viernes, 24 de agosto de 2007

The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

Vintage screening room. The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

"Patricia Highsmith's novels are peerlessly disturing . . . bad dreams that keep us thrashing for the rest of the night, with the sense that an awful possibility has been articulated only to be left unresolved." --The New Yorker

About the Book

"[Highsmith] has created a world of her own--a world claustrophobic and irrational which we enter each time with a sense of personal danger." --Graham Greene

In a chilling literary hall of mirrors, Patricia Highsmith introduces Tom Ripley. Like a hero in a latter-day Henry James novel, is sent to Italy with a commission to coax a prodigal young American back to his wealthy father. But Ripley finds himself very fond of Dickie Greenleaf. He wants to be like him--exactly like him. Suave, agreeable, and utterly amoral, Ripley stops at nothing--certainly not only one murder--to accomplish his goal. Turning the mystery form inside out, Highsmith shows the terrifying abilities afforded to a man unhindered by the concept of evil.

About the Author

"One of our greatest modernist writers." --Gore Vidal

Patricia Highsmith was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and grew up in New York. She was educated at the Julia Richmond Highschool in Manhattan and then at Columbia University, where she earned her B.A. in 1942. Her first novel, Strangers on a Train (1950), tells the story of a tennis player and a psychotic who meet on a train and agree to swap murders. The terrifying tale caught the attention of director Alfred Hitchcock, who, with Raymond Chandler, filmed it in 1951. Both the book and the resulting movie are considered to be classics of the crime genre. Highsmith's subsequent novels, particularly five featuring the dashing forger/murderer Tom Ripley, have been vastly popular and critically acclaimed. In 1957 Highsmith won the coveted French Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere and in 1964 was awarded the Silver Dagger by the British Crime Writers Association. As a reclusive person, Highsmith spent much of her life alone. She moved permanently to Europe in 1963 and spent her final years in an isolated house near Locarno on the Swiss-Italian border. Upon her death, Highsmith left three million dollars of her estate to Yaddo, the artist community in upstate New York.

About the Film

To be young and carefree amid the blue waters and idyllic landscape of sun-drenched Italy in the late 1950s; that's la dolce vita Tom Ripley (Matt Damon) craves -- and Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law) leads. When Dickie's father, a wealthy ship builder, asks Tom to bring his errant playboy son back home to America, Dickie and his beautiful expatriate girlfriend, Marge Sherwood (Gwyneth Paltrow), never suspect the dangerous extremes to which Ripley will go to make their lifestyle his own. After all, it's better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody.

Paramount Pictures and Miramax Films present "The Talented Mr. Ripley" from Academy Award¨-winning director Anthony Minghella, starring Matt Damon as Tom Ripley, Gwyneth Paltrow as Marge Sherwood, Jude Law as Dickie Greenleaf and Cate Blanchett as Meredith Logue. Minghella directs from a screenplay he wrote based on Patricia Highsmith's acclaimed suspense novel. William Horberg and Tom Sternberg are the producers of the Mirage Enterprises and Timnick Films production. Sydney Pollack is executive producer. The line producer is Alessandro Von Normann. Paul Zaentz co-produces. Paramount Pictures is part of the entertainment operations of Viacom Inc.

"The Talented Mr. Ripley" is Minghella's first motion picture since Miramax Films' highly acclaimed "The English Patient" which won the Academy Award as Best Picture and for which Minghella won the Oscar¨ as Best Director. Rejoining Minghella from "The English Patient" are Walter Murch A.C.E., film editor; John Seale A.C.S, A.S.C., director of photography; Ann Roth, costume designer; and composer Gabriel Yared, all of whom earned Academy Awards for their work on that film. Also on the production team from "The English Patient" is costume designer Gary Jones. Collaborating with Minghella for the first time is production designer Roy Walker, who earned an Oscar as art director on "Barry Lyndon," and Set Decorator Bruno Cesari, Academy Award winner for "The Last Emperor."

Other cast members featured in "The Talented Mr. Ripley" are British actor Jack Davenport ("The Wisdom of Crocodiles," TV's "This Life I and II"), Philip Seymour Hoffman ("Boogie Nights," "Patch Adams"), James Rebhorn ("Snow Falling on Cedars," "The Game"), Philip Baker Hall ("The Truman Show," "Hard Eight"), Celia Weston ("Dead Man Walking"), and four prominent Italians: Sergio Rubini (Fellini's "Intervista," "L'Alberro delle pere"), Ivano Marescotti ("Il cielo  sempre pi blu"), Stefania Rocca ("Nirvana") and singer/performer Rosario Fiorello ("Anastasia").

Anthony Minghella says that after reading Patricia Highsmith's book, the first in her series of "Ripley" novels, he found himself personally connected to the material. The story of a young man who feels like a complete outsider and longs to exchange his identity for someone else's excited Minghella's imagination. He believed there was potential in it for a wonderful film.

"The idea of somebody wanting to change his identity for someone else's--it's the novel's core notion," he says. "Wanting to give yourself up to become someone else stems from some inner discontent, some self-dissatisfaction, even self-loathing. It's basic to human nature".

"Most of us, I think, are disappointed with ourselves at some point, feel inferior in some way, at the edge of things and wish we were someone else. It's something we can all empathize with, and it's what really fascinated me with the story. Certainly as an immigrant son who didn't feel I entirely belonged to the culture I was living in growing up in England, I often wanted to exchange myself for someone else."

"The Talented Mr. Ripley" first takes Tom Ripley to Italy as an emissary for the rich playboy's father. Then, as the killings occur and Ripley's lies and crimes mount, the story follows him as he darts all across the country trying to stay one step ahead of the police Ð and anyone else who might expose him.

For all its suspense, however, "The Talented Mr. Ripley" is no ordinary thriller.

"The landscape is an important part of the story," says producer William Horberg. "The canvas in the film is the Italy of the late 1950s Ð its music, the high style of the Via Veneto in Rome, the clothes, the cars, the motor scooters, the atmosphere of rich Americans abroad, even the great movies of the period by Fellini, Antonioni and Visconti," he explains.

According to producer Tom Sternberg, " "The Talented Mr. Ripley" is a romantic movie, not a film noir, shot in romantic colors. And the Italian location is part of its romantic style."

The film was shot all across the country in nine different locations, stretching from Venice, Tuscany and Rome, to Naples and the islands of Ischia and Procida in the Gulf of Naples, and Palermo in Sicily to the south. Filming also took place on location in New York City.

The imaginative use of music--classical and jazz--are also key to revealing character, background and the period in "The Talented Mr. Ripley."

"The film is full of music and the idea of improvisation is crucial," Horberg says. "Ripley's real talent is to improvise his way through life, on his own mysterious search for love and identity."

The astonishing attention Minghella has lavished on period details also embellishes the film's romantic palette, adding another layer to the story, illuminating the drama, bringing it brilliantly to life.

Thank you, Randomhouse

12 comentarios:

Anónimo dijo...

Gadflame:

El talento de Mr. Ripley parte de una novela de Patricia Highsmith y que el director Anthony Minghela ha adaptado. De nuevo vemos a Matt Damon que protagoniza a Mr. Ripley, haciendo un papel de este tipo, y es que en "El indomable Will Hunting", la idea es parecida; un chico con un talento especial, es inteligente, pero que por motivos económicos no ha podido hacer o ser lo que hubiera querido.
Tom Ripley tiene un talento, el talento de falsificar firmas con total exactitud, el talento de imitar voces y tambien sabe tocar el piano. Tom vive en New York y no tiene un trabajo fijo aunque conoce al señor Greenleaf, el cual pide a Tom un favor: que vaya a Italia en busca de su hijo Dickie para que regrese a New York. El señor Greenleak es rico y ofrece a Tom 1000 dolares por hacerlo (ahora no es tanto dinero pero la película está ambientada hace 50 años). Tom encontrará a Dickie pero éste no querrá volver. Dickie tiene una novia, Marge, y ambos aceptan a Tom en su casa en plan de amigo, vamos, que Tom a partir de ahora va a vivir por "la cara", pero claro, el sueño de Tom es ser feliz y su vida no le gusta, le gusta mucho más la de Dickie, así que decide apoderarse de su estilo de vida, ¿hasta que punto?, para saberlo tendreis que ver la película aunque ya os digo que Tom llega muy lejos.

La película ha tenido 5 nominaciones a los Oscar (mejor actor secundario, mejor guión adaptado, mejor dirección artística, mejor diseño de vestuario y mejor banda sonora original), y bueno, si que es verdad que está muy bien ambientada en lo que podían ser las ciudades y el ambiente de Italia, y los decorados y vestuarios están muy bien pero desde luego no podría ni siquiera estar nominada a mejor película, porque es bastante mala a mi gusto. No es por sacarla fallos, pero dura más de dos horas y se hace muy aburrida, a parte de que tiene un final que no hace más que marcar la dinámica "sin sentido" que ha originado la actuación de Matt Damon en ese personaje, Tom Ripley que estaba muy desiquilibrado psicologicamente.
Lo del director Anthony Minghella ya no me extraña, porque despues de hacer "El paciente inglés", parece que le gusta hacer películas de tipo psicológico y muy largas que lo único que consigue es que el público en general nos aburramos.
A parte de Matt Damon, actua Jude Law que dentro de lo que cabe lo hace bastante bien interpretando a Dickie, el chico guapo italiano (aunque en realidad es de Estados Unidos) que tiene como novia a Marge (Gwyneth Paltrew). Jude Law os sonará su nombre porque hace poco ha protagonizado el papel de robot/persona en Inteligencia Artificial.
El padre de Dickie, el señor Greenleaf, que solo aparece al principio y al final de la película y es posible que nos suene su cara en películas como "The game" y es que este actor James Rebhorn está desplazado siempre a papeles secundarios aunque de realismo al papel que realiza.
Aunque en la película no tenga mucha importnacia, tambien actúa Cate Blanchett que si todavía no nos suena, seguro que se pone muy de moda en un par de semanas con el estreno de la comunidad del anillo, la peimera entrega del señor de los anillos, ya que protagonizará a Galadriel (es que me he leido el libro, por eso me se los personajes).

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