The TV series Ripley, directed and scripted by Steven Zaillian, a renowned screenwriter of films such as Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List and Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, adapts Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 novel The Talented Mr. Ripley. The intriguing story had already been adapted for the cinema by René Clément in Purple Noon (1960) with Alain Delon, Maurice Ronet, Marie Laforet, and in 1999 by Anthony Minghella in The Talented Mr. Ripley with Matt Damon, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Cate Blanchett.
Set in New York and Italy in the winter of 1960-1961, Ripley was filmed in the enchanting village of Atrani on the Amalfi coast, in Naples, Rome, Palermo and Venice, with Italian actors such as Margherita Buy and Maurizio Lombardi alongside the protagonists Andrew Scott (Tom Ripley), Johnny Flynn (Dickie Greenleaf), Dakota Fanning (Marge Sherwood).
Dakota Fanning, Johnny Flynn, Andrew Scott in Ripley
Notable among other performers is John Malkovich, who plays a character from Ripley Under Ground, the second novel of the five starring Tom Ripley, who had been Ripley in Liliana Cavani’s 2002 film Ripley’s Game, from the third novel in the series. Eliot Sumner (Freddie Miles), son of Sting and Trudie Styler. Hildegard De Stefano, from the TV series La Compagnia del Cigno, as Mina who we see singing “Il cielo in una stanza” by Gino Paoli in a nightclub in Naples.
Zaillian says: “I needed more time to adapt this book, I couldn’t do it in the two hours of a film, so the eight-hour format was more satisfying. I wanted to shoot it in black and white, because in my opinion the novel was a literary version of the film noir, with a dark and threatening tone, and I didn’t want a postcard-colored Italy, so I shot in winter. The pictorial aspect of each shot was important to me, if you stopped the camera, you saw a beautiful painting or photograph, with a perfect composition.”
Johnny Flynn as Dickie
Flynn explains, “Both the novel and our version are told from Tom Ripley’s point of view, so little by little you enter into the logic of the character, feel what he feels and begin to empathize with him. I had to try to understand why Dickie finds him intriguing and wants to teach him how to perceive the world, so he’s excited to see Ripley have the same ideals of beauty that he has. Their friendship was authentic. Steven often told me that Dickie was a good guy, a sweet guy, not as immoral as in Minghella’s movie. He had run away from his parents, because he was ashamed of their brazenness of nouveau rich people who valued only money. He wanted to take refuge in old Europe, in this beautiful place and in the idea of being an artist.”
Adam Scott as Tom Ripley
Scott adds, “Ripley is a scam artist, and incredibly gifted, he has to turn small tricks to survive. He’s ignored by the society of the rich, he doesn’t have access to the arts, to music, to beauty, but when he finds out about them, he gets a sense of anger that he’s excluded.”
Scott answers my question about Caravaggio, a painter that Dickie helps Ripley discover and with whom he ends up identifying: “I find a stroke of genius from Steven Zallian to add this twist to the story. My mother was a professor of art history and from an early age she taught me the use of chiaroscuro in Caravaggio’s extraordinary paintings. Ripley is fascinated by this artist, also a criminal, whose artworks continue to intrigue us.”
Zaillian concludes: “I have never considered Ripley a psychopath or a professional murderer, he is not good at killing, as we would not be, so we can sympathize with him. He has certain desires and needs, which lead him to perform terrible acts, but he feels a sense of pride for his talent, he is a professional liar and very good at it, he is incapable of telling the truth.”
Dakota Fanning as Marge
The American Fanning loves our country: “Italy played an important role in this story, each place had a different tone and vibration, so it was special for us to be able to tour in your country. In my free time I was walking and exploring, in Rome, Venice, Capri, I discovered secret treasures, I bought and ate local cuisine, I met wonderful people. It was an incredible adventure for me.”
Published on Best Movie, Italy
Read original Italian version
Photo courtesy of Netflix