Richard Armitage is an actor of many complex characters. You may know him as Thorin from Lord of the Rings or John Thornton in North and South. Perhaps Trevor Belmont’s voice in the animated Castlevania or Guy of Gisborne in the BBC’s Robin Hood back in 2006, to name only a few.
However, if you’ve watched NBC’s Hannibal then you may know him best as The Red Dragon.
Oh, Francis.
There is just something so haunting about how he moves when he’s all alone…that shaking, controlled, under-the-skin type of movement that is borderline inhuman.
That’s some pretty intense movement you got going on there, Armitage, where’d that come from anyway?
I’ll let him explain. In the crafting of Francis Dolarhyde, aka The Tooth Fairy and The Red Dragon, Armitage told The Hollywood Reporter that “I went to a Japanese art form called Butoh, which is a biological exploration of the body.”
Intriguing, right?
Now, before I dive into what Butoh is though, there’s something else I have to give a shoutout too first.
‘How beautiful is the grotesque?’
I don’t think there’d be much argument in saying that Francis a monster. He’s a murderer after all.
However, labeling Francis a monster aside, there is something I find absolutely beautiful about him. He’s eloquent, tortured, seeks love, seeks to better himself. He is, after all, in the process of rebirth. Not exactly the kind of rebirth one may think of right off the bat, but hey, he does something a lot of people are terrified of doing: facing ourselves. The sheer vulnerable self-expression of what we see him go through reminds us of what may be inside, lurking underneath our more polished or societally acceptable exteriors.
I’m reminded of something Julie Taymor, director of Broadways The Lion King, Frida, and Across the Universe, spoke of when describing the way she approached her film Titus (based on Shakespeares’ Titus Andronicus). She posed this question, “how beautiful is the grotesque?”
I mean, can grotesque things be beautiful?
Your opinion may differ from your neighbor, but it’s sure an interesting question to ponder.
After all, human nature is a funny thing, right. There’s this odd contradiction in how we think about violence. We can both be disgusted by a brutal act we see on the news while at the same time appreciate artwork from times of war. The Intervention of the Sabine Women, which resides in the Lourve, comes to mind.
Hannibal: both beautiful and grotesque
And let’s face it, the world of Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal LIVES to teeter on this line, and we gobble it up, not only willingly but begging for more. (Still on my hands and knees begging for season 4!)
Armitage’s Red Dragon, to me, epitomizes this concept of, ‘how beautiful is the grotesque?’ As an audience, we witness something that is both horrific yet beautiful, a birth, the beginning of new life. And let’s be real, he’s not difficult to look at, like, at all.
However awful, it’s life. Life is awful sometimes, and birth is a messy process. In our own way, we can all relate to the internal human struggle we see Francis go through, to be birthed to his true self. Kind of the ultimate midlife crisis of finding oneself.
So, what is the Japanese movement art of Butoh anyway? Glad you asked.
What is Butoh?
Butoh is an avant-garde Japanese dance form founded by Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno post-WWII known for extreme, grotesque movements. It’s often depicts taboo topics such as eroticism and death.
Butoh movements are often incredibly slow and controlled, going against all western depictions of beauty. Bodies shaking with tension, shuffling or falling awkwardly, appearing to be in constant discomfort or engaged in an internal struggle.
Hijikata called it ‘ankoku buto,’ which translates to ‘dance of darkness.’ Though not limited to darkness in a negative context or evil, our own unconscious mind, and expression.
Butoh was apart of the anti-traditional movement in the 1950s. The style was born out of the horrors endured in Japanese society during the Second Sino-Japan War and WWII, as Ohno “fought in China and New Guinea, where he was captured and interned by the Australians as a POW.”
Tatsumi Hihikata once said that “When one considers the body in relation to dance, it is then that one truly realizes what suffering is: it is a part of our lives. No matter how much we search for it from the outside there is no way we can find it without delving into ourselves.”
Butoh today
The style has grown in popularity and developed over the years, “split into two forms of dance, one choreographed, the other, improvised…and the art form ranges from a minimalist expression to the grotesque and theatrical.” Therefore, each performer or practitioner has a great deal of freedom to interoperate what Butoh means to them, creating unique and powerful experiences.
One fascinating fact about this form of movement is that it doesn’t require an audience. Gadu Doushin, a Butoh practitioner, teacher, and founder of Doushin Butoh, explains that Butoh is a way to “enjoy the uncomfortableness” of being.
Free to be Francis
The discovery of self can often be a terrifying place. For Francis, he is not only pushed to lean into that dark, unconscious part of self and bring it to the light, and at the same time, he is horrified by what he’s capable of. “There’s a real self-awareness in this character, an understanding of what he is and what he’s done. There’s a thrill, but there’s also an abhorrence at himself, which is fascinating to study.”
Show-runner Bryan Fuller said that Richard: “…communicated so eloquently the pain of Francis Dolarhyde and the torture of his existence. It’s very effective in its purpose of setting out to confuse the audience. We wanted the audience to be confused, ‘am I looking at a horrible murderer, or am I looking at a man who is in such torment and pain that he can’t control his own actions?”
By incorporating Butoh into his development of Francis, we become fixed to the screen, watching this internal battle unfold. To see someone who is clearly so uncomfortable in his skin, “trying to escape.” as Armitage also described it, we are both horrified and honored to watch this birth.
Because, after all, ‘how beautiful is the grotesque?’