Stuff I'm Digging: Hannibal

Stuff I’m Digging is just a way to talk to you guys about something I’m enjoying at the moment. This might be guitar-related, or music-related, or it might just something cool that I like and want to share.

Hannibal

I’m really late to the Hannibal party. I admit, I was a bit of a snob about it: “Pah! Hannibal as a TV show. What’s the point?” That sort of thing.

I was very wrong.

Hannibal is fantastic.

Of course you’re familiar with the films (maybe even the rubbish prequel). You may be familiar with the books (the good one, the other good one that’s much the same as the first good one, and the rubbish ones).

The TV show is different. And yet seems very true to the spirit of Hannibal Lecter.

The series showrunner, Bryan Fuller, famously said, “Every director who comes to the show gets the same lecture: We are not making television. We are making a pretentious art film from the 80s.”

And it’s beautiful to look at. And to follow. The lines between dream and reality are brilliantly blurred and you’re never sure if something’s real or just some bizarre nightmare.

Apparently, my patronage comes too late, though. It’s cancelled. There are only three series of Hannibal (I’m just at the end of the first). I’m too late to make a difference but I can, at least, urge you to go check it out on DVD or streaming.

If a horrifyingly surreal, aesthetically beautiful, wildly disturbing, police procedural show with psychological scheming and deception sounds like your cup of tea, go. Go now.

Hat-tip to my brother for getting me in.