The dreary Mr Ripley
I prefer my conmen killers out of control and in ravishing colour
In this issue:
Headliner Is Ripley style over substance?
Revival The day that Prince left
Aftershow Rejection letters from Toni Morrison, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, how synths and drum machines revolutionised R&B, the photography and politics of Tyneside’s Tish Murtha
Last time around, I gasped at author Patricia Highsmith’s perversions and predilection for darkness. As promised, I return with thoughts on the Netflix adaptation of one of her most famous creations.
Director and writer Steven Zaillian (alongside DoP Robert Elswit) has reframed Thomas Ripley as a more distant, shadowy and impassive conman than we might remember him in the glamorous The Talented Mr Ripley.
That’s not to say he doesn’t ruminate or what he’s done, as his hallucinations illustrate. But he’s more of a cold killer than Matt Damon’s impulsive and troubled soul. But not a natural-born killer, in Scott’s eyes. “He’s not bloodthirsty”, he told Variety. “He’s invited into this world, he doesn’t seek it out. And then the darkness within him emerges.”
Instead of being this loner and outsider who so desperately wants to belong, who “would rather be a fake somebody than a real nobody”, Andrew Scott plays him as someone who is even more cunning and fastidious. Closer to Alain Delon in Réne Clément’s Plein Soleil but almost charmless.
Creepy but in a detached manner. Too often a sapping presence on screen when I wanted him to be a sinister sociopath capable of the odd outburst. Injecting volatility, or suggesting an inner struggle, might have ignited an extra scene or two. Aside from the odd mishap when he’s trying to cover his tracks, the most exasperated we see him is when he’s out of breath after climbing all those stairs across Italy.
Tom’s sexuality seems less pertinent to the story. He dresses up in Dickie’s clothes and looks at him with interest but when tensions boil over in the boat, there is very little remorse or sorrow in administering the fatal blow. Now I can’t be the only one who craved a little extra frisson between these guys.
It’s more the idea of Dickie Greenleaf that he covets in lieu of the man himself and his affections. This ties back to Highsmith’s description of Ripley, when she wrote, ”Possessions reminded him he existed and made him enjoy his existence.”
Scott’s grifter is more of an aspiring aesthete, though with questionable taste in nightgowns. He seems to enjoy things more than this latest version of Dickie and Marge, who appear jaded by the trappings of their wealthy lifestyle. No frolicking on a boat or ‘Tu Vuo Fà L'Americano’ on Zaillian’s watch.
What does this say about class and privilege in Zaillian’s eyes? As one viewer, commented, “You wind up rooting for Tom because he's never had anything, and so everything from a fountain pen to a Caravaggio is a fresh wonder to him.”
Viewers get to enjoy the cat and mouse of it all over eight languid episodes as Ripley becomes Dickie and tries to evade the suspicions of Inspector Ravini (a beady-eyed Maurizio Lombardi) and Dickie’s partner Marge (Dakota Fanning).
There’s this appealing tension between how enamoured he becomes with life in Italy – the language, the painting, the architecture, the clothing – and how he feels the net start to tighten on him.
It’s beautifully shot – from above, afar, to the side, up close, underwater – milking maximum tension and anticipation from its film noir pallette. The capacity for light and its absence to mask and reveal. Elswit truly is a master of it (see also Nightcrawler, The Night Of and There Will Be Blood). No wonder Caravaggio, artist and sinner, is a recurring theme in this chiaroscuro production.
The determination to go in a different direction is admirable. Otherwise, why bother? But it’s lacking for me in a couple of areas. Casting is the first. I need a bit more charisma and sex appeal from my Dickie than Johnny Flynn, regardless of whether Ripley kills out of unrequited love, envy or avarice.
Dakota Fanning offers neither fraught emotion nor nagging aggravation as Marge. A decent poker face, perhaps, in those early episodes when Tom tries to ingratiate himself. She does come alive a bit more when the aspiring photographer turns opportunist at Dickie’s absence.
Freddie, played as brash and obnoxious by the great Philip Seymour Hoffman in 1999, was reimagined by Eliot Sumner as sophisticated, quiet, and (in the director’s mind) more threatening to Tom. Unfortunately, his portrayal was more lightweight than understated or foreboding.
This interpretation of Highsmith’s novel has bled more than the colour. It lacks the sensuality, pulp and lustfulness of the Anthony Minghella version. Too inert as one writer put it.
Listless is another word that comes to mind. Anthony Lane wrote an admiring piece about Alain Delon and beauty as a barrier to acting acclaim. In it, he described the show as being “determined to winnow away any specks of pleasure, energy or guilty fun from the tale”.
However, this video essay makes a strong argument that both recent adaptations are lacking because they put concrete moralising before the ambiguity and the multiplicity of Ripley. I’m not sure about that. First off, this isn’t an eat-the-rich allegory.
Also, Scott’s Ripley isn’t as easy to pin down as we might think. Yes, he’s not one to express feelings, to desire openly, to yearn for love, happiness or connection. His crimes are stepping stones to a lifestyle he covets.
Nonetheless, his estrangement is telling and I sense his motivation goes deeper than affluence. As a seasoned exponent of deception, he’s learned to mask it.
Highsmith’s goal was to manipulate, challenge and unsettle the reader. No better way to do that than to make your protagonist as flawed and hard to read as possible. Then dare us to sympathise with him.
Which version best fits that bill in your opinion? Not that we have to choose…
4 U, Prince
It’s better to commemorate birthdays over deaths but on this day in 2016 we lost my favourite musician. For me, the greatest of all time. After hearing the news, I came home and wrote this. One of many gushing tributes that followed.
Fandom’s funny like that. We mourn like we’ve lost one of our own, no matter how pathetic, fraudulent or self-indulgent it appears from the outside. More on that in a future issue. Anyway, here’s a taste…
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Growing up in the Eighties you fell into one of two camps. Prince or Michael Jackson. Sure, you might love both – pop superstars with catchy songs, slick moves and soul-deep deliveries. Singular talents and trailblazing heroes for their people. But I chose a side. To this day, I’m not sure why.
Perhaps it was because Jackson was more ubiquitous on TV and in the press, simultaneously their darling and punchline. The conservative choice for a conservative kid like me. Prince was an enigma, in comparison – aloof, androgynous, shape-shifting, x-rated.
Undoubtedly, some perceived him as being blacker and therefore more authentic but Prince maintained he grew up in "a black and white world, rich and poor, night and day". He strived to make all kinds of music and be judged for the quality of his work and not the colour of his skin.
The Face put him on their cover in September 1984, proclaiming him “The Cool Ruler” and asking, “Can Prince take Michael Jackson’s crown?”
They never did square off in that ‘Bad’ video as MJ intended. In Prince’s words, “The first line of that song is ‘Your butt is mine.’ Now who’s gonna sing that to who? Cos you’re sure not gonna sing it to me. And I sure ain’t singing it to you. So right there, we got a problem.”
Seeing this clip from 1983 for the first time was the calling. A priceless artifact dug up long before the dawn of YouTube. I watched in amazement as three legends met in the arena for one night only. A moment in time that would never be repeated. Prince managed to squeeze a concert’s worth of drama into two minutes on stage … and off!
Who is this guy? I thought. I mean, really?
There’s no point in my being other than honest with you
“Your work needs force—some manner of making these potentially powerful characters alive and of giving texture to the setting. Giving details about the people – more than what they look like, what idiosyncrasies they have, what distinguished mannerism – and details about where the action takes place: what is in the room, what is the light like, the smells etc all of that would give us texture and tone.”
Just one of many detailed notes that Toni Morrison gave in rejection letters to aspiring authors while she was a senior editor at Random House in the 70s.
Often she would praise the “vitality” of the material or encourage someone by saying their story was worth telling. But any praise she gave would always be tempered by constructive criticism while (reluctantly) pointing out the realities and restrictions of the publishing industry.
How R&B fell in love with 80’s synths
I recently finished Steven Vass’ Let The Music Play, published by Velocity Press, which traces the influence of synthesisers on R&B from the 70s onwards. Bursting with gearhead facts and little-known connections between musicians and significant records. It moves the conversation about this period beyond electro-pop nostalgia and the usual suspects (The Human League, Depeche Mode, OMD).
You don't need any specialist knowledge to enjoy the book. The author does a great job of steering the middle ground between recognising the influence of pioneers such as Wendy Carlos, Giorgio Moroder and Kraftwerk, and spotlighting foundational tracks from black artists such as Ohio Players’ ‘Funky Worm’ from 1972 and Parliament’s ‘Flashlight’ from 1977.
From pinpointing the importance of this technology in the rise of superstars like Prince and Janet Jackson (Jam & Lewis 👏🏾) to crediting pioneers including Ike Turner (yes, really), Kashif and Leon Sylvers. The birth of genres such as hip-hop and techno is well documented but in the context of R&B it’s a thrilling evolution to read about.
The opening chapters had me reaching for that cluster of career-best albums that Stevie Wonder made with Tonto’s Expanding Headband (Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff). A quantum leap forward in my pre-2000s soul music education/appreciation.
In all, the trio recorded more than 200 tracks together. A long-time favourite is 'Creepin' from Fulfillingness' First Finale, which has this wonderful, gently nagging intimacy. The synth adds a bluesy texture that magnifies Stevie’s yearning. A song that takes up residence in your mind, playing on repeat into the early hours as you dream.
But there are more uptempo grooves on there, like 'Boogie On Reggae Woman', which Vass tells us features the Minimoog's ribbon controller.
"This was a gold-plated band that ran the length of the synth and could be manipulated somewhat like trombone. It barrumps along with the beat, years ahead of its time."
I will be speaking to Steve about the book for a special podcast, which I’ll share with you in a few weeks. We’ll get into the origins, challenges, epiphanies and maybe a few controversies.
Tish
Finally, the documentary about photographer Tish Murtha is available to watch on BBC iPlayer and BFI Player. I was transfixed by her work when I went to an exhibition at The Photographer’s Gallery in 2018. A champion of social justice, she went out and captured the often gritty and uncomfortable reality of life in Britain between the 70s and 90s.
Mainly focusing on friends, family and neighbours in the North East, her reportage drew attention to the neglect of those in poorer parts of the country and “the squandering of a whole generation of human potential”.
She felt compelled to use her work to change things at a government level, to force those in power to honour their contract with society and help give direction to as many lives as possible. With each photo she was saying, these people matter.
Tish was a relentless champion of the working class. Someone born of this often maligned community, who spent time to win their trust and understand people as individuals. From early in her practice, she harnessed the camera’s power to record and validate.
But not as some voyeur plucking their next assignment. Though her work was technically brilliant and often artistic in its composition, foregrounding the dignity of those in the frame and showing them compassion was more important.
The exhibition focused on seminal essays such as Youth Unemployment from 1981, Juvenile Jazz Bands and London By Night from 1983 (a collaboration with dancer and stripper Karen Leslie). Elswick Kids, her late 70’s snapshots of children joshing about in the northeast suburb, is also gently moving.
In the documentary, directed by Paul Sng (Poly Styrene: I Am A Cliché), we follow her daughter Ella as she pieces together Tish’s story through conversations with family, friends and former tutors. We learn when Ella does by hearing stories, sifting through prints, reading letters…
It’s rare to watch a documentary like this with no footage of the artist. Tish is spectral yet ever-present. She fixes us with that powerful gaze in portraits. Through light reenactments, her back to the camera, we see her going about her day. We hear her activist spirit come alive through diary entries and other writing (voiced by Maxine Peake), offering insight into her choice of topics and providing context.
On juvenile jazz bands in the west of Newcastle, she talks about inadequate housing and the lack of children’s leisure activities. Tish wasn’t a fan of the bands, questioning the overly militaristic ways and motives of those in charge. But she saw their importance in the local culture. How “the jazz band reigns supreme and is as much a feature of the area as the high-rise flats and the local dole office”.
School leavers like Tish’s brother Carl (who aspired to be an actor) would sweep streets in atrocious weather conditions for £20.55 a week and have to contend with abusive bosses. One child was so tormented that they received psychiatric treatment, while his bully later joined the police.
Hearing arias soundtrack moments in the film seemed to unlock a bittersweet rapture in this body of work. Opera would be playing in the family home when Tish was growing up. This heightened the drama and tension around all they were experiencing and enduring at the time, says sister Eileen. To me, it’s the sound of perseverance.
Tish passed at 56 from a brain aneurysm. She was broke, in and out of work and agonising over whether to heat or eat. Commissions and funding were hard to come by. The Arts Councill rejecting her Middlesborough project was a big blow. How someone of such talent and dedication – yes, a working-class single mother, so what? – could not sustain a career as a professional photographer, is shameful.
On the upside, Ella has been a driving force in the publication of three collections and the Tate has acquired some of Tish’s work.
A lot of the problems that Tish highlighted decades ago continue to this day. Can we really trust the Tories to “level up” with a credible growth plan? To support the most vulnerable as the cost of living continues to put the squeeze on them?
They seem more interested in stoking division through immigration policy and culture wars. At this stage, anything else is something better.
Anyway, please watch the documentary and spread the legend of Tish Murtha. Then treat yourself to a print.
The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows
Maria Popova is great at explaining how language helps us define and understand what we live through. Aka wisdom. But what happens when words fail us? Well, it’s time to find new ones as John Koenig has done with The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.
“Because we know their power, we ask of words to hold what we cannot hold — the complexity of experience, the polyphony of voices inside us narrating that experience, the longing for clarity amid the confusion,” says Popova before introducing the dictionary.
Koenig has drawn from chemistry astronomy, lexicons of languages past and present (Ancient Greek, Japanese, Māori) to propose each word as an accretion of particular emotions or a constellation of meaning. Think of them as mirrors to a very particular human state.
Two favourites:
ÉNOUEMENTn. the bittersweetness of having arrived here in the future, finally learning the answers to how things turned out but being unable to tell your past self.
French énouer, to pluck defective bits from a stretch of cloth + dénouement, the final part of a story, in which all the threads of the plot are drawn together and everything is explained. Pronounced “ey-noo-mahn.”
AGNOSTHESIAn. the state of not knowing how you really feel about something, which forces you to sift through clues hidden in your own behavior, as if you were some other person — noticing a twist of acid in your voice, an obscene amount of effort you put into something trifling, or an inexplicable weight on your shoulders that makes it difficult to get out of bed.
Ancient Greek ἄγνωστος (ágnōstos), not knowing + διάθεσις (diáthesis), condition, mood. Pronounced “ag-nos-thee-zhuh.”
I'm almost to the end of Netflix's Ripley and I truly admire it! While I agree on your thoughts about some of the casting, specifically Johnny Flynn and Dakota Fanning, I think Andrew Scott is a real standout! He does so much subtle work that is endlessly fascinating to watch. I agree that there should have been a bit more sexual chemistry between Tom and Dickey though. It's surprising so much of this was left out given the casting of Scott in the lead role.
The series is also one of the most beautifully shot I've ever seen. Some of the images, many of which you include, are master works and could stand alone for their artistry. I like that the episodes take their time, especially the one in which a body is being disposed of. It allows for such great detail, rivaling the clean-up scene in Psycho! All in all, it's an incredible piece of work so far. I'm hoping there there are more seasons to come to flesh out some of Patricia Highsmith's other Ripley novels.
By the way, I've also recently watched the documentary Loving Highsmith which is a fascinating, if somewhat incomplete, portrait of the writer and her work.