘Quality’ peers. Nonetheless, with the support of Gaumont International Television, Fuller was able to present a distinct vision of Harris’s world as a three-season phantasmagoria of vividly designed and perversely executed violence, mutilation and horror – far beyond what viewers may have been accustomed to on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (CBS, 2000–15) or Criminal Minds (CBS, 2005–20). It is a vision in which the conventions of the police procedural eventually give way to an elaborately staged queer romance between the lead characters, FBI agent Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) and his psychotherapist Dr Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen).