The new Netflix adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley is brilliantly filmed in black and white. This is a meticulously constructed film and watching it shot by shot is a profound pleasure.
Maurizio Lombardi/Netflix
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Maurizio Lombardi/Netflix
The new Netflix adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley is brilliantly filmed in black and white. This is a meticulously constructed film and watching it shot by shot is a profound pleasure.
Maurizio Lombardi/Netflix
I was happy I didn’t know much about the Netflix series Ripley before looking at it. I had vaguely heard that there was a new adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel The Talented Mr. Ripleywhich has been adapted before, perhaps most famously in the 1999 film of the same name. But I had forgotten that the main character, Tom Ripley, would be played by Andrew Scott, who I loved across the board , Since Flea bag (so sexy!) Black mirror (very strange!). And I hadn’t heard it was in black and white.
It really is a brilliant idea, especially since this 1999 film adaptation, directed by Anthony Minghella, is so popular. And it’s loved in part because of its rich, luscious, sun-kissed color palette. Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow as Dickie and Marge shine gloriously on the Italian beach. The jazz club where Tom takes the stage for that feverish rendition of “Tu Vuo’ Fa L’Americano” – the moment when Tom becomes briefly, perfectly happy, and thus the moment that probably sets the rest of the tragedy in motion – shines with red and blue light. And even when Dickie finds himself in that little boat with Tom, he begins the scene lying down, with the sun shining on his face and warming his ankles, exposed by his rolled-up wrists.
Perhaps not for this reason, but nevertheless for its greater benefit, Ripley pull hard in the opposite direction. It is an icy noir film, where deep shadows land in the hollows of the cheekbones and where the light is sculpted into blocks by bars and blinds. Scott’s eyes aren’t just dark; they look like onyx beads. This is fitting, because this version of Tom is not the kid who never wanted to find himself in a terrible situation and who could have lived a perfectly normal life if not for his collision with Dickie’s father, who believes Tom is something it is not. This version of Tom is a pure con artist from the first frames, running small scams to rip people off for a little bit of money at a time, largely specifically by pretending to be someone he’s not. is not.
Stephen Zaillian, the writer and director, and Robert Elswit, the cinematographer, are both Academy Award winners. Zaillian won for writing Schindler’s List; Elswit won for cinematography on There will be blood. (Elswit was also the cinematographer of Michael Claytonwhich is perhaps the most direct comparison, not with the particular appearance of Ripleybut to its impeccable tension and terror.) They collaborate here and create a meticulously constructed film that references noir classics and Hitchcock as well as the greats of Italian cinema, and just watching it shot by shot is a deep pleasure.
Andrew Scott as Tom Ripley.
Philippe Antonello/Netflix
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Philippe Antonello/Netflix
I read a comment the other day that said there was no reason to do anything in black and white now that color exists. Nothing, this commentary asserts, was ever better in black and white than it would have been in color – black and white was used out of necessity, and using it by choice is an affectation. But this is obviously extremely stupid. Black and white photography, perhaps because it has become so rare in television and film that it positions a piece in relation to particular immovable cultural artifacts. If The Talented Mr. Ripley makes you think of Hitchcock’s vibrant mid-century Technicolor, Ripley will perhaps invoke Psychology instead. It also asks different things of the viewer. For people accustomed to looking in color, this shifts the focus from visuals of color to shapes and light.
But more fundamentally, the fact that an “advance” is more rigorously representative of reality does not make it artistically superior. Yes, the real world is in color for most people. But the real world also unfolds in real time, which doesn’t make editing an unfortunate compromise. Reality is full of boring and mediocre things; fiction is not intended to copy it precisely. Color photography can be done well or poorly, thoughtfully or carelessly. Black and white are the same. There is an interaction between light and architecture in Ripley, for example, it wouldn’t be as effective in color. What’s more, this is a story of appalling violence, and a scene of violence that dispenses with red blood that has been used and overused to the point of numbing is no less brutal. It just shifts the focus to other things – in this case, very often, it’s the logistics of handling corpses and murder scenes.
In the very first scene you will see Ripley, Tom moves a body down a staircase. If the scene were in color, she might be overwhelmed by the sight of blood. In black and white, it is dominated by the thump-boom-boom, and by the sickening relaxation of uncontrolled body limbs. Color would not enhance the dark corners of the story; it would actually turn them away.
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