Hannibal the Cannibal tops villains list
Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter, portrayed by Anthony Hopkins in The Silence Of The Lambs, has chewed up the competition to top a US list of film villains.
And Atticus Finch from To Kill A Mockingbird has defeated an army of swashbuckling idols for the top spot on the American Film Institute’s list of top screen heroes.
The institute unveiled its ranking today of the top good and bad guys (and gals) in American film on the CBS special AFI’s 100 Years ... 100 Heroes & Villains.
Finch, played by Gregory Peck in the 1962 classic, was a faultlessly noble widower raising a daughter and son amid Southern racial unrest as he defended a black man accused of raping a white woman.
“I think Atticus Finch just represents the goodness all of us want to see in others and feel in ourselves,” said Jean Picker Firstenburg, the institute’s director. “This is a hard time in human history, and we look for the bright spots that show us the way.”
Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones from Raiders Of The Lost Ark was second on the heroes list, and Sean Connery’s James Bond from Dr No came in third.
Lecter, played by Hopkins in the 1991 thriller, plus the sequel Hannibal and the prequel Red Dragon, was a delectably fiendish serial killer who boasted about eating a man’s liver with fava beans and a nice Chianti.
Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) of Psycho was second on the villains list, and Darth Vader (played by David Prowse and voiced by James Earl Jones) third for The Empire Strikes Back.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, host of the AFI special, was the only actor to place essentially the same character on both lists.
His malevolent cyborg from The Terminator was No 22 among villains, while his nice-guy cyborg in Terminator 2: Judgment Day placed 48th among heroes.
“I am absolutely ecstatic about it,” Schwarzenegger said. “To say you are one of the 50 favourite villains and one of the 50 favourite heroes in the history of American motion pictures, that is unbelievable, and I felt very honoured.”
The 100 heroes and villains were chosen from 400 character nominees on ballots sent to 1,500 actors, directors, critics and others in the movie business.
