> Because it was directed by Terence Mann, Manhunter looks like an > extended Miami Vice episode. Brian Cox's cell is stark white, no > Multiple Miggs or any other unsavory psychopaths in the vicinity. > Another flaw in Manhunter is what it loses in translation from novel to > film. In the novel the serial killer, Francis Dolarhyde, gets a strong > characterization that I at least found sympathetic. In the film he's > just the menacing killer. Any reactions? First of all, Manhunter was directed by Michael Mann. Second, Dolarhyde was more than an menacing killer in the film. A lot of time was devoted to his romance with Reba, the blind woman. There's also the whole doppelganger theme between him and Graham, the detective. And finally, the film explains Dollarhyde's actions in terms of needing to see himself loved in the eyes of others (by placing shards of a broken mirror on his female victim's eyes, for instance)--not an altogether removed need for most of us within a visually-oriented culture. I wasn't too crazy about the film until I read a piece by Roger Simon called "Primary Sensory Intake" which discusses Manhunter in terms of postmodernism and film noir. It's a good article that opens up the issue of seeing that perhaps remains implicit in the film. Article appears in USC's _The Spectator_ 8.1 (1987), and our own Jeremy Butler got a footnote in it. Steve Carr Dept of RTF UT-Austin