Michael Dirda, This Woman Is Dangerous:
There was a time when readers were outraged that Highsmith never judges Tom, indeed quite likes him, even identifies with him as a fellow artist. (She occasionally signed letters or books "Tom/Pat.") Like Oscar Wilde, Highsmith insisted (in Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction, 1966) that
art essentially has ( Read more... )

AARON STANFORD IS ON MAD MEN.

I've always pictured Stanford as the perfect Tom Ripley. He's so American, shifty, and AWESOME.

( Feel-good movies, musical instruments, snacks, places, hats, legs, and antiheroes )

Directed by Roger Spottiswoode, and starring Barry Pepper as Tom Ripley, Ripley Under Ground is based on the second novel in the series. Of all the film adaptations of Highsmith's Ripliad I've seen - Plein soleil, The Talent Mr Ripley, Ripley's Game - this is my favourite. It's truest to the spirit of the character: Ripley the opportunist, the ( Read more... )

Interview by Melvyn Bragg in 1982, interwoven with a dramatization of "Ripley Under Ground".

Click to view

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Watching this talk between Charlie Rose and director Anthony Minghella (RIP) about his movie The Talented Mr Ripley, brings back all of my old frustrations with the adaptation. Especially when Minghella says that he wished Patricia Highsmith had been alive still when he was working on the script and the film, because he would have loved her input ( Read more... )