Alternate Best Actor & Best Supporting Actor 1986: William Petersen & Tom Noonan in Manhunter

Tom Noonan did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Francis Dollarhyde aka the Tooth Fairy in Manhunter.

Re-watching, and fully appreciating the greatness of Manhunter, one can use this film and Silence of the Lambs as examples of how there is not a single pathway to success for material, as Michael Mann and Jonathan Demme make two great adaptations of a novel and its sequel, both which could be just ridiculous exploitation nonsense in the wrong hands, hello Ridley Scott, yet are masterful in the specific handling by each director. And it’s fascinating because both have a level of reality, yet a subversion of that, but in completely different ways do the two implement their styles. And the funny thing, both kind of falsely, not a criticism, create the grounding of reality, in what are technically heavily stylized films, just in ways where it specifically earns them by utilizing the style so specifically. Demme’s film one would argue is more overt with the impact of the style, particularly when you contrast the two versions of the Hannibal character, where Demme and Hopkins very much plays into a larger than life figure, where Mann and Cox focus on a blunter reality. I think even the performances contrast Cox's barren, small, run of the mill white prison cell against Hopkins’s large, looming, at the end of a dungeon, summarize such a specific choice by each director, and the great thing is, both choices work. Something that plays into the character of Francis Dollarhyde aka the Toothfairy played by Tom Noonan, who plays the actual main antagonist of the film as the serial killer that our lead Will Graham (William Petersen) is trying to catch. A character who makes his first appearance after having abducted tabloid journalist Freddie Lounds (Stephen Lang), and wanting to give Freddie a primary source account of why he does what he does. Noonan’s approach in the role is very much of his own while being within the specific style of Mann, which on one end makes so much of this story matter of fact. Noonan’s amazing because in this scene he manages to be extremely creepy by not trying to be creepy in the slightest. His tone is casual, very calm, almost as though he is genuinely showing someone’s slides from a recent vacation, sadly for Freddie they are in fact slides regarding his demented psychosis regarding William Blake’s Red Dragon painting and images related to the families he has brutally murdered. Noonan says every word as straightforwardly as possible, which as strange as that sounds only makes his Dollarhyde all the more off-putting in the way he presents himself as a man who has no shame in himself or what he is doing. Rather Noonan portrays it as a man all too comfortable with it, and with this specific almost scientific curiosity when he describes his method of “transforming” women, which for us is brutally murdering them, but for them is a calm action. Noonan is disturbing because his delivery is of someone who knows everything he is doing is completely sane, to himself despite being wholly deranged. 

However after that initially horrifying scene we quickly see Dollarhyde at his work, where he begins to interact with a blind woman Reba (Joan Allen). Noonan’s vocal approach makes this relationship already more believable because there isn’t anything creepy inherently in his voice, only what he is describing in his voice that makes it creepy. So it is easy to believe that Reba would find him seemingly someone of interest just from only hearing him, however their initial interactions are exceptional work from Noonan. As it is all about the reactions within Noonan’s performance as Reba begins to speak to him with genuine interest. Noonan’s great by his reactions playing into the thoughts of Dollarhyde having no idea how to react to someone seemingly showing him interest and kindness. He begins with a quiet suspicion, though then there’s a sense of frustration and even confusion as she begins to continue to show tenderness. When this goes further and they actually have a date, where Dollarhyde very creepily looks at his serial killer slideshows while she sits unknowingly with him, Noonan’s exceptional in the realization of the twisted mind that becomes temporarily satiated. As when he’s looking at Reba at first there is a quality of his work as though he is examining him more so as a specimen as he seems to be accounting for each part of her in his glances, not unlike the likely approach he took when murdering women. However when she only shows tenderness and even reaches out to him, there’s a break that Noonan plays wholly in silence where he creates the sense of the temporary calming of his impulses as he begins to react to her earnestly as a woman. Something where Noonan is curiously almost like a lead in an off-beat romantic film in the way he begins to play the scenes with genuine normalcy, with genuine happiness, and something that is fascinating to watch given how we opened with his character. Something that builds towards the climax of the film, where we see Dollarhyde almost happy looking upon Reba, as just a man loving a woman, until his twisted brain misinterprets an interaction between Reba and another man as not only betrayal but more than that as we see in his specific twisted visual perspective, in again what is clear overt style from Mann that breaks the matter of fact reality so brilliantly. Noonan’s also essential to the moment in portraying the switch to suddenly that festering mental state returning and we see his mind twist, again almost entirely silently as he says every little from this moment to the climax. Where Noonan subdued work is chilling in the way we see the quiet intensity him, though there is just a glint of hesitation/humanity in his eyes that gives reason to his hesitation to killing her though still twisted, as it is less of a clear empathy and more a confused state, while contrasting showing no hesitation or concern when coldly dispatching anyone else who interrupts him during his strange personal ceremony. Noonan gives a striking performance here, not by playing up to the rafter, but rather keeping it a disturbingly quiet portrait of insanity. 

William Petersen did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Will Graham in Manhunter.

But I would be remiss for not mentioning William Petersen’s performance as Will Graham, and giving it its proper due. A performance that I liked the first time, but did not fully appreciate what Petersen does here in terms of portraying the very specific frame of mind of the character. And part of the reason why is this performance is not your typical leading man portrayal in any way whatsoever, rather what Petersen is dealing with the actual ramifications of the character of Will Graham. As Manhunter makes the choice, and a choice I appreciated all the more this time around, to portray Graham very much having already been permanently scarred by his existence as an FBI profiler, specifically having already caught Hannibal Lecktor despite almost having been killed in the process. What Petersen delivers is alluding to the man that Graham once was, without being that what he actually is in his current existence. In turn, Petersen is not particularly charming or at least traditionally charismatic in the role, however what he is doing instead is presenting someone who exists nearly in a numb existence, in order to exist at all. And what Petersen is doing overall supports this idea, because he really does an exceptional approach in playing the surface against the internalization. As when we see Graham with his wife and his son, to which there is more than a little distance, but it isn’t just distance. Rather what Petersen delivers on is brief moments of connection, where you see some semblance of the old loving husband and father, but Petersen meekly performs these moments. It is there in him, the glint is there, but it is a struggle to be normal, as the moment we see him starting express a bit more emotion, Petersen’s reactions suddenly feel with a quietly brewing pain, suggesting the state of the man who is best to shut himself off entirely rather than genuinely deal with the real emotions he’s going through.

And the cause of the emotions he’s going through are his job as the profiler of serial killers, which we get a few different sides within the character as an investigator. There is the more expected FBI man, though colder if not even slightly aloof seeming as he speaks to other agents, and deals with the case on a more professional level. There is an incisiveness to Petersen’s performance, but it is almost entirely in the eyes where there is this specific conviction within his work. We see the burden of it, as he deals with people like Lounds trying to exploit his situation where Petersen’s performance expresses years of exasperation within just momentary reaction of immediate subdued yet potent anger lashing out against any pestering quickly but with specific intensity of someone wanting to close it all off as soon as possible. Something he cannot avoid when meeting with Lecktor in this version, who he seeks advice from to try to catch the Tooth Fairy. Petersen’s amazing in playing the levels of the situation where Hannibal is constantly hectoring him, and trying any way to basically set Graham off. Petersen comes in with a very straightforward delivery trying very much to present himself as the FBI profiler, something that Hannibal refuses to accept and tries to poke at anything he can. Petersen's great in playing both the notes of pushing against Lecktor's games and being impacted by them. By turning phony praise about who’s smarter, with Petersen’s cold cutting noting Lecktor’s disadvantage due to being psychotic, but bringing so much within his expression of the pressure within himself as Lecktor continues to press him. With Lecktor noting that Graham himself started to touch the same mental space as the killers striking the most, where Petersen’s reaction is truly great in expressing real anxiety over the idea. 

The idea being a key to Petersen’s performance and creating the full sense of the history of his situation. What Petersen does is begin with a man who has gone beyond the pale, hence his cold, often detached moment, and the reason this is obviously a choice is what Petersen does in the scenes where Graham specifically goes about thinking in the mind of the killer. Every single one of these scenes is absolutely amazing work by Petersen. As he begins perhaps as you’d more so expect of a detective tracing the steps of the crime and trying to figure out where the killer went and how he went about the crime. Petersen goes further than that in showing Graham fully immersing himself into the killer’s thinking. Something that begins as inspiration as he begins to speak to the killer directly, but also as himself, and it doesn’t just go from thinking about it, it goes to becoming it in the moment. Petersen in these moments where he goes fully insane himself are absolutely captivating because you truly see someone fully embodying the deranged spirit in order to figure out the crime, and taking lines that could have seemed potentially even ridiculous, absolutely chilling because he lets you in on the frame of mind every time. The final sequence of trying to figure out the crime, just as the final clock is ticking is particularly stellar work from Petersen. Every moment of just trying to figure out from the clues, running down what the killer somehow knew, touching the idea, while also expressing his own intense frustrations at it, Petersen’s natural flow of such emotional extremes is flawlessly performed, where he goes from the cunning FBI agent, to the criminal profiler embedding himself in the madness, to just the concerned and frustrated man who knows someone will die if he doesn’t figure it out, and the cold attempted holding off those emotions in the in-between. Petersen is absolutely captivating to watch but he also makes the essential realization of what it means to exist within the world of serial killers. Petersen showing why Graham would have to almost purge his own humanity to avoid falling into that madness. Something that makes sense of his one big scene with his son where he explains the situation quietly, where Petersen’s performance is what you might describe as low energy, detached, but what Petersen brings in that scene is the internalized reality of the man who has to speak as such to his son, lest he fall into that madness he’s trying to keep at bay. There is a tenderness in Petersen's performance,, that tenderness of a father, but buried so deep along with almost all his emotions to hold himself together in this self imposed exile from the void. The whole idea of “becoming the villain” can often be an alien, melodramatic or even silly idea, but what Petersen’s performance does is make it tangible and powerfully real. This is truly daring work, to essentially close himself off from the audience but to do it worth purpose, and a tremendous payoff in crafting the very real rot in the mind of a hero who must submerge himself in darkness.