June's reading and film companion for The Talented Mr. Ripley and Purple Noon.

Page will be updated with relevant content weekly.

Conversation Guide

  1. One of the first acts Tom makes in the book is to “tempt fate” – does Tom Ripley live a life that acts like he’s the master of his own fate? What does it mean not to control - master - but tempt one’s own fate?
  2. The title is The Talented Mr. Ripley, what is Tom Ripley’s talent?
  3. Patricia Highsmith goes to great lengths to extract exact details of cityscapes in a realistic manner, why would she center Tom’s trip on the only fictional town, Mongibello?
  4. Is the murder of Dickie an extension, or diversion, from Tom’s “talent"? Why did he murder Dickie?
  5. After the murder of Dickie, Tom mimics the life of Dickie. If it was fear of arrest he would have simply fled, why did he try to embody the life of the man he killed?
  6. If not for the second murder, would Tom have never have gotten away? 
  7. A significant amount of detail was given to the painting Tom purchased at the end of Chapter 20 – what did the details mean to you, the act of Tom making the purchase?
  8. On page 230 Tom believes that one of the saddest things he has ever done in his life is reveal his real identity to a police officer as Tom Ripley, why?
  9. Do you think Tom has a diagnosable mental disorder, if so – what?
  10. Which medium best characterizes the malignant traits of Tom Ripley?
  11. In either story, when did Tom’s trip become “wayward” – when did it become a doomed experience?
  12. How did it feel to read the murders compared to watching them on screen?
  13. Were you ever envious of Tom?
  14. After The Talented Mr. Ripley, Patricia Highsmith would write four more books in the series over the next four decades. It’s been adapted to stage and screen even more, with the most recent release of Netflix’s Ripley. Why is Tom Ripley such a compelling character to re-invent?
  15. Did you want Tom to be caught?

Recommended Reading Schedule

Week One: Chapters 1-9 – June 1-7

Week Two: Chapters 10-12 – June 8-14

Week Three: Chapters 13-22 – June 15-21

Week Four: Chapters 23-30 – June 22-27


First-Half Chapter Summaries

Chapter One: Tom notices a man stalking him at one of his old haunts, the Green Cage. He flees the bar, believing it a man of the law, or worse, but ultimately decides to “tempt fate and all that” by dipping into another nearby bar before clearing his trail. Inside Raol’s bar the man approaches him. It’s Herbert Greenleaf, father of a distant acquaintance, Charles Greenleaf. Herbert is wealthy, and desperate to bring his son back from Europe so that he can take over the family business, in sailboat construction. Herbert suggests – no pleads – that Tom visit Charles in Naples, Italy to bring him back to NYC. Tom believes he’s not close enough to Charles for the mission but he Herbet’s desperation keeps him curious. Tom’s tallying the reality of the situation, contemplating his boredom in NYC, relishing in the idea of an all expenses paid trip to Italy, he finally says he just might go. Delighted by the possibility, Herbert buys Tom a nice brandy.

Chapter Two: Tom returns to his home, a sordid brownstown of another acquaintance,Bob Delancey. The rundown apartment worked for Tom because it was a space where he could retrieve, without fear of detection, the mail of George McAlpin. We learn that George is fake identity of Tom Ripley’s after he receives a check for $119.54 from a Mrs. Edith W. Superaugh, who believes she’s correcting her taxes. Inspired by the ease of receiving her check, Tom, although bound for Europe, decides to try just one more. He forges a letter to a Frederick Reddington, comic-book artist. Before mailing the letter, Tom calls Mr. Reddington, asking if he’s received his notice. Mr. Reddington claims he’s already paid, but Tom convinces him he’s incorrect. The phone call ends with Mr. Reddington saying that he’ll mail a $233.76 check to George McAlpin at the IRS. Tom hangs up, laughs, fixes his hair, then heads to Radio City to apply for his passport.

Chapter Three: Tom visits Mr. Greenleaf’s home to have dinner with him and his wife. The home is a dazzling display of wealth outfitted with servers and kitchen staff who serve up trays of martinis, canapés, and chicken in aspic. At dinner we learn that Tom is an orphan raised by his aunt Dottie in Boston and that Herbert’s wife, Emily, has been diagnosed with leukemia and has less than one year to live. The heaviness of the conversation, coupled with Emily’s longing for her son Richard, causes her to cry. Soon after, Herbert sees her off to bed. Alone in the dining room, Tom suddenly feels overcome with anxiety and fear – even fearing Herbert after his return. The more Tom drinks the more sour he becomes at his situation. It seems he’s beginning to regret his circumstances, but it’s not clear why. Over a glass of brandy, Tom promises to visit the dockyards during lunch before he leaves for Europe. When at last he left, Tom ran all the way home.

Chapter Four: We learn that Tom’s parents drowned in the Boston Harbor and he’d never learned how to swim. A combination which began turning Tom’s stomach at the thought of him crossing the Atlantic on an ocean liner in less than week. During his final week in New York City, Tom begins to feel exceptionally distant from all his surroundings, as if all the sights and sounds were happening for no reason. During this week Tom prepares for departure: he tells Bob Delancey he’s moving. Tom doesn’t disclose where – nor does Bob ask. Tom retrieves a few items from his old room in Marc Primminger’s home, who also takes little curiosity in Tom’s life. The only friend he cares to tell about his travels to Europe is Cleo Dobelle. She’s ecstatic at the news, and claims that he’s the only one she knows who will travel to Europe for a reason. When he departs they exchange platonic affection. The next day Tom initiated Mrs. Greenleaf’s commissions at Brooks Brothers for her son – a dozen socks and a robe to the color of Tom’s liking. He also likes a heavy linen sports coat with wooden buttons. And, though he could have easily charged it to Mr. Greenleaf’s account pays for it with his own money.

Chapter Five: Tom arrives in his stateroom to find Bob, Ed, Paul, and a few other friends and girlfriend’s inside to see him off. The surprise sickened Tom, and his only solace was the respectable presence of Paul Hubbard. Before running off to find a drink with him, the steward called for all visitors ashore. Tom snuck out of first-class and into a cabin class area, to hide from saying goodbye to the rest of the group. He returned to his room some time later to find it empty and quiet. There was, beside his bed, a bon voyage basket filled with fruits, candy, bottles of liquors, and a letter from Mr. and Mrs. Greenleaf. The gesture made him sob.

Chapter Six: Tom buys a blue-gray English wool cap and a pipe, symbolizing his new life. Though tranquil while aboard, Tom is not sociable. Rather, he begins to spend his time contemplating, thinking about the wasted years in New York, his odd jobs, second-rate friends. He tries to find the book Herbert recommended he read, The Ambassador by Henry James. Oddly, it’s only available in the cabin-class library which he’s not allowed to loan as a member of first-class. So he begins writing postcards, most importantly one to his Aunt Dottie, who raised him. Despite her raising him we learn of the long tumultuous relationship they share, his vow at the age of eight to run away, his violent imaginations as a child to set himself free from her, his failed attempt to run away at seventeen, his successful runaway at twenty. In Tom’s mind, he’d spent so much time hating and scheming how to escape Aunt Dottie that he never found the time to actually learn or grow. Until now.

Chapter Seven: Tom traveled on a train from Paris to Naples. After staying the night at a grand hotel he takes a bus to Mongibello (a fictional Positano), along the way passing seaside towns, and takes in the sites of villages suspended to cliffsides, and steep stone paved passageways. A few townspeople point Tom toward the Greenleaf residence. Tom travels up a hill and knocks, only to have a housemaid inform Tom that Richard is at the ocean. He buys swimwear, walks the beach, and finally meets Dicke (Richard) and Marge. The initial meeting is cordial, but laced with tension. Dickie seemed ambivalent to Tom’s arrival and Marge’s presence. Tom wondered if they were having an affair. After Spaghetti and espresso Tom leaves, believing Dickie’s socks and robe will act as ransom to see Dickie again soon.

Chapter Eight: Tom checks in at the Miramare. He falls ill, vomits, and falls back asleep. He awakens feeling internalized, foolish, for his expedition. From his window, Tom witnesses Marge and Dickie go about their every day, he wonders why either would ever trade the life in Mongibello for NYC. Tom feels he’s begun the trip at a deficit. Eager to win back the favor of Dickie, Tom decides to wait a few days before running into them again.

Chapter Nine: After three days Tom wanders back to the beach and sees Dickie. He gives Dickie his socks and robe, and feeling that he may never see him again, admits to why and how he traveled to Italy – on his father’s dime. The story kindles an interest with Dickie and sets off a series of activities propelled by Tom, as Tom continually tries to isolate Dickie from Marge. Dickie asks Tom to move into his home. Tom convinces Dickie to go on a trip to Naples. Boarding the bus both run into an old friend of Dickie’s, Freddie Miles. Tom feels disdain for the friend. After lunch in Naples Tom talks Dickie into an impromptu trip to Rome, they wander the streets late and drunk, and fall asleep in a park. Awakened by a police officer, they catch a bus back to Mongibello. Marge was angry with Dickie for not telegramming about his overnight stay in Rome. Tom was pleased, and started to find Marge abominable.

Chapter Ten: Tom and Dickie continue hanging without Marge, and Tom begins taking Italian lessons with Fausto. Tom writes Herbert, insinuating he’ll need more money to prolong his stay to convince Dickie to come home; and talks Dickie into a sailing trip to Greece and Mallorca during the colder months. Tension builds between Marge and Dickie, and Dickie breaks it with a kiss. In quite rage Tom storms back to Dickie’s home, Dickie returns to find him dressed in his clothes. Dickie is angry and says that Marge thinks he’s queer. Tom denies it and the argument settles. There’s a touching moment when Dickie helps Tom with his pronunciation, and we wonder, if it’s Italian they’re learning, or how to speak more honestly to each other.

Chapter Eleven: Dickie and Tom get into a feud after Tom entertains the idea of traveling to Paris in a coffin byway of a crook’s scheme to traffic drugs. The argument upends Tom, leaving him feeling overwhelmed with his unfamiliar setting, failure to Herbert, and rejection from Dickie. This estrangement heightens with a letter from Herbert, whose letter ends the deal between Tom and Herbert. Tom makes a last ditch effort to coordinate winter travels with Dickie. Dickie buys a refrigerator, symbolizing his investment in Mongibello as a longterm home. Tom hasn’t been asked to join Marge and Dickie on their weekend trip to Cortina. Rather than endure Christmas with their increasingly discontent company, Tom vouches to travel elsewhere by himself. Before then, Dickie agreed to a weekend trip to San Remo.

Chapter Twelve: Dickie tells Tom that he shouldn’t join him or Marge in Cortina. Once in San Remo, Tom struggles to gain the attention of Dickie. Another remark on Tom’s queerness fills him with shame. Tom feels a welling hatred for Dickie, and fantasizes killing him. With extra time to spend before catching a train Dickie rents a small boat to drive in the harbor. Out at sea Tom strikes Dickie with an oar until he’s killed, then throws him overboard with his ankles tied to a stone. Tom sinks the boat. Washes himself ashore inside a cove, and begins planning what he’d do from there.


Second-Half Chapter Summaries

Chapter Thirteen: Tom returns to Mongibello and tells Marge that Dickie decided to stay in Rome for a few days. Then, after feigning the receipt of a letter from him, says that he’s decided to move to Rome for the winter. Tom begins impersonating Dickie, first by wearing his clothes, then once in Rome by checking into a hotel with Dickie’s passport – using his signature. Most brazenly in writing a letter to Marge from Dickie explaining his sudden and unplanned move.

Chapter Fourteen: At his hotel in Rome Tom begins impersonating Dickie, carrying conversations by himself. He continues his transmutation by committing to gain five more pounds and regularly lining his eyebrows. Tom travels to Paris as Dickie, and finds himself invited to a local party, where guests welcomed him. After a peaceful few days in Paris, Tom took the long way back to Rome, stopping in cities along the Cote d’Azur. After ignoring her two letters, Tom finally responds to Marge. He signs a one-year apartment lease. A couple who he met in Paris sees him eating alone in Rome. He lies to them about his residence, and promising to see them again, begins to think about how he can fund the accounts of both Tom Ripley and Dickie Greenleaf.

Chapter Fifteen: Tom changes the drapes in his new apartment, and continues learning Italian. Tom writes to Marge, saying that he will follow the painter Di Massimo to Sicily. Tom prepared to leave for Mallorca tomorrow by train and boat to and from Naples. Freddie Miles arrives at his door unannounced. Tom convinces Freddie that Dickie is at lunch, but after conversing with the landlord on his way out discovers that only one person lives in the apartment he just left. Curious, he returns to Tom’s apartment. Tom kills Freddie with an ashtray and sets the scene to look like an accident. Tom’s disgusted by the death of Freddie at first, but then comes to see it as a result of him sneering at Dickie for his ‘sexual deviance.’ If the cops don’t get him first, Tom will still travel to Mallorca.

Chapter Sixteen: Tom drags Freddie’s body out of the apartment, into his Fiat, and beyond a hedgestone at a nearby graveyard. Tom’s behaviors appear ever more manic.

Chapter Seventeen: Freddie’s body was found and the police call Tom, informing him to stay put, delaying his plans to Mallorca. Tom cooperates with police but increased attention from Dickie and Freddie’s friends – Marge, Fausto, Van Houston – cause him to hole up in the nearby Inghilterra hotel. News of Freddie’s death reaches the headlines, but it’s the news of “Sunken boat with blood stains found in shallow water near San Remo” concerned him most. Tom believes he’ll be released from the police within a day. But anxieties cause Tom to hallucinate the return of Dickie. After gaining control of himself, Tom sits to write a letter to Mr. and Mrs. Greenleaf as their son.

Chapter Eighteen: Officers visit Dickie (Tom). They inquire about the whereabouts of Tom Ripley, believing him dead and somehow associated with the bloodstains on the sunken boat in San Remo. After the interview, the police confirm he can travel to Sicily. Marge calls Dickie from the lobby of his hotel. In a slip, Tom answered as himself. He tells Marge to meet at Angelo’s a nearby bar, and that they cannot meet now because he’s about to conduct a job interview. Tom sneaks off into a taxi to travel to Sicily, planning when and how he can reveal the identity of Tom Ripley.

Chapter Nineteen: Tom arrives in Sicily. Free from the anxieties of Rome, he fantasizes about writing Marge a letter as himself – boasting of his love for Dickie. He fantasizes about traveling even more south to Greece, but only as Dickie. He can’t fathom traveling as Tom. Marge finally wrote to Tom (yes, Tom) and explained everything she knew to the police. A member of the Palermo police force calls for Dickie at the Hotel Palma. Tom (as Dickie) claims that Tom is somewhere in Rome and the officer ends the call at that. Then Tom (as Dickie) writes the Greenleaf’s, taking particular interest in pleasing Dickie’s mom.

Chapter Twenty: Five days passed and Tom began dreaming of a trip to Capri. Tom receives mail from Dickie’s bank in Naples and trust company in New York, doubting the validity of his recent signatures. He’s urged to visit their offices in Naples to clarify the matter. Tom writes the companies affirming that he has received the checks, and that his undersigned signature should be included in the permanent record. He no longer desires a trip to Capri, walks around town, and buys an oil painting.

Chapter Twenty One: “Dickie” receives a letter from the police requesting his presence in Rome. He tears up the letter, and decides it’s the end of Dickie Greenleaf. Tom buys a car in Trento, Italy to retrofit his story that he altered course, never traveled to America, and has spent the last few months casually road tripping across Europe. In Venice, Tom reads in the paper that police have reported Dickie as “missing.” He dies his hair darker – preparing to encounter officers he’s met before as his previous alias.

Chapter Twenty Two: Tom tells an officer in Venice that he’s the missing man in the papers. Two officers from Rome visit him at his hotel for questioning. In the hours between he practiced the mannerisms of himself – distinguishing himself as thinner and sloppier than Dickie, darkening his hair and brows. Tom endures questioning without a hitch. After the officers leave he books a dinner at the Grand Hotel to celebrate his confirmed safety. In his fit of joy he ponders postdating a letter from Dickie, so that he could inherit all of Dickie’s income.

Chapter Twenty Three: Tom writes Herbert Greenleaf a letter, suggesting that last he saw Dickie he was depressed and may have committed suicide. Tom’s new space in Venice is remarkably grand. Tom forges Dickie’s will. Marge pays Tom a visit in Venice. She questions him tougher than the police. He believes he has the upper hand in the exchange, and invites her to stay the night. She agrees, and they set off to a gondola. Tom wants Marge to meet his friend, the Englishman Peter Smith-Kingsley.

Chapter Twenty Four: The time at Mr. Peter Smith-Kingsley was as cheery as it was full of speculation on the whereabouts of Dickie. No one, it seems, thinks anything strange of Tom’s story. After a five-course dinner together, Tom and Marge take ride a gondola back to his home – but he forgot his keys, leaving them trapped on two stairs between his door and the water. Finally a motorboat offers them a ride to a nearby church. Walking through San Spiridione at night, Tom feels more unnerved than if he were alone.

Chapter Twenty Five: Herbert telegrams Tom and says that he will visit him by noon. Mr. Greenleaf says that he’s hired a private detective, a McCarron, to investigate the case further. Once alone, Tom and Herbert catch up on the events and Tom delves deeper into why Dickie may have been so depressed – citing the San Remo incident. Their conversation ends with Herbert disagreeing that Dickie committed suicide, and hoping that his son in his depressive state ran off to another town outside of Italy.

Chapter Twenty Six: Marge and Tom attend a cocktail party of a Mr. Maloof. Tom had a miserable time, felt disdain for that class of people. After the party Marge and Tom had dinner with Mr. Greenleaf – both were returning to Rome tomorrow morning. Tom reflected on his wondrous life in Venice, and in a dreamy state, seconds from sleep, was thrust awake by Marge, who’d just discovered Dickie’s rings. Marge runs off in tears, believing it proof that Dickie killed himself. But the tense situation sent Tom’s mind spiraling, imagining how he’d kill her. Tom settled his mind – committed to telling Mr. Greenleaf the story, his version, on why Dickie left Tom his rings. And why Tom hadn’t said anything about it until now.

Chapter Twenty Seven: Tom meets McCarron. After a tense conversation in a room with Mr. Greenleaf and Marge, he asks to speak with Tom priavately. In a cafe they further discuss details of the case. McCarron is a professional and Tom can’t quite understand what he’s thinking. But he seems to believe the suicide bit – everyone does.

Chapter Twenty Eight: The investigation continues with no news. Tom wants to set off to Greece. Over Peter’s house, he’s invited to return home with him to Ireland. That ignites a series of flashbacks over Dickie – Tom believes it jealousy that caused him to kill Dickie. A jealousy sparked by Dickie seeing Tom dressed in his clothes.

Chapter Twenty Nine: Tom mails a letter to Mr. Greenleaf revealing Dickie’s “will.” Days before Tom is to set off for Greece detectives uncover all of Dickie’s possessions housed at the Venice American Express under the name Fanshaw. This sends Tom spiraling, fearing that fingerprints will tie him to the murder. He can’t fathom traveling to Greece under those circumstances, knows it will not happen, and cries.

Chapter Thirty: Tom does sail to Greece. Onboard he continues to panic, imagines all the ways he will be seized – if he’d surrender to authorities or commit suicide before. Ashore, he grabs a few papers and realizes he has been completely freed of suspicion. A letter from Mr. Greenleaf assures that Dickie’s will shall be executed to his last wishes. Tom is free.


Film Commentary

If René Clément’s Purple Noon (1960) is not a guilty pleasure, it certainly feels like one. – Geoffrey O' Brien
“The Kind of Film You Make Passionately”: René Clément on Purple Noon
The following is excerpted from an interview that originally appeared in the February 1, 1981, issue of L’avant-scène: Cinéma. It was conducted by Olivier Eyquem and Jean-Claude Missiaen. Eyquem is a documentalist and former staff member at Positif; he blogs at Ecrans partagés d’Olivier E. Missiaen is a writer, director, and film historian whose books include monographs on Anthony Mann and Cyd Charisse. The interview was translated for this release by Nicholas Elliott.   How did you first encounter Patricia Highsmith’s novel? [Actor] France Roche had told me about it first, but I hadn’t had the time to take a serious look at it. Then [producer] Robert Hakim brought me the book and asked me if I was interested in adapting it. That’s where everything started. I was immediately attracted to the novel’s ambiguity and feeling of uneasiness, which are constants in Highsmith’s work. Those who try to cultivate ambiguity in the thriller genre don’t always succeed, but Highsmith achieves something quite deep and genuinely successful. I thought I would work with [Jean] Aurenche and [Pierre] Bost, my usual collaborators, but Hakim dragged his feet. He had just produced À double tour, adapted by Paul Gégauff, and, possibly wanting to coast on the New Wave’s popularity, he suggested I work with him. Gégauff was a good choice, especially for the first part of the film. At first, I worked with two scriptwriters who didn’t provide very fruitful results. In the meantime, I found the film’s denouement by myself. Gégauff is a very sharp man, whom I greatly appreciated. We pulled off all sorts of acrobatics to make the action unfold more believably. We were a little rushed toward the end, but Hakim, who is an intelligent, efficient man with an admirable knowledge of his trade, proved very understanding. He said some extremely sensible and positive things about the work we had accomplished. We started shooting, but I was missing certain scenes. So there was a certain amount of improvisation during the shoot, notably for the episode of Greenleaf’s death, which came out of circumstances I tried to make the most of, and for the seduction of Marge, which I wrote on set during the lunch break, because I could “feel” [Alain] Delon and [Marie] Laforêt and knew what they were each capable of. Cocteau used to tell me: “You always have to be ready for the unexpected.” You shouldn’t refuse to shoot because it hasn’t been set down in writing; you have to move forward. Paper and writing are very cut-and-dried. A script is like a score that is missing any indication of tempo. You have to breathe life into it. It demands an element of improvisation. Patricia Highsmith appears indifferent to material plausibility and the actual details of Ripley’s scheme. Ripley practicing Greenleaf’s signature takes up about twenty shots in the film, while it is disposed of in a single sentence in Highsmith’s novel. In that regard, the novel was completely indefensible. It was very difficult to adapt, and we were only able to find satisfactory solutions by taking liberties. In my opinion, a director must always prove what he puts forward. A writer can allow himself to say that a woman is incredibly beautiful, that she has delicate features and that her eyes are uniquely gentle. But as a director, I have to show her and ask myself who will play her. I can’t just dream anything up. If a sequence has two or three elements that crucially determine the action but are simply unbelievable, I can’t say, “Did you see that? It’s unbelievable!” The script has to make them plausible. If you look closely at the adaptation of Purple Noon, you will see our efforts in that direction. Carrying over the ambiguity of the character of Ripley meant giving him a physical reality, in such a way that the sensations he experienced—his fear, his sweat—were constantly on-screen. That is a game played in collaboration with the actor. After Alain killed the fat American, Freddy, I told him, “You shouldn’t have killed him. Figure it out—it’s your business now . . . Oh, if you had been more intelligent, you would have kept Freddy at bay, you would have seized another opportunity. But you didn’t premeditate anything, you’re not a real criminal, and you’re stuck. Forget the rest of the script—it’s up to you now. Get him down the stairs or you’ll go to jail.” But a corpse is heavy, and you don’t dispose of it as easily as in a novel; Delon had a hell of a time. As for me, I was there to film Ripley’s suffering. That was the game we were playing together, and that’s the attitude you should have when you really love what you’re doing and you respect the people with whom you’re working. The signatures scene in the hotel seems to have been extraordinarily minutely prepared. Had you written everything, down to the smallest gesture? No, you can’t get all those details down in a script; that’s part of the creation. There are ten thousand ways of approaching a script. For instance, imagine illustrating the following action: “The man is at the window. He turns around, sits down. A woman enters.” Some filmmakers—note that I say “filmmakers,” not “directors”—stick to the syntactic basics. But a director knows that when the man sits down, the cushion he rests on will rise up in a certain manner, and that through the crack we will discover something strange, etc. But he can’t put all that down in writing. He would wind up with a three-hundred-page novel. Would it make any sense to describe it? Would there be any hope of recapturing it on set? We ridicule directors who maniacally try to realize the images they carry in their minds, who stamp their feet and make a scene if the car passing in the background isn’t the right color. But maybe that color really does have its importance. How do you make a crew search your fantasies to find the exact reasons to reproduce what you more or less clearly imagined? Should the director keep things a little mysterious for his crew? Absolutely not. On the contrary! Your crew should know as much as possible about what you are trying to achieve. It must be with you. It would be illogical to leave your collaborators in the dark. Enthusiasm is born of shared work. The important thing is to know what you want. And to remain flexible so you can bring to life that entire part of the mise-en-scène that cannot be set down in writing, bring back to life the memories you carry. For instance, Ripley devouring a peach immediately after Greenleaf’s death, or eating a chicken after murdering Freddy—those incidents come from my memories of police reports I had read years earlier. I remembered that many policemen observed a type of bulimia among murderers after their crimes. A little like the banquets that follow funerals: life’s revenge over death. These memories reemerged, and I made Delon eat like a feline in the apartment scene; he shelters himself from the camera, he hides. That seemed very interesting to me. Ripley: Portrait of the Artist as a Criminal We never really learn about Ripley’s past. The shot of the children dancing in a circle is one of the few moments where we can guess at it. It is like a rush of innocence rising up in a very nostalgic manner. By having Ripley watch the children turning on the sidewalk, I mostly wanted to show that life went on while this horrible thing took place. It’s like the spider we see before the railroader’s execution in La bataille du rail. It is more important than this man sentenced to the firing squad, who is already nothing. And he isn’t even dead yet, while the spider ambles about freely, accountable to no one. And here, see these children enjoying themselves, dancing in a circle, far from this tragic event, safe in their own world . . . But it’s true, we don’t know Ripley’s past. In fact, it is very ambiguous; when Marge tries to find out about him, Greenleaf pretends not to know him. I don’t believe Greenleaf, but what I like is that neither he nor Ripley told me everything. I like that. Julien Green once told me, “I started one of my novels with a really important character who was supposed to be the main thread, but at a certain point, he played a dirty trick on me: he took off, leaving me there with a young woman and a rather elderly gentleman whom I did not know.” “Well?” I asked him. “Well, what do you want? I kept talking with them.” I like the attitude of being somewhat led by your characters, because it seems to me to provide a guarantee of authenticity. And in this case, when Greenleaf says, “I’ve never seen him in my life,” I ask myself, Hmm, why isn’t he telling me the truth? It would seem so simple to make up another story. But Marge is referring to his own childhood, which is probably what bothers him. There is a fascinating aspect of Ripley’s character that we also find in Highsmith’s novel. What I would call his “sponge” side. Ripley moves in a certain social context upon which he models himself, and absorbs everything about it. He has to make those he encounters love him. The secret is Dostoyevsky. That’s where I went looking when I was adapting Purple Noon, particularly in The Insulted and Humiliated. Purple Noon is the story of a dreadful character who has killed two people, tried to steal, and attempted to seduce a young woman to squeeze money out of her. He is a horrible guy, but you don’t make films with despicable people—that doesn’t work. People want to relate, they want to identify. I’m stating the obvious. So how will I make Ripley likable? By humiliating him. At the beginning of the film, Ripley is nothing. Freddy doesn’t even look at him; he calls him “chum,” which is openly disdainful. O’Brien acts high and mighty around him. Riccordi can’t remember his name. He is treated feudally, which puts everyone on his side. Many viewers even think it’s too bad he gets caught at the end. After everything he did! So there is this entire social contrast between money and poverty, the outcast and the rich. From the start, Ripley’s approach is determined by the offer Greenleaf’s father makes to him. And Philippe has no desire to go home; all he wants to do is happily squander his fortune! Humiliation is always lurking in the background symbolically. It is what gives Ripley heft. Couldn’t you have spared him the punishment? Highsmith lets him get away . . . No, no, there’s no way around it; you cannot transgress. But let me tell you the ending I dreamed of: Ripley has taken revenge; he too is, for he has been able to want something through to its conclusion. Here he is on the restaurant terrace, with that boat in the background raising its black sail. Everything has come to a stop, even the wind. But no, the boat sails on. What will happen? Ripley is rich; he continues traveling. He goes to Athens—why not? He disembarks at the harbor, and all at once we see two policemen apparently waiting for him at the end of the footbridge. We assume he’s done for. But no: the rule there is for two policemen to be posted at every boat’s arrival. Ripley makes it through without any trouble. Everything is fine. He winds up at the Parthenon, sitting on the steps . . . asking himself if he should turn himself in to be someone, to find a place back in the society that had stuck him in a hole. Everything he did becomes meaningful in the face of a well-structured, specific society, but not in the void. That was the ending I dreamed of shooting, but who would have understood it and how would I have expressed it? It was very difficult. Hakim talked me out of it, and he was certainly right. So I came back to the epilogue I had thought of from the beginning and which we used in the film. Somehow it reassures people. It is immanent justice. Ripley does not premeditate. He gambles everything on Marge’s love. I think that Ripley’s use of revenge was a noble art, which filled him with the kind of creative joy experienced by certain artists. He played with fire. The letter to Marge was a close call; it nearly gave him away. The signature was very well imitated, but Greenleaf never signed that way when he wrote to Marge. A serious mistake! We know how many schemes have collapsed due to insignificant details. And he stays in Italy, where all of Greenleaf’s friends live. He has no choice; he is penniless. He constantly gets stuck in impossible situations. In real life, you might risk one, two, maybe three brazen acts, but never four; you’d be too scared. But Ripley keeps going, and that is what makes him remarkable. He is also very intelligent. “You know, I look like this . . . But my imagination . . .” Revenge is only a part of Ripley’s plan. That’s very clear, especially in the mirror scene; he is already seeking to usurp Greenleaf’s identity. How do we interpret the Marge-Greenleaf-Ripley triangle? Is seducing Marge a means for Ripley to complete his identification with Greenleaf or is it simply a way to get the money? It’s a complex matter. Disguising himself, imitating Greenleaf’s voice, the letter—which in and of itself is taking possession of Greenleaf—the villa to which Ripley returns to possess Marge . . . It seems like mimicry, but it is mostly anthropophagy. Which reminds us of one of the most obscure and distant aspects of our nature. To consume the bread and the wine—“This is my body, this is my blood”—isn’t that also anthropophagy? What about the mother who tells her child, “Oh, I could eat you up!” And what is physical love, in a way, other than anthropophagy? We are neck-deep in this context, whether we like it or not. And here we have a total absorption of Greenleaf by Ripley. What else would Ripley be doing when he orders Marge, “Play, play for me”? [. . .] Was it a problem for you to have American characters played by Delon and Ronet opposite actors Frank Latimore and Bill Kearns? That wasn’t important to me. Take a Japanese man, a Brit, and an American: as soon as you get past folklore, you’ll find the same man. When you read Dostoyevsky, you’re dealing with profoundly Slavic reactions. Why would that interest you if you weren’t experiencing them too? Let’s expose the action, strip it bare, like Gaston Baty did when he placed his actors in front of a curtain. Giving Delon or Ronet an American accent would have been a useless addition. And we all know perfectly bilingual people who have made a life in France or Europe and don’t want to leave, because they don’t like America. Greenleaf feels good where he is. He wants to go to Taormina, not to Los Angeles. Wasn’t Alain Delon initially considered to play Greenleaf? We have to reestablish the correct chronology. Delon was never considered to play Greenleaf, but we did consider another actor, whose name I won’t mention. I didn’t agree with the Hakim brothers about this, though this other actor would have provided better marquee value at the time. Delon wasn’t a star yet and had not done anything to tempt a producer. When this vacuum for the part of Greenleaf occurred, Delon’s agent, Georges Beaume, contacted me [it’s unclear why Clément names Beaume, as Olga Horstig was Delon’s agent at the time; Beaume would not fill that role until later]. I went to see Michel Boisrond’s Faibles femmes. Delon did not really shine in it; he did not stand out. Nonetheless, there was something that interested me in certain ways. Georges Beaume came to see me with Alain. We talked, and Georges came up with the idea of switching Ronet’s and Delon’s parts, adjusting them based on the two actors. It became obvious to us that Ronet would be better in the part of Greenleaf, and Delon in that of Ripley. And Alain became Ripley more and more, following everything that was said to him to the letter. He had an exceptional ability to concentrate, a surprisingly fine ear. A receptive actor of this quality is rare and very pleasant for a director. How many actors only understand what they already know? It was thanks to this acuity that I was able to play the game I was telling you about. Faced with the truth I was seeking, I always had Delon, ready to take on every impossibility of the action, for it is impossibility that makes the drama move forward, of course. The Naples Sky Purple Noon was also the first film you made with Henri Decaë, who later worked with you on Le jour et l’heure, Che gioia vivere, and Les félins. I wanted a certain style of photography and for Decaë to capture the light of the Gulf of Naples. The Naples sky is like no other. I observed it when I was traveling around the bay, spending entire days on a boat. When the sun rises in the morning, around five thirty or six, a marvel on the order of grace occurs. The air is light, a little sulfury; and the sulfur slowly becomes white, pastel, blue; and the gentle rocking makes one think of Bellini’s music. That’s where we come back to Ripley: why wouldn’t he also let himself be rocked to Taormina? With Marge, who inherited all that money? Notice that these sequences are punctuated by the Naples-Ischia crossing, with the small boat that crosses the bay and goes back down to Mongibello, toward that water-surrounded territory that is a little like Cythera. Film shoots at sea are among the most challenging. If you film the sea from two different angles, it won’t be the same color. Everything depends on the reflection of the sky. If the incidences aren’t the same, the color will change from one shot to the next, and it will be impossible to match them. You can’t put two shots on open water next to each other. The first one will be blue, the next green. It’s terrifying. You have to shoot cutaways to get from one color to the other by playing against the sky’s coloring. When you’re at sea, you’re constantly confronted with the unexpected. Everyone knows the legend that the Flying Dutchman appears when a death has occurred on a boat. In Purple Noon, a white ship appears in the background right after Greenleaf’s murder. Isn’t it amazing that our Flying Dutchman arrived right as we were shooting this scene? It wasn’t called for, obviously; how could I put that in a script? Do you think a lot of ships with square lights go by in the Mediterranean? We were quietly eating our spaghetti when it came along. It was an extraordinary sailboat belonging to the king of Denmark. We rushed to our boat. I asked Alain to jump at the same time, so I could get a first shot of him. We were being offered the Flying Dutchman! Similarly, when I was preparing to shoot Greenleaf’s murder, the sea got whipped up and the wind suddenly got colder. In one morning, we filmed what would normally have taken a week’s work. Camera in hand, Decaë did everything I asked with tremendous courage. I know sailing—it’s my favorite sport—otherwise I wouldn’t have taken the risk. There were twenty people locked inside the Marge. We came down from the sailboat as quickly as we could to board a big launch, leaving Alain to get by alone, following the instructions I gave him by walkie-talkie. Alain was seasick; he couldn’t feel the deck move beneath him without feeling ill. It took great courage on his part to do it. Decaë was astride the launch’s stem as it leapt six feet over the waves, trying to frame this boat coming straight at us, and we were all wondering if Alain would be able to prevent the boat’s inertia from making it go adrift. I knew a few tricks, like pointing the ship toward the wind, which gives a real cannon blast, but ran the risk of tearing the cotton sails, which were quite worn. I was in my own reality, and Alain, carried away by everything that was happening, gave us the scene you’ve watched. In this case, we found ourselves in direct continuity with what I instinctively try to produce—which is to create when the opportunity arises to do so. Had you planned for the storm? It could have not happened, but we always had to be ready, just in case . . . Now if it hadn’t happened, I don’t know if we could have waited for it to happen . . . How did you shoot the interiors of the boat? The producers found us an abandoned movie theater close to the port. Paul Bertrand thought of building the boat set in there. I had a crane installed on risers three feet off the ground, with a track all along the set. The boat was on springs. A small part of the deck was removable, and I could use my crane to make the camera go down wherever I wanted—do a tracking shot, a pan, jump from one side to the other. The end of the crane was narrow enough to allow all these maneuvers. It was my “secret”: the narrower the place, the more I used my crane. I had already tried all this out on Gervaise, where much of the banquet was filmed like this. The crane is a way of moving the camera, and not simply a device to make it go up and down, as some believe. It is as if you took a weightless camera between your thumb and index finger, as if you put it on the tip of a weasel’s nose to look in every nook and cranny. The rest of the film was shot on location. Apart from the Marge interiors, we only spent one day on a soundstage: for the scene in Ripley’s apartment, which was shot in Joinville. Music and Soundtrack You had previously worked with [composer] Nino Rota on Barrage contre le Pacifique. Doesn’t the main theme in Purple Noon come from Barrage? The “Bellini theme,” as Rota and I referred to it, is an integral part of Purple Noon, but there is indeed another one that was used in the scenes between Perkins and Mangano in Barrage and can be heard in Purple Noon. How did you work with Rota? He was a marvelous, multitalented character, with an admirable understanding of images. When he asked me what kind of music I wanted for Purple Noon, I still didn’t “hear” any, but I had quite a specific intuition. “What do we see in this film?” I asked him. “The Bay of Naples. And for me, Naples is Bellini. I can easily see Norma. That’s Ripley. It’s ‘Casta Diva.’” We started thinking about it, and we got a melody line from Bellini. What was I looking for? I wanted to understand what Greenleaf, Marge, and maybe Ripley liked about the Bay of Naples. I saw a ship dancing on the waves, going toward that island—and anytime you go toward an island, all sorts of legends come alive—leaving again . . . You have to admit, it is quite pleasant to let yourself be rocked by that beautiful light, with those bluish mountains dominating the dark blue horizon, that calm, that mildness, those jasmine and orange-tree scents crossing the entire bay . . . The credits start with this theme, but we don’t reach the end of it. And we nibble at it bit by bit, measure by measure, painstakingly moving forward . . . And Ripley has to work hard to make a living. To start a theme and leave it hanging is to create a tension; the viewer is waiting for the chord. If you listen to the soundtrack, you’ll see how the first measures are hard and rapped out. It’s difficult to get to the first twist, which provides an answer after Ripley has had his first successes. But we’re not sure yet that we’ll get to the end, and completion is only attained over the very last shots. “Phew! He saved the best for last.” Speaking of the soundtrack, it should be added that the film was entirely dubbed and that nothing remains of the original sound. The Italian sound engineer, who was used to the local method of postsynchronizing every film, had made a recording just good enough for the edit. There was interference, background noise, people talking. Everything had to be redone here. So I hired a boom operator. In order to re-create the real audio perspectives, I had him run after the actors as they went off in every direction. I remember Delon and Ronet chasing each other around the auditorium, jumping over a piano to get the right breathing, the inflections I was asking for. So Purple Noon is not truly a dubbed film; you can’t tell. For the sound of the sea, we tried and failed to get sound from Hollywood. I decided to make it myself. I imitated the sound of the sea, the wind, and the waves at the microphone. I would record them on a tape recorder at home, then mix them in the studio. Purple Noon is the kind of film you make passionately, where every detail counts. We all believed in it. I always tried to move forward, to evolve, rather than to repeat myself. People like to classify you. After Forbidden Games, it would have been great to say, “Clément equals childhood specialist.” But what does that mean? I have always been humble in the way I situate myself vis-à-vis the fantastic means of expression in cinema, of which so much remains to be explored. I always wanted to make studies of various situations and places. It’s a workshop spirit: “We’ve studied that; now we’re going to study this.” Each time, I try to take advantage of what I’ve learned, to make one plus two lead to three, and for the latest film to be the sum of all those that came before. I tried to move forward one step at a time; I go up the stairs step by step toward . . . I don’t know what floor. My life and destiny will decide that . . . People have had the impression I was searching for my way; in fact, I was always trying to go further. But perfectionism is a kind of vise that can close in on you. You have to avoid falling prey to it, and to always have more tools to tell stories.
Purple Noon: In Broad Sunlight
In René Clément’s sparkling but menacing anti-noir, the Mediterranean setting is as seductive as Alain Delon’s baby blues.

Further Reading

How a Swiss editor wrangled Patricia Highsmith’s messy diaries into a volcanic book
“Patricia Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notebooks” collects the private writings of the “Talented Mr. Ripley” author, queer pioneer and misanthrope.

The story behind the creation of Patricia Highsmith's epic biography, distilled from 8,000 pages of her own diaries.

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