Peter Webber
Spotlight By: Benjamin Lee
'So what do I have to do to make them scream''
It's a question British director Peter Webber asked himself throughout the shoot of his new movie. And it's not without cause either. He is after all now in charge of one of the most infamous franchises in Hollywood history.
Following in the footsteps of Michael Mann, Jonathan Demme, Ridley Scott and ummmmm Brett Ratner, Webber takes on the somewhat troubled character of Hannibal Lecter and his formative years in the prequel Hannibal Rising.
The film shows us how the legendary villain sharpened his teeth on some brutal soldiers who murdered his sister. Since no amount of digital trickery can make Anthony Hopkins appear in his teens, the task of finding a new, younger Hannibal was top on Webber's list.
'We'd kissed an awful lot of frogs' Webber tells, 'Casting is an interesting thing. It's not an exact science at all. You can think about it and try to be intellectual about it but a lot of the time it's about a gut feeling. When Gaspard [Ulliel] walked into that room it just seemed right. He had that sort of haunted quality in his eyes. It just felt right. It's like dating. Sometimes it feels right, sometimes it doesn't.'
In looking back to the previous Lecter movies, each one possessed it's own individual style. From the stark minimalism of The Silence of the Lambs to the gothic beauty of Hannibal, any director taking on a new Hannibal chapter has a lot to live up to. But Webber insists that his personality wasn't a guiding factor in how he chose to direct the movie.
'When I get a script I don't look at it and think 'right how can I put my personal stamp on this'' he admits, 'I think 'right what's good, dramatic and strong''. What's the best way of bringing this to the screen' What's the best way to light it, the best way to design it, the best way to direct the actors. It's about the story and it's about the best way to get the story up onto the screen. This is not about me. This is about Tom Harris, this is about Hannibal Lecter and it's about me using whatever skills or talents I have to make a compelling, compulsive, watchable movie. That's the way I work. I'm trying to make it as good as possible for the audience.'
Now anyone going to see a Lecter thriller is expecting a certain number of definites. The first and foremost being a large amount of violence. This was something Webber was happy to emphasize.
'How far did we take the gore'' he asks, 'You look at the page, you think about the audience sitting there Friday night staring at the screen and you wanna make them scream! That's part of what this is - it's a thrill-ride.' But did Webber encounter any problems with the notrious MPAA' 'We didn't self-censor at all during the shoot but we did during the editing' he confesses, 'We had a lot of conversations about exactly how much gore we wanted there. We cut back quite a lot. But the MPAA didn't make any changes at all. So it was a creative decision.'
Webber is also quick to defend the violence against those who oppose it. 'The amount of gore that's in there is necessary for the story' he believes, 'It's necessary to entertain people. We didn't invent the fact that people are entertained by blood spurting everywhere. That's a given.' He also promises that for those gorehounds who love a bit of blood and guts, there's more to come. 'We do have a pile of many more violent images that are sitting in the can and I'm hoping to convince these guys to let me do a cut on DVD where we show you the full version.'
When Webber starts to think about the way violence is portrayed in the movie, he starts to wax lyrical about the movie's underlying message, at least in his opinion. 'You turn on CNN and you see what's happening in the Middle East and you just see this awful, awful cycle of revenge and destruction' he states, 'The movie seemed to speak to me about that. It seemed to me to have a strong, if simple message. It's true that some of it is quite graphically violent but really that's nothing compared to what we see day-to-day. The chance to sort of let some of the poison out is actually quite appealing as a creative person. You don't want that stuff in your head so this was a good way to get it out of my head, onto the screen and into other people's heads!'
In trying to differentiate his Hannibal offering to those we have already seen, Webber believes the film's multi-culturalism is it's ace in the hole. 'I thought it was really interesting that this has been very much the European installment of the Hannibal Lecter myth' he tells, 'We've had the American installments. We've gone back in time to see his origins, to see where he comes from. Tom Harris is really one of the few Americans actually involved in this. We have a Chinese actress, a French actor, a British director, an Italian producer, we had Polish designers. It had a very European feel to it.'
Following up the period drama Girl with a Pearl Earring with the violent thriller Hannibal Rising, the career of Peter Webber has already shown a talent for changing genre at the drop of the hat. And with news just coming out that he's to direct a remake of kitsch sci-fi flick Barbarella, his chameleon qualities are certainly intact.
