THE ART AND MAKING OF HANNIBAL: THE TELEVISION SERIES
There have been times with Hannibal where it has been a victim of style over substance with some of its episodes. That said though, when your style looks as good as it does in Hannibal, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. So with this in mind, it’s with great anticipation that you pick up a copy of The Art and Making of Hannibal. The cover is wonderfully enticing; a clean white cover with a bloody heart on a plate. It’s gruesome, classy and oddly beautiful to look at. It’s a shame then that the actual content of the book is more “making of” than “art of”.
For the most part, the “making of” stuff is pretty standard affair, with behind the scenes photos and stills from episodes. All of them feel posed rather than like they have caught a candid on set moment. This being a book about Hannibal, they don’t shy away from the murders depicted in the series and fill the book with plenty of lingering shots on many of the series more gory deaths.
Jesse McClean has put together a pretty comprehensive book on the making of the series, incorporating interviews with the cast and crew, profiles of the characters, set design maps and more. There are a couple of interesting bits about the series hidden in this, but the whole thing reads a little like a publicity interview for the series, rather than an in depth making of.
That said, if you’re a fan of just the series, this book probably has everything you could want and more. For me, as a fan of the franchise as a whole, the book barely acknowledges the previous movie adaptations of Thomas Harris’ novels and it’s an oversight that left me wanting more from the book. Admittedly it is probably unfair to knock a book about the Hannibal TV Series for not covering the previous films, but given the influence they have clearly had on elements of the series, it would’ve been nice to at least acknowledge them.
INFO: THE ART AND MAKING OF HANNIBAL: THE TELEVISION SERIES / AUTHOR: JESSE MCLEAN / PUBLISHER: TITAN BOOKS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
