Abishai100
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- Sep 22, 2013
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When the crime-horror film The Silence of the Lambs was released, people took notice of a new age interest in psychosis-related violent crimes related storytelling.
The critically-praised film was based on a provocative crime-horror novel by Thomas Harris about a detective working on a terrible serial killer case and using the advice of an incarcerated psychiatrist-turned-cannibal named Dr. Hannibal Lector to catch the killer.
As human beings we are curious about the parameters of civics, etiquette, justice, and criminal psychology. We are interested in the contours of deviance and social control.
In the film, which stars Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster, we are presented with ideas and images of pure mania and focused violent crimes and a serial killer (named 'Buffalo Bill') who seems to have a pattern associated with his gruesome killings.
'Buffalo Bill' is willing to peel the skin off his female victims after murdering them. He may even use skin and parts to make decorations and 'ornaments.'
Violent murder can involve the use of specific terrible weapons (e.g., shotguns, hammers, butcher-knives, strangulation-ropes, etc.) or the application of terrible 'style' (e.g., skinning victims, stalking only prostitutes, burning people alive, etc.).
Leonardo da Vinci's drawing Vitruvian Man portrays the natural evolutionary symmetry of the human being and cast in an inspiring 'geometric' light. From such a portrait, we may gather that an anti-social murderer seeks to contort, distort, pervert, devastate, deteriorate, or even deform the natural elegant 'appearance' of the human body.
A terrible murderer (like 'Buffalo Bill') may choose to yank out a person's tongue or chop off a person's arms or twist off a person's head or even pull off their fingers and toes to dehumanize the person and make him/her seem 'devastated' or 'deformed' and basically 'ruined' morphologically.
These ideas of twisting or contorting the 'perfect human body' to act out criminal urges of destruction and terror reveal a human tendency to 'dwell' on a 'primal urge' to create 'death-scenarios' in which victims are trapped hostages unable to voice out their pleas for mercy and escape.
Many criminal psychologists believe the best way to 'analyze' a terrible serial murderer (like 'Buffalo Bill') is to use arson as a framework for 'methodology.' An arsonist (or pyromaniac) uses the chaotic and uncontrollable flames of fire as a tool to deliver 'messages' about the randomness and uncertainty of fate.
The film Backdraft (starring Kurt Russell and Robert De Niro) presents the story of valiant American firefighters contending with a new deadly fireman-murder conspiracy involving intentionally-planted fire-bombs. Two detectives approach a terrible incarcerated pyromaniac named Ronald to evaluate the mindset of this elusive new arsonist.
If we compare Ronald (portrayed by Donald Sutherland), from Backdraft, and Dr. Lector (portrayed by Anthony Hopkins) from The Silence of the Lambs, we get two portraits of criminally insane individuals who seem interested in the 'drama of chaos' or the 'terror of devastation.'
We can perhaps construct a portrait of criminal rage (not unlike the 'themes' presented in the William Blake work of the woman trapped by a great and terrible 'Red Dragon' which is actually referenced in the Thomas Harris novel) with ideas about the 'appearance of chaos' itself.
Someone obsessed with violence, like someone obsessed with fire/arson, may be focused on the general 'appearance' of terror and/or the criminal deed. Indeed, a serial killer may intentionally leave a fingerprint or 'calling-sign' as a gesture of performance presentation --- e.g., "How do I look?" --- perhaps to 'goad' the authorities.
This is why an arson-violence 'connection' can be very insightful for criminal psychologists.
====
RONALD: Fire is much 'cleaner' than blood!
DR. LECTOR: I prefer the 'humanness' of blood!
RONALD: Fire is a 'gift from the gods.'
DR. LECTOR: Blood is a force of life.
RONALD: Fire 'cleanses' everything.
DR. LECTOR: Blood 'purifies' the beast within.
RONALD: Arsonists are harder to catch.
DR. LECTOR: Murderers are more 'psychological.'
====
The critically-praised film was based on a provocative crime-horror novel by Thomas Harris about a detective working on a terrible serial killer case and using the advice of an incarcerated psychiatrist-turned-cannibal named Dr. Hannibal Lector to catch the killer.
As human beings we are curious about the parameters of civics, etiquette, justice, and criminal psychology. We are interested in the contours of deviance and social control.
In the film, which stars Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster, we are presented with ideas and images of pure mania and focused violent crimes and a serial killer (named 'Buffalo Bill') who seems to have a pattern associated with his gruesome killings.
'Buffalo Bill' is willing to peel the skin off his female victims after murdering them. He may even use skin and parts to make decorations and 'ornaments.'
Violent murder can involve the use of specific terrible weapons (e.g., shotguns, hammers, butcher-knives, strangulation-ropes, etc.) or the application of terrible 'style' (e.g., skinning victims, stalking only prostitutes, burning people alive, etc.).
Leonardo da Vinci's drawing Vitruvian Man portrays the natural evolutionary symmetry of the human being and cast in an inspiring 'geometric' light. From such a portrait, we may gather that an anti-social murderer seeks to contort, distort, pervert, devastate, deteriorate, or even deform the natural elegant 'appearance' of the human body.
A terrible murderer (like 'Buffalo Bill') may choose to yank out a person's tongue or chop off a person's arms or twist off a person's head or even pull off their fingers and toes to dehumanize the person and make him/her seem 'devastated' or 'deformed' and basically 'ruined' morphologically.
These ideas of twisting or contorting the 'perfect human body' to act out criminal urges of destruction and terror reveal a human tendency to 'dwell' on a 'primal urge' to create 'death-scenarios' in which victims are trapped hostages unable to voice out their pleas for mercy and escape.
Many criminal psychologists believe the best way to 'analyze' a terrible serial murderer (like 'Buffalo Bill') is to use arson as a framework for 'methodology.' An arsonist (or pyromaniac) uses the chaotic and uncontrollable flames of fire as a tool to deliver 'messages' about the randomness and uncertainty of fate.
The film Backdraft (starring Kurt Russell and Robert De Niro) presents the story of valiant American firefighters contending with a new deadly fireman-murder conspiracy involving intentionally-planted fire-bombs. Two detectives approach a terrible incarcerated pyromaniac named Ronald to evaluate the mindset of this elusive new arsonist.
If we compare Ronald (portrayed by Donald Sutherland), from Backdraft, and Dr. Lector (portrayed by Anthony Hopkins) from The Silence of the Lambs, we get two portraits of criminally insane individuals who seem interested in the 'drama of chaos' or the 'terror of devastation.'
We can perhaps construct a portrait of criminal rage (not unlike the 'themes' presented in the William Blake work of the woman trapped by a great and terrible 'Red Dragon' which is actually referenced in the Thomas Harris novel) with ideas about the 'appearance of chaos' itself.
Someone obsessed with violence, like someone obsessed with fire/arson, may be focused on the general 'appearance' of terror and/or the criminal deed. Indeed, a serial killer may intentionally leave a fingerprint or 'calling-sign' as a gesture of performance presentation --- e.g., "How do I look?" --- perhaps to 'goad' the authorities.
This is why an arson-violence 'connection' can be very insightful for criminal psychologists.
====
RONALD: Fire is much 'cleaner' than blood!
DR. LECTOR: I prefer the 'humanness' of blood!
RONALD: Fire is a 'gift from the gods.'
DR. LECTOR: Blood is a force of life.
RONALD: Fire 'cleanses' everything.
DR. LECTOR: Blood 'purifies' the beast within.
RONALD: Arsonists are harder to catch.
DR. LECTOR: Murderers are more 'psychological.'
====
