On this site will be posted analyses of popular media productions. These analyses will have to do with determining the underlying meanings of various movies, songs, and certain novels. Methods used to analyze a given production will include exploration of the creators' use of symbolism, allegory, metaphor, etc., and deciphering any arcane or obscure references that it may contain.
In this post we look at references to randomness and games of chance in Manhunter.
Above left: The opening scene in the movie shows Crawford offering some photographs of the murdered families to Graham, by laying them face-down on a log the two men are sitting on. Crawford says, "If you can't look anymore, I understand." A close-up of Crawford's hand suggests that he is placing the photos as if handling playing cards, and this idea is further suggested when Graham says, "Don't try to run a game down on me, Jack." Above right: Later, in the scene in the Jacobis' back yard, Graham sees that the Tooth Fairy (Francis Dollarhyde) has carved a character into a tree. This character turns out to be Chinese, and, as Crawford tells Graham, it is a lucky symbol in gambling, and it also appears on a Mahjong piece.
In another scene, a reference to the game of billiards (pool) is made when investigator Jimmy Price tells Graham and Crawford about the thumb print found on the eye of the oldest Leeds child: "It [the print] stood out from an eight ball hemorrhage caused by the [killer's] gunshot wound."[a] The eight ball is one of the balls used in the game of pool. In a later scene, a reference to the lottery is made, in Graham's statement to Crawford about the women the Tooth Fairy has killed: "All these women have a bloom on them - he didn't win them in a lottery."
A subtle reference to randomness is made during Graham's talk with Lecktor in Baltimore, when Lecktor says to Will, "This [the Tooth Fairy] is a very shy boy, Will. What were the yards like?" The way that Lecktor pronounces "yards" sounds similar to "yahds", which makes it sound like he's asking, "what were the odds like?"
To wrap up on this topic for now, we note that 'Leeds', the surname of one of the Tooth Fairy's victim families, is a reference to the leadin certain card games, which is a term used for the first card played in a given hand.
a. An eight ball hemorrhage is a hyphema in which the front chamber of the affected eye is completely filled with blood.
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Saint Augustine's Confessions andCity of God from Wikisource (except where otherwise noted); portions from Wikisource used on this blog are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.
Saint Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica from the 'Logos Virtual Library' website (except where otherwise noted), compiled and edited by Darren L. Slider; believed to be in public domain.
