René Clément's 1960 adaptation of The Talented Mr Ripley feels dated, but Alain Delon puts in a terrifically good performance
Tom Ripley – sociopath, parasite, killer – is the famous creation of Patricia Highsmith, and René Clément's 1960 film Plein Soleil, or Purple Noon is re-released in cinemas, his adaptation of Highsmith's The Talented Mr Ripley, the first in a sequence of five Ripley novels. This approaches the book very differently from Anthony Minghella's 1999 version, plunging us straight into the envious, unwholesome intimacy of Ripley (an eerily beautiful Alain Delon) with rich pal Greenleaf (Maurice Ronet) on vacation on his luxury motoryacht; Clément fills in the backstory details later. As a thriller, it has to be said that this story has dated a good deal. In the late 1950s and 60s, what Ripley was able to get away with in terms of violence and impersonation in far-flung Europe was just about plausible; now in the era of forensic investigation, CCTV and Google Images, it is all pure fantasy, and I have always found the action that follows Ripley's first ruthless act a little farcical. But Delon is a terrifically good in the role: his almost unearthly perfection is creepy itself, as if he is imitating a human being. This is a man, you think, who has grown used to a dazed, rapt expression on the faces of people talking to him, accustomed to their submissive awe, and yet with a diabolical insight into how that magnetism can be harnessed to manipulate and coerce. Delon's Ripley is a Dorian Gray portrait of male beauty and unscrupulous daring, untroubled by conscience.
Source: http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/aug/29/plein-soleil-review
Alexander Korda Alexander Mackendrick Alexander Payne Alexandra Quinn
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