The Talented Mr. Ripley, screenplay by Anthony Minghella, based on the book by Patricia Highsmith – another note on this memorable work is here http://realini.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-talented-mr-ripley-by-patricia.html - 10 out of 10

 

The Talented Mr. Ripley, screenplay by Anthony Minghella, based on the book by Patricia Highsmith – another note on this memorable work is here http://realini.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-talented-mr-ripley-by-patricia.html

10 out of 10

 

 

The Talented Mr. Ripley is included on the list of 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jan/19/1000-novels-comedy-part-one in the crime section, for Mr. Ripley may be talented (indeed, he is) but he is also a devious, Machiavellian character…

 

I saw some of the film again last night and I was thinking that we live in the Age of The Talented Mr. Ripley, in that we have so many individuals, more or less gifted in some way, pretending to be what they are not, taking advantage, rising in fact to the very top, just like Tom Ripley does in this majestic work.

It happens rarely, but this is one of the instances where both the book and the adaptation for the big screen are fabulous, Matt Damon and the rest of the mesmerizing cast are in top form, it was fun to see him in a film of twenty three years ago, just as I admired him more recently in Air, with his friend Ben Affleck

However, the magnum opus is Oppenheimer http://realini.blogspot.com/2023/08/oppenheimer-by-christopher-nolan.html an instant classic, as they said, and in my view, much better than Barbie, which is great, but does not have the magic, the power of the Christopher Nolan chef d’oeuvre, for which I…went to the cinema

 

It was for the first time in about twenty years – the last time, it was also an Anthony Minghella motion picture, filmed next door to my house, which was back then near Brasov, on the edge of the forest of Rosenau, but an immense disappointment when seen on the big screen of the Vitan Mall – and what a joy

Tom Ripley talks to Herbert Greenleaf, who is very worried about his son, Dickie aka excellent Jude Law, who is in Europe – the discussion takes place in America and most of the relevant personages are Americans, although the action takes place in Italy, for the most part – and appears to waste time and money

 

Herbert Greenleaf is a wealthy man and offers to pay for Tom Ripley’s trip to Europe, expenses and all, plus a bonus, if he somehow manages to convince Dickie to come back home, the young man is not rich, to say the least, and thus he is glad at the chance to go to Italy and try his persuasion skills on his former colleague

On a beach in Italy, Tom pretends to just see Dickie and recognize him, amazed at the ‘coincidence’…however, later, when they become ‘friends’ , he will confess and give the details of the conversation and the financing of the excursion and the goal of it – I hesitate on the friends idea nevertheless

 

One of the greatest writers of all time was Thomas Mann http://realini.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-magic-mountain-is-classic-that.html and he wrote something that has stayed with me till now and most likely for as long as I have awareness, can use my senses, on the subject of love and friendship, one of his characters is aghast at the frequency with which people around complain ‘their love is so great, there are no words for it’

This is ludicrous says the fictional man, for words like love, friend, do not have a correspondent in real life, where when you test those admirable, intense, everlasting, strong, immense feelings, you find that they do not pass the test of time or adversity, and we must look at fiction, art, to find them and stop exaggerating

 

Malcolm Bradbury is a sublime author http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/09/to-hermitage-by-malcolm-bradbury-author.html and in his spectacular To The Hermitage he has a large number of fabulous quotes, and one is this:

Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life…As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality…Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…now what about that?

Tom is charming and (again) Talented, so he wins the trust of Dickie and Marge aka Gwyneth Paltrow, but not the confidence of Freddie Miles played by the regretted and fantastic Philip Seymour Hoffman…that notwithstanding, when Tom is behaving in an outré manner, caught trying on the clothes of the man he may be infatuated with (again, this is not love, and besides, can you harm someone you really love…the problem now is of inflation, we use love for, well, anything, so it just means like, I guess, these days) Dickie becomes annoyed and then frustrated, to the stage where they clash

 

Let us not get into spoilers and just say that at least, Tom Ripley was gifted, but how can you explain the ‘success’ (if that is the name, if we are demanding, it might not pass the test either) of Idiot Trump, what does this guy have, to con seventy million people, and not just once, for he is within walking distance to get into the White House, after the elections next year, this morning, a poll gave him 49% and Biden one percentage less, god damn it, how is this possible, when it is not even conceivable to me?

 

 

Now for a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world   – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html