The Talented Mr. Ripley (film)
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| The Talented Mr. Ripley | |
|---|---|
 Jude Law and Matt Damon at press conference for The Talented Mr. Ripley at the 2000 Berlinale, photo by Michael Weiner |
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| Directed by | Anthony Minghella |
| Produced by | William Horberg Tom Sternberg |
| Written by | Patricia Highsmith (novel) Anthony Minghella (screenplay) |
| Starring | Matt Damon Jude Law Gwyneth Paltrow Cate Blanchett Philip Seymour Hoffman Jack Davenport James Rebhorn Sergio Rubini Philip Baker Hall |
| Music by | Gabriel Yared |
| Cinematography | John Seale |
| Editing by | Walter Murch |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures (USA) Miramax Films (UK, some other countries) Other various worldwide distributors |
| Release date(s) | December 25, 1999 |
| Running time | 139 min. |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $40,000,000 |
| IMDb profile | |
The Talented Mr. Ripley is a 1999 feature film based on the Patricia Highsmith novel and directed by Anthony Minghella.
Contents |
[edit] About the film
The 1999 film version, The Talented Mr. Ripley, had the full title of The Mysterious Yearning Secretive Sad Lonely Troubled Confused Loving Musical Gifted Intelligent Beautiful Tender Sensitive Haunted Passionate Talented Mr. Ripley. This version starred Matt Damon as Tom Ripley, Gwyneth Paltrow as Marge Sherwood, Jude Law as Dickie Greenleaf, Cate Blanchett as Meredith Logue (a character created for the film), Philip Seymour Hoffman as Freddie Miles, Jack Davenport as Peter Smith-Kingsley (a character expanded for the film) and James Rebhorn as Herbert Greenleaf.
It was filmed mainly in Italy with famous landmarks in the cities of Rome and Venice being used as a backdrop for the narrative. An opera scene features the duel between Lensky and Onegin from Eugene Onegin.
[edit] Tagline
- How far would you go to become someone else?
[edit] The plot of the novel
Tom Ripley was a young man struggling to make a living in New York City, with no prospects but with a talent to survive by doing whatever is required. When approached by the wealthy Herbert Greenleaf to travel to Italy to persuade Greenleaf's errant son, Dickie, to return to the United States and assume his responsibilities, Ripley sees this as an opportunity. Shortly after his arrival in Italy, he meets Greenleaf and his would-be girlfriend Marge Sherwood, and quickly insinuates himself into their lives. Over time, however, Marge becomes suspicious of him, and Greenleaf begins to tire of his new friend, resenting Ripley's constant presence and growing dependence. Ripley's own feelings are complicated by his desire to maintain the new wealthy lifestyle Greenleaf has afforded him, and by his growing attraction to Greenleaf.
As a gesture to Ripley, Greenleaf agrees to travel with him on a short holiday to Sanremo, Italy. The two hire a small boat, and after a minor confrontation, Ripley murders Greenleaf onboard, and sinks the boat containing the body.
Ripley assumes Greenleaf's identity, carefully providing communications to Marge to assure her that Greenleaf has merely deserted her, while living off Greenleaf's allowance. Greenleaf's old friend Freddie Miles visits Ripley at what he supposes to be Greenleaf's apartment in Rome. He is immediately suspicious of Ripley, and inadvertently discovers his scam. Ripley murders Miles and dumps the body.
Over the next few weeks, Ripley's existence becomes a cat and mouse game with the Italian police and Greenleaf's friends. Eventually, he restores his own identity, forges a suicide note and will in Greenleaf's name, and moves to Venice. In succession, Marge, Greenleaf's father and an American private detective confront Ripley. He contemplates murdering Marge, but when he finally realizes that they have accepted his story, changes his mind. The story concludes with Ripley travelling to Greece. However, on arrival in Greece, he discovers that the Greenleaf family accepted that their son was dead and left Ripley his fortune, according to the forged will. The book ends with Tom calling for a taxi to the best hotel - he is (modestly) rich.
[edit] Variations to the plotline used in the films
Both the 1960 and 1999 films follow Highsmith's plot very closely, but in the 1999 screenplay, Minghella made some changes, and introduced characters to complicate Ripley's dilemma.
In the novel, Marge is frumpy (described as having a "gourdlike figure") and insecure and she may be one in a line of Greenleaf's meaningless flings. As portrayed by Gwyneth Paltrow, she is a more compatible counterpoint to Greenleaf, and both film versions of the novel suggest in several scenes that Greenleaf's feelings for her are genuine.
The 1999 film differs somewhat from the novel and the earlier film in its portrayal of Ripley: While the Ripley character in the novel and in Plein Soleil has some sympathetic qualities, he is primarily an opportunistic psychopath with no qualms about committing cold-blooded murder whenever it suits him; as portrayed in Minghella's film, however, he is an almost tragic figure motivated by his own self-hatred and not completely immune to guilt. This characterization received a certain amount of criticism, particularly from Highsmith fans. [1]
The Greenleaf character in the film also differs somewhat from the novel. While Highsmith's characterization of him as a charismatic, spoiled playboy remains fundamentally intact, the character in Minghella's film has a darker side that is absent from the novel; in the film, he has a fierce temper that can give way to violence — his father sent him to Italy to escape publicity after he nearly killed a man in a barfight — and he heartlessly abandons a local woman he has impregnated, who eventually commits suicide.
The 1999 film also explores Ripley's fascination with Greenleaf as more overtly sexual. While this is alluded to in the novel, the film expands upon Ripley's feelings of jealousy and inadequacy, and creates greater tension between the characters.
The motivation for the murder of Greenleaf is treated quite differently, although the setting is identical. In the 1999 film, Ripley kills Greenleaf in a moment of rage after being mocked and rejected by him. He then quickly covers his tracks in his opportunistic manner. In the novel and in Plein Soleil, the murder was premeditated, with Ripley planning each detail in advance and then carrying it out.
Minghella created one character and modified another to provide Ripley with additional complications. Meredith Logue is an American heiress who is bored by her family's wealth but quite content to spend the money. She meets Ripley shortly after his arrival in Italy, and he introduces himself to her as Greenleaf. With their shared contempt for their families, she feels she has found a kindred spirit in Ripley (as Greenleaf), and the two have a romance of sorts. Her presence in Rome causes Ripley problems when he is with Marge, as Meredith, who knows him only as Greenleaf, keeps appearing at inopportune moments.
At the film's conclusion Ripley is travelling on an ocean liner, having escaped detection for his murders, when Meredith once more appears, by coincidence, in his life. As he appraises her, the audience is left to wonder if she is in danger, but as she is with a crowd of people he leaves her alone. Returning to his cabin he meets with Peter Smith-Kingsley, a very minor figure in the novel whose role is expanded for the film. Their conversation suggests that he and Ripley have become lovers, and as they talk, Ripley strangles him. He muses despondently shortly before killing Smith-Kingsley that his lies about who and what he is have left him lost and alone forever; he sobs as he commits the murder.
[edit] Filming locations
The second filming of Highsmith's novel conjures up Italy of the 1950s from a patchwork of locations.
The film opens in New York, where Ripley works at the Lyceum Theatre, 149 West 45th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues (used in the 1947 George Cukor backstage melodrama A Double Life.)
The interior of Ripley's dismal basement apartment was actually the ground floor of a tenement on Second Avenue at 26th Street in the Gramercy district, but the exterior, with the steep flight of iron steps, is the tiny passageway of Franklin Place, between White Street and Franklin Street in Tribeca.
Ripley arrives in Italy at the art deco terminal of Palermo, on the northwest coast of Sicily.
To represent the fictitious resort of Mongibello, where Greenleaf idles away his time with Marge, the movie uses the island of Ischia in the Bay of Naples.
The cobbled square where Ripley gets off the bus is Ischia Ponte, below the towering 12th century Castello Aragonese which dominates the island's northeast coast. The best way to reach Ischia Ponte is by catching a bus, about a mile east of the ferry landing at Ischia Porto.
The private beach where Ripley first discovers Greenleaf and Marge is Bagno Antonio, between Ischia Ponte and Ischia Porte.
The main shopping street and town square of Mongibello, however, can be found on Procida, a neighboring island, twenty minutes away by ferry.
The Vesuvio nightclub, supposedly in Naples, where Greenleaf takes Ripley for a night on the town, is the Caffe Latino, Via Monte Testaccio 96 in Rome, whereas the Rome opera house, where Ripley poses as Greenleaf, is the Teatro San Carlo, Via San Carlo in Naples.
The San Remo jazz festival, where Ripley begins to realize that the idyll is coming to an end, is the seafront at Anzio, on the coast about 30 miles south of Rome (the real San Remo is up at the French border).
Ripley's Roman hotel, the Grand Hotel Via Vittorio Emanuele Orlando 3, off Piazza della Repubblica, is in the Eternal City, as is the cafe where Freddie Miles turns up, on Piazza Navona opposite Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers.
When Ripley returns to Rome after Dickie's murder, he stays in an apartment on the fictitious 'Piazza Gioia', which is actually near the old Jewish Ghetto, on Piazza Mattei. The interior of the apartment‚ which also functioned as the Grand Hotel suite‚ is the 14th century Palazzo Taverna, Via di Monte Giordano 36.
After he moves on to Venice, Ripley stays in an apartment which is an amalgam of the abandoned Ca Sagredo and the Palazzo Mosto.
Marge, having arrived at the Santa Lucia Railway Station, at the northern end of Canal Grande, finally voices her suspicions about Greenleaf's disappearance at Venetian landmark Caffe Florian, Piazza San Marco 56-59.
The hotel where Ripley meets Greenleaf's father is the Europa e Regina, Calle Larga 22 Marzo, San Marco 2159 on the Canal Grande, facing the Chiesa della Salute.
The Venetian church where Smith-Kingsley rehearses the Stabat Mater is in fact the 14th century Chiesa della Martorana, Piazza Bellini in Palermo, Sicily.
[edit] Deaths
Silvana (drowning) - A local Italian woman commits suicide by drowning herself. She is in despair because she is pregnant with Greenleaf's child and has no money for an abortion or likelihood of entering a relationship with Greenleaf. This is the only nonhomicide death in the movie, where Ripley was wholly uninvolved.
Dickie Greenleaf (head trauma): Ripley and Greenleaf get into an argument on a boat. Ripley starts by lashing out with an oar. Greenleaf, enraged, leaps at Ripley to attack him. After they struggle still further, Ripley eventually beats Greenleaf's head and body with the oar. Greenleaf dies. Ripley sinks the boat to hide evidence of the crime.
Freddie Miles (head trauma): On the stairs outside of the apartment, Freddie Miles has deduced that Ripley is pretending to be Greenleaf. Miles walks back up the stairs and enters the apartment, calling out Ripley's name. Ripley is lying in wait for him. Ripley smashes a statue over Miles's head. Miles slowly gets up, but Ripley continues to beat him with the statue head until he's dead. Ripley drags Miles's body outside; when people see the two men, Ripley covers by saying, "Have you ever seen anyone so drunk before?!" Ripley then puts Miles's body in a car and sends it over a cliff.
Peter Smith-Kingsley (strangling): Ripley is in the bedroom with Peter Smith-Kingsley. Smith-Kinsley is facing away from Ripley, talking aloud. While Smith-Kinsley is talking, Ripley is playing with a scarf in a menacing way. The audience hears Smith-Kinsley's voice say, "Tom [Ripley] is crushing me" repeatedly. Though it is not shown, it is strongly implied that Smith-Kinsley has been killed. The ending credits then come up.
[edit] Awards
[edit] Academy Award nominations
| Award Nomination | Person |
|---|---|
| Best Supporting Actor | Jude Law |
| Best Art Direction | Roy Walker Bruno Cesari |
| Best Costume Design | Ann Roth Gary Jones |
| Best Original Music Score | Gabriel Yared |
| Best Adapted Screenplay | Anthony Minghella |
[edit] Golden Globe nominations
| Award Nomination | Person |
|---|---|
| Best Actor | Matt Damon |
| Best Supporting Actor | Jude Law |
| Best Motion Picture | The Talented Mr. Ripley |
| Best Original Music Score | Gabriel Yared |
| Best Director | Anthony Minghella |
[edit] Awards won
- BAFTA Film Award for Best Supporting Actor – Jude Law
- Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Supporting Actor – Jude Law
- BFCA Award for Best Score – Gabriel Yared
- NBR Award for Best Director – Anthony Minghella
- NBR Award for Best Supporting Actor – Philip Seymour Hoffman
- Writers Guild of America for Best Adapted Screenplay – Anthony Minghella
- National Society of Film Critics for Best Supporting Actor – Philip Seymour Hoffman
[edit] See also
- The novel The Talented Mr. Ripley was first filmed as Plein Soleil (also known as Purple Noon) in 1960. It was directed by Rene Clement and starred Alain Delon as Ripley.
- Other film adaptations featuring the character of Thomas Ripley are Mr. Ripley's Return (aka Ripley Under Ground), Ripley's Game, and The American Friend.
[edit] External links
- Plein Soleil at the Internet Movie Database
- The Talented Mr. Ripley at the Internet Movie Database
- Psychological profile of Ripley and his victims
- The Talented Mr. Ripley Trailer
- ifilm.com trailer
Categories: 1999 films | Crime films | Drama films | Period films | Thriller films | LGBT-related films | Films based on fiction books | Films featuring a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nominated performance | Paramount films | Miramax films | Film remakes | American films | English-language films
