Purple Noon (1960) and The Talented Mr.Ripley (1999)
Tom Ripley is a chameleon. For five tense page turns through American novelist Patricia Highsmith, the celebrated criminal assumes stolen identities, forges documents and ties up minor major points, all to forge, in the sense of the word, the life he wants. The challenge and perhaps also Ripley’s charm as a character lies in the search for the guy under the machinations, if there is one to find. Several stars have gotten the role over the years: Andrew Scott, Moriarity turned television priest, will then address, in an adaptation of the Showtime series. But the traditional wisdom as to what is called the shaky representation has merged around two representations, radically others in their characterization, are based on the same source material, the first of Ripley’s novels.
The samurai himself, Alain Delon, was still at the dawn of fame when he lent him his chiselled beauty and his sexual appeal slightly remote to the role. He portrays Ripley as much as Highsmith wrote: cowardly and amoral, a coldly blank figure who fulfills his aspirations for elegance through homicidal plots. Purple Noon covers some chapters of The Talented Mr.Ripley, Tom had already hinted at the life of Philippe Greenleaf (Maurice Ronet), the wealthy playboy whose father hired Ripley to go to Italy and bring him back to San Francisco. Uncererated Array Delon, twisting its morning idol mystery air into a frosty imitation of carefree celibacy, reveals some hints of sexual preference in the character’s obsession. It’s Philip’s captivating life that he greeds, so there’s little excitement in the film’s twist, which unfolds as a probably delicious verbal exchange about the murder that takes an abrupt and frightening turn of the hypothetical.
Director René Clément bathes the action with sunlight and cakes, giving a total burst of luminous narrative: the dream of the Mediterranean luxury that Ripley seeks. It also corresponds to the indifferent calculation of the character through rather realistic violence, without giving more importance to the murders (or their arduous cleansing) than to Ripley meticulously reproducing the writing of his victim. These are just steps in Tom’s quest for upward mobility, his plan to become a kind of luxury and means. The film is a freezing procedure wrapped in a character examining a huge black hole.
The elegant view is that Purple Noon is not only the first, but also the most productive of Ripley’s adaptations. But Anthony Minghella arguably pulls out a richer drama from Highsmith’s most productive seller in 1955. Although he effectively restored the opening act, the talented Mr. Ripley of 99 also boldly and productively departed from the novel, for example, by almost completely removing the purple homoerotic subtext Purple Noon. This selection reports Ripley’s first crime, which here is not premeditated, but an impulsive reaction to rejection: our antihero lashes against Dickey Greenleaf (an never older Jude Law), the rich son who has gone mad with his company, as if they were turning his brain into a puppy he adopted. When Tom takes Dickey’s life, it’s a mixture of elegance, envy, depression and misdirected pain.
With a hard cast (which includes Gwyneth Paltrow, Cate Blanchett and an incredibly unpleasant Philip Seymour Hoffman), Minghella’s Ripley is one of the wonderful prestigious productions of the Miramax era: an inventive mystery with the sting of tragedy. What the writer and director locates in Highsmith’s novel is the agony of a double life: unlike Delon’s independent psychopath, Ripley suffers mental damage by maintaining his masquerade, constantly passing through the rich and heterosexual. In the end, this look, new enough to the character, seems due to Matt Damon’s superb functionality in the role of the name; without diminishing Ripley’s cunning, it makes him a lonely, friendly character, harmful because he has feelings, not because he doesn’t have them. Almost every single ripley’s story plays with audience identification, prompting us to root, on some level, to get this intriguing monster away from it. But only Damon’s Ripley breaks our hearts, even when his movements cool to our hearts.
Availability: Purple Noon is broadcasting lately on The Criterion Channel and can also be rented or purchased on Amazon or iTunes. Mr. Ripley is broadcast lately on HBO Max and can also be rented or purchased on Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, YouTube, Microsoft, Fandango, Redbox, AMC, DirectTV or VUDU.
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