#637: CLÉMENT, René: Purple Noon (1960)
CLÉMENT, René (France)
The Film
Purple Noon [1960]
Spine #637
Blu-ray
Blu-ray
Alain Delon was at his most impossibly beautiful when Purple Noon was released and made him an instant star. This ripe, colorful adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's vicious novel The Talented Mr. Ripley, directed by the versatile René Clement, stars Delon as Tom Ripley, a duplicitous American charmer in Rome on a mission to bring his privileged, devil-may-care acquaintance Philippe Greenleaf (Maurice Ronet) back to the United States. What initially seems a carefree tale of friendship soon morphs into a thrilling saga of seduction, identify theft, and murder. Featuring gorgeous location photography of coastal Italy, Purple Noon is crafted with a light touch that allows it to be at once suspenseful and erotic, and it gave Delon the role of a lifetime.
117 minutes
Color
Color
Monaural
in French
1:66:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2012
Director/Writers
Based on the book The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith.
Written by René Clément and Paul Gégauff.
Clément was 47 when he directed Purple Noon.
The Film
“Tom glanced behind him and saw the man coming out of the Green Cage, heading his way. Tom walked faster. There was no doubt the man was after him. Tom had noticed him five minutes ago, eyeing him carefully from a table, as if he weren’t quite sure, but almost. He had looked sure enough for Tom to down his drink in a hurry, pay and get out.”
So begins the unforgettable 1955 novel by Patricia Highsmith.
Clément does away with all this introductory stuff (the man looking for Tom is Mr. Greenleaf, of course …) and jumps right into the action — Tom has already wormed his way into Phillipe’s society.
**
Purple Noon is one heckuva film! Sun-drenched, with brilliant cinemtography (Henri Decaë), this is timeless cinema. (The restoration is so good, you could easily imagine the film was made yesterday!)
Delon was a find. Clément had seen him in Three Murderesses (1959) and saw the potential. Soon he was working for Visconti — with whom he made three films — and he became an international star.
The Japanese, in particular, were in love with him — and he plays a wonderful role in the underrated Terence Young film, Red Sun (1971), with Charles Bronson and Toshirô Mifune.
Leforêt was even more of a startling discovery — she had never acted before, and went to stardom for her pop singing, as well.
Ronet was the experienced actor; he was excellent in Louis Malle’s Elevator to the Gallows (1958) {Spine #335}.
**
Of all the artistic contributions to this film, the score by Nina Rota is perhaps the most subtle. Unlike his Fellini scores, this is a subdued piece of film music — still very Italian — but quite invisible, for the most part. At times, Clément brings the music down to its lowest possible tone. A gem of a score.
The introduction to the Marge character is a good example of Clément’s brilliant direction:
We see the Fra Angelico paintings, her notes of the manuscript she is writing, then her guitar — and Clément brings the camera close to frame just her gorgeous eyes. A magnificent introduction!
**
A note or two on the non-Criterion Anthony Minghella 1999 remake (The Talented Mr. Ripley), starring Matt Damon, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow.
As remakes go, this is a fine job. Minghella obviously didn’t feel constrained by details of either book or Clément’s earlier film.
Nevertheless, something is lost when he completely skips over important scenes, like Tom learning to imitate Greenleaf’s signature, and Philippe throwing Marge’s manuscript overboard …
Other differences include the scene where Tom is peeping into the cabin where Marge and Phillipe are making love; in Clément’s version he is alone; in Minghella’s he is observed by Freddy (Philip Seymour Hoffman)
**
As far as sound design goes (not acknowledged as early as 1960 as a primary element of great filmmaking, as a rule), Clément deserves a lot of credit for the attention he gives it — check out the scene, for example, right after the murder as Tom is alone and sailing into a storm … terrifying!
**
After Is Paris Burning? (1966) — a costly box-office failure — his career sputtered to a halt.
Thank goodness we have these two films in the Collection — both excellent films.
Film Rating (0-60):
The Booklet
Thirty-six page booklet featuring an essay by film critic Geoffrey O’Brien and excerpts from a 1981 interview with Clément.
57
The ExtrasThe Booklet
Thirty-six page booklet featuring an essay by film critic Geoffrey O’Brien and excerpts from a 1981 interview with Clément.
O’Brien:
“Purple Noon is the very opposite of film noir. No murky labyrinths here: all is apparently open and bright, inviting every variety of self-indulgence. Each frame filled by Henri Decaë’s astonishing cinematography is a place that begs to be entered and savored. The color values are almost too beautiful to be endured, especially since we sense that they are not only beautiful but accurate, no Hollywood fantasy but the almost tangible textures of a world where texture still matters. This is a film that can hardly be watched without nagging waves of desire and envy — all the better to become complicit in the desires and envies of the murderous hero. By the end of the film, we do not simply understand Tom Ripley; we want what he wants.”
Clément:
“The film was entirely dubbed and nothing remains of the original sound. The Italian sound engineer, who was used to the local method of postsynchronizing every film, had made a recording just good enough for the edit. There was interference, background noise, people talking. Everything had to be redone here. So I hired a boom operator. In order to re-create the real audio perspectives, I had him run after the actors as they went off in every direction. I remember Delon and Ronet chasing each other around the auditorium jumping over a piano to get the right breathing the inflections, I was asking for. So Purple Noon is not truly a dubbed film; you can’t tell.
Commentary
None.
New interview
None.
New interview
With Clément scholar and author Denitza Bantcheva.
“Clément was sent to Cocteau by Henri Alekan to serve as a technical adviser on Beauty and the Beast (1946) [Spine #6]. Beauty was Cocteau’s first feature film. He lacked experience and in some way, lacked skill as far as feature film directing was concerned. Filming began without a technical adviser, and Alekan realized that Cocteau was having a lot of trouble and advised him to hire the young René Clément as an adviser. At that stage, Cocteau knew absolutely nothing about René Clément — at most that he was someone who’d directed documentaries and who was a virtuoso. During the shooting of Beauty, Réne Clément showed him a first cut of The Battle of the Rails (1946), and Cocteau was amazed, declaring in public ‘I didn’t know my adviser was a great director.’”
Archival interviewsWith actor Delon and novelist Highsmith.
Delon discusses how was discovered fresh out of the army — knew nothing about acting — but when others, like Clément, saw his potential — he immersed himself in the profession.
Highsmith is interviewed in her French country home and of all the film adaptations of her work, seems most satisfied with what Hitchcock did with Strangers on a.Train (1951).
Original English-language trailer
Original English-language trailer
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