A Cowboy in Hamburg

No two filmmakers seem able to agree on how to portray Tom Ripley, the killer Patricia Highsmith invented for her 1955 novel The Talented Mr. Ripley and who she continued to write about in four more novels, the last, Ripley Under Water, coming in 1991, four years before her death. I've read two of them: The Talented Mr. Ripley and Ripley's Game, the third in the series. These happen to be the two novels that have twice each been adapted into films. In the novels, Ripley begins as a young man driven to murder by desperation and jealousy and self-hatred, along the way discovering that taking a human life does not haunt his conscience in the way he knows it's supposed to. By the time of Ripley's Game, Highsmith had turned him into a kind of urbane white-collar criminal, happily married to a woman named Heloise (his latent homosexuality, clear in the 1955 novel, having perhaps been suppressed, or now manifesting itself into an alien sort of sexually active asexuality), who murders if he thinks he has to, though he claims to detest the act.

As I write this, I'm watching, for the second time, Liliana Cavani's 2002 film Ripley's Game, which stars, almost inevitably, John Malkovich as Ripley. I remember when I first saw this movie, which was many years ago and long before I'd read anything at all by Highsmith, I remarked to my wife, the two of us being fans of Anthony Minghella's well-regarded 1999 film of The Talented Mr. Ripley, starring the less-inevitable Matt Damon, that it was impossible to imagine Damon's Ripley growing up to be Malkovich's Ripley. I also believed at the time that Malkovich and Cavani's take on the character, who they saw as a cold-eyed monster who felt no emotions other than avarice, arrogance, and rage, must be closer to Highsmith, though I loved what Minghella and Damon had done. Which, by the way, was to turn him into a frightened boy who felt guilt but "earned our sympathy" by having been mistreated by at least two of his three (only two in the novel, which is interesting, given the portrayal) victims. However, I've grown to dislike both Cavani's and Minghella's films. This is probably unfair to Cavani, given how much attention I'm paying too it, but, for instance, the opening of the Cavani film is ludicrous -- it depicts Ripley as a man who can't wait to kill someone, who is reckless and stupid (whether or not the film shows that recklessness blowing up in his face). It's a film that sees Ripley as someone whose intellect is so dull that he, and the film, thinks it's interesting to use Icarus as a metaphor. But despite the fairly low profile of this Ripley's Game, one does get the sense that this is the version of Ripley that makes sense to most people. He's close enough to Hannibal Lecter as to make no difference.

The first Ripley film was Rene Clement's Purple Noon, an adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley from 1960. That film plays merry hell with Highsmith's plot, but by telling us so little about how Tom Ripley (played here by Alain Delon, who in retrospect seems as inevitable as Malkovich) thinks that the fundamental mystery of the character and of Highsmith's conception of him is retained. He's not "movie" mysterious, like Malkovich -- he's genuinely inexplicable. In fact, Purple Noon might have been the best Ripley film if not for Wim Wenders, who in 1977 first adapted Ripley's Game into the film The American Friend, which has just been released on Blu-ray by Criterion, and which, to me, counts as one of the two or three greatest crime films of the post-noir era.



The plot of Ripley's Game (and The American Friend) should probably be briefly described, because it's a corker, and pretty vital to understanding, or failing to understand, Tom Ripley. Ripley is at a party, where he meets a picture framer named Jonathan. Jonathan treats Ripley with some small amount of rudeness, and so when later on one of Ripley's criminal associates comes to him looking for a recommendation for somebody to carry out a murder of a member of the Mafia, Ripley gives him Jonathan's name. He does this as revenge. As a means of putting Jonathan on the hook, and make the offer of money to kill a man at least somewhat enticing, Ripley, who has learned that Jonathan has leukemia, starts a rumor that Jonathan is close to death. Jonathan, upon learning that this rumor is out there, becomes understandably paranoid that it might be true. Then the offer to kill a man comes his way. "You can leave behind something for your family." Etc. All because Ripley was offended. If it helps any, Ripley will come to feel bad about this.

So, to The American Friend. The action is shifted from mostly France, with long detours into Germany, to Germany exclusively. Jonathan Trevanny, Highsmith's Englishman, becomes Jonathan Zimmerman, played here by Bruno Ganz, who has perhaps never been better in his life. And Ripley is play by Dennis Hopper, who somehow manages to be simultaneously horribly miscast and perfect for the role. It's the damnedest thing. Hopper, wearing a cowboy hat and jeans, living in a hotel, unmarried, drinking alone, smart but by no means urbane or erudite, somehow achieves peak Ripley-ness by playing Ripley as a man Highsmith's Ripley would never associate with.

There's an enormous amount going on in Wenders' film, including a long game of post-modern fiddling about with Hollywood genre films, of the kind so many European filmmakers cut their teeth on and revered, at the same time they twisted and commented on it. And it's not just noir -- it's Westerns, too. I mean, look at how Hopper dresses. Wenders' Ripley could be read, and was probably intended to be, a critique of America itself -- what he would regard as its arrogance and violence, for starters, and its brutal Western "advancement" (emphasis Wenders', in my head, though I'm making it up). Needless to say, that side of The American Friend (that's an ingenious title though) doesn't interest me at all, but it's there for anyone looking for it. When considering this swirl of war (quite obliquely, but if you've made the aforementioned connections then war's gonna be in there), crime films, and the Western, casting Sam Fuller as a mobster almost seems to hit the nail too squarely. Casting Nicholas Ray as a painter seems like the most natural thing in the world.



But The American Friend isn't some tedious exercise in the act of referencing things. It is as exquisitely and precise a piece of sincere genre filmmaking as I've ever seen. The two murder scenes, both set around trains and train stations but without remotely repeating any visual or spatial ideas, are so classically designed as to make art out of efficiency. It's that strange Hawksian, Fordian alchemy of telling a story so clearly that it becomes actual poetry.

At the same time, there's Hopper, bringing a wild 70s danger, even horror, to it all. That his Ripley (and this does come from Highsmith) actually feels guilt for what he's put this poor dying man through -- and Jonathan is dying, just not as fast as Ripley's rumor suggests -- is part of that horror. Who is he? And if Ripley is in possession of an otherworldly kind of psychology, Jonathan's is all too understandable. In fact, it's tempting to give the ultimate credit for the triumph of The American Friend not to Hopper, or even to Wenders, but to Bruno Ganz. As in Highsmith's novel, Wenders' film spends a lot of time with Jonathan, going to doctors for tests and second opinions (part of the enticement to commit murder is that these new tests will be paid for by Ripley's associate). In these scenes, Ganz isn't acting in a crime film -- he's acting in a film about a man who wants to hear the best version of terrible news as a dying man can hope for. You can know what's coming, but as long as you feel okay and your test results aren't too bad, you can keep going. But as soon as those tests start to change... Ganz, of course, rejects any kind of ostentatious, or anything even remotely "big," even when it would have been justifiable. It's only in his eyes, and in the pressure in his face that is the result of trying to not show anything.

The American Friend is a film that, for all that also, finally, succumbs to Hopper. Not just to Hopper, but also to Highsmith, because let's face it, this story is kind of insane. And not just to Hopper and Highsmith, but to Ripley. Because it's all perfectly insane. Classically, precisely, reasonably, coldly insane. It's a masterpiece.

Imagination

So, who is Tom Ripley? When I ask this question, I must limit the scope to Patricia Highsmith's original novel, as well as to Anthony Minghella's 1999 film adaptation, as well as -- and this is more to the point of today's post -- René Clement's 1960 adaptation of the novel, called Purple Noon. The Clement film was released last week as a gorgeous Blu-ray by Criterion, and in the lead up to that release I was moved to finally -- finally! -- read Highsmith's novel and rewatch as much as I was able to of Minghella's film. And there, as it pertained to "research" prior to watching Purple Noon, my focus had to stay. I haven't read any of the other books of what I've recently learned is sometimes referred to as the "Ripliad," Highsmith's series of five novels, which she wrote over the course of pretty much her entire forty-something-year career, about a quite appalling and very clever murderer. I've seen the two adaptations of the third book, Ripley's Game, Wim Wenders The American Friend with Dennis Hopper as Ripley, and Liliana Cavani's Ripley's Game, which stars, as it was foreordained, John Malkovich. (The second Ripley novel, Ripley Under Ground, was turned into a film in 2005 by Roger Spottiswoode, with a screenplay co-written by His Eminence, Donald E. Westlake, and starring the not-quite-as-foreordained-as-John-Malkovich Berry Pepper as Ripley. To my knowledge, no one in the world has ever seen this movie.) But so, with that needless bookkeeping aside, I'm left asking "Who is Tom Ripley" because how the man is depicted in the Minghella and Clement films, and how those depictions do or do not match Highsmith's original, is something that people who care about this stuff care about quite a lot (I'm not judging, for I, too, care).

It's perhaps to be expected that Minghella ends up taking it in the teeth a bit, in comparison to Clement. The idea is that Minghella portrays Ripley as altogether too emotional, too damaged by others, too empathetic, even, and that Ripley as originally imagined by Highsmith was more of a cold-blooded alien, using humans and their weaknesses however he saw fit. The Ripley that exists in subsequent novels may well be like that, but in The Talented Mr. Ripley, Minghella is not that far off when he shows him to be an awkward doofus scrambling for acceptance. I might as well dispense with the important elements of the plot now: Tom Ripley (Matt Damon in The Talented Mr. Ripley, Alain Delon in Purple Noon) lives in New York (San Francisco in Purple Noon), just barely getting by, when he's approached by the wealthy Herbert Greenleaf (James Rebhorn in Minghella's film, barely there at all in Purple Noon) and asked, because Mr. Greenleaf has an inflated sense of the relationship between the two, to go to Italy, Mongibello specifically, and talk his son Dickie (Jude Law in Minghella's, Maurice Ronet in the Clement film, in which he is, for some reason, named Philippe Greenleaf) into returning home. Mr. Greenleaf will pay him to do this, and Tom agrees, seeing all sorts of potential in this situation. Once there, Ripley's psychopathy and sociopathy begins to bleed through -- in Highsmith and Minghella, Ripley is clearly sexually attracted to Dickie, and he soon idolizes the shallow young man, whose relationship with another American expat, Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow in the one, Marie Laforet in the other) Tom dismisses as being one-sided on Marge's part. In Minghella's film, it might well be; in Highsmith and Clement, it's harder to say. In any case, Dickie is not one to idolize, but not because Tom is better than Dickie. Try telling that to Tom, though, who soon feels rejected and hated and angry. He decides to murder Dickie, not only out of vengeance, but also because Tom, a gifted mimic and forger, sees that with some hard work and imagination, he can take Dickie's place, and live Dickie's life, and spend Dickie's money. Not with Marge, who he intends to let down, as Dickie and via the Italian mail system, as gently as possible, which is to say, what Ripley would consider gently, which is to say, not very gently. Throw in a smug pal of Dickie's who becomes supicious, named Freddie Miles (Philip Seymour Hoffman/Billy Kearns) and some Italian police, and you have the basics down.

Now, Minghella is not wrong, if his degree of faithfulness to Highsmith is of paramount importance, in making Ripley somewhat sensitive. It is true, however, that he goes overboard (this is something I talked about with Bryce Wilson as I was reading the novel, and he was correct). One of the unappealing things about his film, which is only really unappealing after you've read Highsmith, is how unpleasant he makes Dickie. Clement does this too, to a degree, but as we'll learn Clement is doing all sorts of different things in Purple Noon. In Minghella's film, Dickie is mean and thoughtless and selfish and brutish. In Highsmith, he's just kind of shallow, really. Freddie Miles is also much worse in Minghella's film -- he's barely in the Highsmith novel -- and (here's a spoiler for you) when you consider that these people, as victims, account for both the murders Highsmith included, you do sort of have to ask why Minghella felt compelled to push our sympathy so far in the direction of their murderer. Highsmith, who from what I understand was a genuine misanthrope in real life, does not do this. What interests her about Tom Ripley in that first novel is depicting a man who has always had the capacity to commit murder inside him but wasn't really aware of it, and then when the moment comes he finds without any surprise that he's entirely capable of taking another person's life. From there, her novel is about existing with this, not on the killer's conscience, but simply as something that is now part of his life. It's a thing he can and will do again, and he's fine with it. It's like suddenly discovering you have a talent for music. That's the skin-crawling brilliance of Highsmith's novel.

But Minghella wore his bleeding heart on his sleeve, and he seems to believe that if a person is living a sad life, which is how Highsmith portrays Ripley in the early parts of her book, then that life must be so sad, and so unfair that any victims left in the wake when the person living that life kicks back, must have had it coming, if not in strict moral, eye-for-an-eye terms, than at least in some karmic sense. If we're to sympathize with Ripley even after two murders (but not after three, Minghella having added one at the end, rather effectively, it must be said, and in a way that does sort of cut into the queasy empathy he'd been building up to that point) then his victims have to be a couple of real assholes. This is the sort of thinking that gets people like John Dillinger and Jesse James and Pretty Boy Floyd and Bonnie and Clyde turned into folk heroes, and it's one of the time-honored movie cliches I'm least fond of. The curious thing about ending up feeling this way about Minghella's film -- a film I used to like a lot more than I do now -- is that it is, in terms of plot, quite faithful to the novel. It's not even unfaithful to the spirit, really, at least for a while. But my problem, fundamentally, is that what interests Minghella about Ripley is not as interesting as Ripley is, as he was originally conceived.

So where does this leave René Clement and Purple Noon? Clement achieves that weird thing that great filmmakers sometimes do, which is to adapt a great novel and remain more faithful to it by diverging wildly from it. Clement doesn't lose his mind and move the action from Italy to Antarctica and set it in 1980 (note: in 1960, 1980 would have been the future), but he does change a lot, some of it subtle, some of it rather bold. To begin with, Purple Noon kicks off with Ripley not only already in Mongibello -- Mr. Greenleaf's extremely brief appearance comes at the end -- but he's already locked into his relationship with Philippe and Marge. There's no build, Tom Ripley doesn't appear to be harboring an uncomfortable obsession with Philippe, no apparent hatred for Marge (quite the opposite, in fact). The key scene from Highsmith's novel, when Dickie stumbles on Ripley dressed in Dickie's clothes and just basking in them for various reasons, which Minghella also mines for all it's worth, occurs something like twenty minutes into Purple Noon, so that it's significance is not at all the same. Clement allows for some kind of strange sexual component when he has Delon, before Maurice Ronet as Philippe Greenleaf walks in, kissing his own mirror image, but whatever's going on in Ripley's head at the moment, which Highsmith would make clear to the reader if not to the somewhat muddled Ripley himself, and Minghella would probably have someone state outright, is left, by Clement, in the character's head. Purple Noon is not an act of psychoanalysis, which to varying degrees the other two versions of the film could be regarded as.

Not long after, we will learn that Ripley's plot all along has been to murder this man and take his identity. He tells Philippe as much, and then follows through. Minghella portrayed it as an act of passion, for Highsmith its status as a planned act lasted only a couple of hours, from conception to execution. In Purple Noon, Ripley could have been thinking about this for weeks. This changes Ripley utterly, or perhaps strips him to his core. It's hard to say which. Possibly neither. Pretty clearly though, in Clement's version, Philippe Greenleaf may not have been his first murder, which even in Highsmith we know for a fact Dickie was. In Purple Noon, Ripley does not discover that he's okay with committing murder, rather, he's always been okay with committing murder. Even if Philippe's his first victim, his own ease with it had long ago been worked out in his mind. As Ripley, Delon portrays the occasional moment of panic, where appropriate, but otherwise he's extraordinarily certain of himself. And why shouldn't he be? There's a conceit to Highsmith's premise, having to do with Ripley's physical resemblance to Dickie, which she pushes about as far as it can go, and perhaps further, and which Minghella really doesn't quite bring off, that Clement, Delon, and Ronet nail beautifully. There's no doubt in my mind that Delon's Ripley would fool the people he fools in Purple Noon, and without any kind of conscience to hold him back, why shouldn't his confidence be soaring? In Highsmith, Ripley only becomes truly comfortable with his own safety at the very end; Delon plays Ripley as though safety was his due. Clement takes this as an opportunity to eventually pile on the irony, in his biggest departure from the original novel. This is not Highsmith, but it is extremely interesting.

The other thing about Purple Noon that noses it well ahead of Minghella's The Talented Mr. Ripley is that it's just wonderfully made. I'd say a lot of this has to do with the fact that Clement made his film only seven years after Highsmith's book was published, and therefore his Mongibello would quite naturally resemble Highsmith's far more closely than Minghella's almost-forty-years-removed, art-directed-to-shit approach (I'm not knocking Minghella here, I basically like his work, but this is the deal with period pieces), but also take, for instance, the murder of Freddie Miles. There's nothing wrong with the way Minghella handles it, but Clement's framing, and clinical noting of odd details, recalls Highsmith's chillingly plainspoken style. Actually more to the point is that here Clement's editing and shot choices put me in mind of Jean-Pierre Melville, which, if there's higher praise I'd like to hear it. But that is the way Clement approaches this story of a murderer -- the way Melville approaches his stories about thieves. Stylistically, anyway, but when dealing with murder, the criminal mind becomes far less fathomable than it would be if all that was happening was some money was being stolen. This is why, for all its many and significant differences, Purple Noon feels more like Highsmith than Minghella's more surface meticulousness: Clement doesn't pretend to try and make us understand Ripley, and he knows that Highsmith was only fooling you into thinking you did.