Bulletin Board:
ONE OF FAVORITE FILMS OF THE YEAR
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001
From: Silvio from North Carolina
The film speaks directly to our own Culture of Narcissism which is, properly enough, nutured by Hollywood itself (one could argue the business of Hollywood IS to export envy and stir a constant aggravation with self). It's well cast, lovingly directed, beautifully scored. Yared's song "Shame of Cain" fits in well. I know lots of Ripley's: well-fed corporate executives who linger daily over glossy magazines, trying so hard to fit the images sold to them by merchants (while they stomp on everyone below them and pay their secretaries 1/200th of what they make). What's amusing is that everyone in this film is a total narcissist, except the character of Peter, who accepts and loves himself as he is. Dickie is Narcissist Central. Marge seethes with Entitlement and Arrogance beneath her willowy veneer. I felt sorrow for Ripley, really. He could have been a good egg, but he told that first lie, and another, and finally Dickie's malefic charisma overcame him and took him into the no-exit of murder. "There shall have no gods before Me" was the warning, I believe! A sad, but very instructive and lovely movie. Sorry some of your more literal-minded types missed all the gems it contained.
Silvio from North Carolina
PSYCHO RIPLEY
Subject: Psycho goes to Italy
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2000
From: Kirk Kimball, New York
"The Talented Mr. Ripley" is best described as "Psycho goes to Italy." It plays like yet another inferior sequel to Hitchcock's classic film version of Robert Bloch's "Psycho." Like most ersatz sequels, this one suffers in comparison with its uncredited predecessor. The black and white "Psycho" featured seedy motels, gothic spook-houses and dark basements; the colorful "Ripley" offers a glimpse at jet-set life in the Italian countryside. This change of venue is not objectionable in and of itself, for mental unstability is, of course, liable to occur in any setting.
The real problem lies in Tom Ripley's character -- or lack thereof. While "Psycho" painted a fully-drawn portrait of a mentally disturbed individual, "Ripley" offers only a laughably underdeveloped cliché. The screenplay gives the Tom Ripley character only the most cursory of motivations (instead of Norman Bates' mother-fixation, we have Ripley's spurned homosexual advances), and Matt Damon's valiant attempts to flesh out his character are not nearly enough. We are left with a cardboard lunatic who strikes a mortal blow against the man he loves merely because that man called him boring and told him to get lost. One can only imagine what Ripley would have done had his would-be lover REALLY abused him.
Usually we are told that "Crime does not pay," but this film ends with Ripley brutally murdering three people yet still evading capture by the police. True, we are shown that Riplay is now trapped in his own private inner hell (boo hoo!) - but this inner hell is nevertheless surrounded on the OUTSIDE by great wealth and the sumptuous Italian countryside. Strip away these prettified trappings, and all that remains is the movie's primary message, a revelation with all the insight of an Afterschool Special: BE WHO YOU ARE! Behind this message lies a hidden motivation that is astonishingly vapid: Be who you are -- not because killing people and stealing their identities can ruin lives and result in incarceration, but because it can cause inner stress. Such a message is unspeakably shallow, even when it is surrounded by the trappings of Hollywood glamour in a multi-million dollar movie.
Kirk Kimball, New York
RIPPED OFF AT DOLLAR THEATER
Subject: Hated It,
Date: Tue, 2 May 2000
From: "Mike Furches"
I have heard and read many of the comments relating to the value of this movie in its depiction of all that is wrong with not being true to self. Personally I did not need a reminder of this. It was a total waste of time and I would not recommend the movie to anyone at any price. It is definitely a movie you want to keep children away from. Without a doubt one of the worst movies I have seen in the last 20 years. I felt ripped off paying to see it at the $1 theater.
Mike Furches Tulsa, OK
RIPLEY WASTE OF TIME
Which way to the bathroom?
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2000 23:42:56 -0500
From: Skymystic
What a total waste of a movie. For one thing, it made no sense whatsoever. The setting was very beautiful but could not in any way make up for the terrible plot of the movie. The reviews are very misleading. They make the movie out to be an exciting thriller. The whole movie was very disturbing. Matt Damon just went around either mocking people or killing them. There was no excitement in the movie. The most exciting thing that happened is the credits starting rolling!! I also have no idea why Hollywood feels it is necessary to add subtle homosexual hints to a movie. Maybe some people don't want to have to watch that in a movie. Now you're probably thinking, "Then don't go to the movie. No one is forcing you to watch the movie." Trust me. If I would have know the disgust that awaited me in the movie, I would have gladly stayed home. Hollywood just keeps going downhill and I can only say "Stop the bus I want to get off."
-Skymystic
BRILLIANT, DISTURBING AND REFLECTIVE
Subject: Ripley Review
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2000
From: Harry Bleattler hrbiv@email.msn.com
Some thoughts on the brilliant and disturbing "Talented Mr. Ripley." The movie is well cast and I applaud Matt Damon's willingness to take on such a complex and risky (career-wise) role. The movie is rife with themes of narcissism, identity crisis, gender confusion as well as the living of life in the false self. On the surface, these issues seem to rest on the shoulders of Tom Ripley (Damon). But he is not the only tortured soul on the screen. Indeed, all of the central characters in the story, in one way or another, with these issues: Dickey is running away from responsibility and parental expectations by drowning himself in a hedonistic lifestyle; Marge is looking to Dickie for happiness despite his philandering and inability to emotionally connect with her on a regular basis; Freddie is an arrogant womanizer and drunk who is out to protect his small circle of American friends: the young, rich and indolent. Meredith seems to be a lost soul who craves connection to anyone other than her ever-present family. All of them, with the exception of perhaps Peter, are running from themselves. Tom, however, is the only one who resorts to murder in coming to grips with these issues.
I felt that the movie subtlety and tastefully dealt with the underlying homoerotic tension of Ripleys' character especially in his "co-dependent" attraction to Dickie. The issue, though, was not about sexuality--that was simply a surface manifestation of the deeper issues with which Ripley had to confront. But, as a I left the theater I thought, who among us has not felt the sting and pain of being attracted (platonically) to a charismatic figure, whether of the same or opposite sex, only to find that person out of reach, unable to connect with us where we need it. This is ultimately an issue that transcends sexuality: the desire to connect with another, particularly with one who seems to embody those attributes that we seemingly lack in our own selves. To what length would we go to have that friend?
The last scene in the movie is at once horrific and heartbreaking. It was no surprise to me to find out that the theme song of the movies was entitled, "The Song of Cain." This is not a movie about a sociopathic, homosexual killer, it is much more than that. I think that if we are honest we will all see a little of bit of ourselves in Tom Ripley.
Harry Bleattler
You can include my email address
RIPLEY IS A WASTE OF TIME
Subject: save yourself and wait for video
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2000
From: Norie
this movie was a waste of fine actors. matt damon has done some good movies in the past three years even though he doesn't have to stretch too far out of his normal twenty-something attractive single white male persona. in this film, however, he plays a psycho who the audience doesn't get to know at all. he is a mystery and he is sick. you can't even tell if he is a heterosexual or not, let alone why he does anything that he does. wow, this movie just had some scenes and some dialogue and then he started killing people and then the credits started to roll. i don't know if we needed to know that love and obsession were so powerful as to cause someone to go insane. i think that this movie is more of an example of how a person's world is completely wrapped up in self pleasure. everyone in this movie was just looking out for number one and it got old. it just depresses you and it makes you think that it would really suck to live a life like he did with no hope for always. this movie did not deal with any big pictures or world views (which, it doesn't always have to), so it should at least entertain, which, in my opinion, it did not.
-zac parsons
TOM RIPLEY IS A TROUBLED MAN
Subject: Saw it twice. Loved it twice.
Date: Sat, 1 Jan 2000
From: Kelly-Shane-Pickell
First off, happy new year! Second off, wow, what an amazing movie! Matt Damon was awesome (as always). Matt Damon was what drew me to the movie the first time. The plot twists, characters changes, and story line was what made me see it again two days later. It's a movie that leaves you thinking. It's not wrapped in a nice pretty package--but either is Tom Ripley. It all started from a lie; pretending to own a jacket that wasn't his. Funny how easily a lie can snowball. This movie shows us the trouble we can get into for not being honest about who we really are. It also shows us how dangerous one's temper can be. Tom Ripley falls in love and love is a very powerful force. When his crush begins to ignore him and hang with other friends, Ripley gets jealous. Funny how strong jealousy can be. His love, his jealousy, his emotions, they all overwhelm him, and he acts from his flesh, not thinking about what he's really doing. He does some bad things. He gets him self in a boat load of trouble. To counteract the sinking problems, Tom has to again be someone who he's not. And he's pretty convincing. Every time I would whisper "Why'd you just do that? You screwed up!" I learn that he knew what he was doing. He was a smart man. A talented man. A troubled man. A lost man. I don't understand the mind of Tom Ripley. I don't know why he did the things he did. I do feel sorry for him. And I feel sorry for those he bumped into. I wish things had turned out differently. I wish he had never lied. I with he would have been happy being who God created him to be. I don't care if he's gay or straight. I don't care if he's rich or poor. I just wish he would have been who God made him, instead of wrapping his life around so many lies. But at least it made for a very engaging movie.
- Kelly Pickell [kpickell@email.com] -=- http://www.gayvegan.com |
