Product: The American Friend [VHS] (1977)
Rating: 5.0
Never slight Mr Ripley - a horror film par excellence
The first chilling moment in this film is when relatively poor and struggling art framer and cultured European (Swiss) Bruno Ganz is introduced to art dealer American (Dennis Hopper)) Tom Ripley at an art auction, and refuses to shake his hand. From that moment, Mr Ganz is more or less doomed. One theme of this film is the clash between two cultures, or at least two attitudes to art, money versus art, the contempt each has for the other. Another theme is how thrilling it would be to kill anyone who makes a fool of us in public. From the moment of the slight, the doomed Mr Ganz is slowly brought to his end - the mis en scene becomes a horror show of ordinary things made threatening, seagulls, art frames he works on he starts bumping into, a television set which is off zaps him with static electricity when he touches it, he stumbles in to objects whilst waiting for a train, the doodling on a piano by a "medical student" gangster becomes an atonal nightmare. The moment when Mr Ganz breathes onto the finest piece of gold leaf we can see him realising the breath of life is so precious, but he's losing it and he knows it.A stunning cinematic experience. A masterpiece and perhaps the finest transformation of Ms Highsmith's many Ripley adaptations, notwithstanding Mr Hitchcock.