POSTED: October 1, 202
My last post took us all down the nasty dark gutter of current American politics. Well now I need to crawl back up to the light. At least somewhat up to the light as I recently watched a Netflix series Ripley. For those who have seen it, well you won’t learn anything new from me. I am not a film critic or even a very astute film afficionado, but damb it has been a long time since I have seen a film of this quality.
It is a remake… and not. The story was written back in the nineteen fifties by Patricia Highsmith and was made into a film in 1960. She was already well known for her book Strangers On A Train that Hitchcock did such a great job on.
About forty years later, The Talented Mr. Ripley reappeared as a film and introduced another generation to this story and author. In both of these films the settings in Italy deserved character credits. That later film I enjoyed when it came out in 1999. It was disturbing and dark when so many films were becoming more formulaic and fluffy.
But this interpretation is its own version. Steven Zaillian wrote and directed it and by the looks of the final version was allowed to realize a cohesive product that appears to have minimal damage to his creative vision. Andrew Scott as Tom Ripley is in virtually every scene and from the start has us under his creepy spell. It has gone back to a black and white format but instead of doing it just for a measure of the time period, the greyscale depth and lighting has been used to create a different dimension. Think of the difference between looking at a low pixel digital image in comparison with an Ansel Adams silver print.
And like those Ansel Adams prints, every shot has been crafted as a setting, a scene, an image in its own right, not just a background for the characters to interact in, or in front of. As a start it works with some very nice settings in Rome, Atrani and Venice. The lighting is as big a character as any in this film. And part of that cinematography involves hanging on an image as if to say “hey, this is important, can you see the missing clues?”
Within this film noir, the makers also have had fun with homage – there are scenes reminiscent of the absurd Fellini scenes from Amarcord, and many Hitchcock moments. John Malkovich appears in a small role and had been in a 2002 film featuring this character, Ripleys Game.
The film is also quite an allegory for our times today. A shallow and immoral but very sly imposter taking over the identity of a person, and half of the characters in the film see him for the monster he is, and everyone else buying into the ever changing narrative he spins.
If you have not seen this film, it is a miniseries on Netflix well worth your time.
Django