By M. Keith Booker.
Many aspects of Zaillian’s series, both thematic and visual, make it an almost perfect example of neo-noir. Yet, in other ways, Ripley goes beyond the original noir cycle in ways that are reminiscent of the best revisionary noir films.”
In my new book American Noir Film: From The Maltese Falcon to Gone Girl I suggest a model of noir history that includes three basic types of noir films. I use the standard term “film noir” to indicate the original cycle of noir films that appeared roughly between 1941 and the beginning of the 1960s. I use the term “neo-noir” to indicate the new cyle of noir films that began to appear in the early 1960s, that reached full force with Chinatown in 1973, and that is still very much with us today. I understand neo-noir much in the way it was understood by the late, great Fredric Jameson, who famously saw it as an example of postmodern “pastiche,” drawing upon film noir in nostalgic ways that do not critically engage with the premises of film noir and that does not, therefore, encourage us to re-consider the ways we view the original noir cycle. Finally, I introduce the term “revisionary noir” to indicate recent films (mostly in the twenty-first century but with some earlier examples) that go beyond the “blank” pastiche of neo-noir, engaging in critical dialogues with the original noir films in ways that actively encourage us to re-examine those films from a fresh critical perspective. I might note, however, that I still regard revisionary noir as postmodern—but as perhaps marking the beginnings of the emergence of the more active “political form of postmodernism” that Jameson also imagined might someday appear (Jameson 54).
In the book I discuss a number (twenty-one, to be precise) of individual films in detail in their own chapters. I did not have, however, an opportunity to discuss the Netflix limited series Ripley (Netflix, 2024), though I regard this series as unusually interesting, both in its own right and in the way it usefully complicates my historical model. Many aspects of this series, both thematic and visual, make it an almost perfect example of neo-noir. Yet, in other ways, Ripley goes beyond the original noir cycle in ways that are reminiscent of the best revisionary noir films. It is, in short, a liminal case that provides an excellent reminder that such categorical models of complex cultural phenomena are always simplifications that are intended for heuristic purposes but should not be applied too rigidly or taken too literally.
Ripley, written and directed by Steven Zaillian (who won a Primetime Emmy for his direction), gets off to a very fast beginning. The first episode begins with a black screen as we hear a clock ticking ominously in the background. Then follows a series of shots of vintage clocks, ticking and chiming away like reminders of the limited nature of the time that has been given to us, like intimations of mortality. Then we hear the sound of a tolling bell (ask not for whom it tolls), moving into an astonishing series of still shots of Rome (specified via on-screen text to be in 1961), emphasizing classic statuary that is made to appear a bit grotesque by the strikingly bright noir lighting in a dark nighttime setting. The episode then immediately shows us one person the bell tolls for as it cuts to a shot of what appears (especially if one is accustomed to the cues of noir) to be a corpse lying on a floor, though showing only its legs and shoes, with the focus on the shoes. The episode then proceeds to a sort of match cut as we switch to another man’s legs and feet as he puts on his shoes. We then see a striking Expressionist shot looking up into a baroque staircase that winds its way down through what appears to be a very old building, the shaft of an antique cage elevator (it’s broken, of course) running up through the center of the staircase. We also see a cat, emphasized with noir lighting that recalls those earlier statues, followed by a sequence in which an unidentified man drags a body down those stairs. The cat looks on, judgmentally, while the shadow of the man dragging the corpse seems reminiscent of the iconic Expressionist shot of Nosferatu going up stairs accompanied by his stark shadow. At one key moment, though, the shadow morphs into the shape of a shadow cat, while the actual cat (who will turn out to be a highlight of the series) looks on. This opening sequence then ends as the screen goes black. Roy Orbison’s 1963 classic In Dreams plays on what seems to be the soundtrack, perhaps reminding at least some viewers of David Lynch’s 1986 neo-noir classic Blue Velvet, in which the song is lip-synched to great effect by the suave fucker Ben (Dean Stockwell), in a scene that jibes perfectly with the oneiric character of so much of Blue Velvet. We soon see, though, that the song is actually playing (six months earlier than the opening Rome sequence) on a vintage Silvertone transistor radio as the man we will soon learn to be Ripley (Andrew Scott) listens while lying on the bed in his seedy New York City apartment.
All of the above occurs in roughly two minutes of runtime, and the context of these opening shots is entirely unclear. But these two minutes are enough to alert fans of noir that they are in for something special. For one thing, have already seen some very striking black-and-white noir visuals, alerting us to be on the lookout for what will be a virtually nonstop sequence of such visuals, numerous frames carefully composed to look like they might be paintings (thus reinforcing the theme of painting and art that runs throughout the series). In addition, we have also been alerted that we are in the thematic world of noir, of squalor and corruption and death, punctuated by sudden moments of poignant beauty, as well as downright weirdness and possible sudden surprises.
Incidentally, the context of these opening moments is explained in the crucial fifth episode of Ripley, whichis entitled “Lucio,” a common Italian name derived from the word for “light,” which certainly seems appropriate for an episode (and a series) in which lighting is so central. This episode also features the series’ most extensive use of that striking cat, whose name is revealed also to be “Lucio,” so that the episode is apparently actually named for the cat—though the cat might itself have been named for the striking illumination it consistently receives in the series. In any case, the “Lucio” episode repeats the body-dragging sequence of the opening minutes, but this time providing context revealing that Ripley has murdered one Freddie Miles (Eliot Sumner) and is now dragging his body down the stairs. Among other things, this murder is important because it is Ripley’s second one of the series, thus indicating that his earlier killing of Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn) was not simply an impulsive, one-time crime of passion but might instead have been a first indicator of Ripley’s murderous proclivities.
That Ripley is infused with the spirit of noir is no surprise, given that it is an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 novel The Talented Mr. Ripley, itself a virtual embodiment of the spirit of noir in fiction. What is perhaps surprising is how well this series embodies the spirit of noir, making it the best of several adaptations of this novel, including much-admired feature films such as René Clément’s Purple Noon (1960, featuring Alain Delon in a star-making performance as Ripley), and Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999, starring Matt Damon as an especially boyish Ripley). What sets Ripley apart from these predecessors is not just that it is an eight-hour series and can thus include more material from the novel than can a single feature film. Ripley also exceeds all other adaptations of Highsmith’s novel in that it probes further into some of the more controversial implications of the novel than do any of its predecessors. In this sense, one might say that Ripley is the most noir of all the adaptations, especially in its glorious, black-and-white cinematography, which is so much more representative of noir than earlier (color) films.
For explanatory convenience, I discuss three different subsets of noir films in American Noir Film, though these subsets are in no way intended to encompass all noir films. These subsets include films dominated by detectives and detection, films featuring a “lost man,” and films that center on women characters (typically the famed “femme fatale”). Ripley himself is an excellent example of what I characterize in my book as a noir lost man, a type of protagonist who is often more villain than hero. Noir lost men are sometimes downright psychotic, and they are quite typically weak, confused, and unsteady in comparison with the strong, capable protagonists that are typical of mainstream classic Hollywood films. Noir lost men are typically alienated from others and from the society around them, often to the point of suffering extreme psychic damage. Because of this damage, they can be sympathetic figures: despite their flaws, their failures can often be attributed largely to their victimization by the modern capitalist system and to the failure of the whole concept of the American Dream. This notion applies well to Ripley, who is in many ways the perfect embodiment of the consumerist subject, desperately driven by a fetishistic desire for things but unable ultimately to satisfy that desire.
If Ripley is a perfect example of the noir lost man, most of the plot elements of Ripley arealso classic noir. This plot involves con games, stolen identities, shocking murders, elaborate cover-ups, and a police investigation that seems to be closing in on the protagonist. Granted, the Italian setting of Ripley seems to depart from most classic noir, but this Italy is itself (despite all the beautiful buildings and art) hardly an idyllic, sun-drenched land of wonder. In the earlier adaptations, Italy seems altogether cleaner, newer, and brighter, but the Italy of Ripley is bristling with grifters and shady characters who would be very much at home in a classic noir film; its cafés function more like noir’s roadside diners than like sites for the discovery of romance, and its settings in general are run-down, dirty, and dangerous in ways that would be very much at home in classic noir.
When we first meet Ripley, his criminal inclinations are made entirely clear, but it is also clear that he is just a small time grifter, someone who has had some bad breaks (such as being orphaned at a young age) and who is just struggling to get by. He might ultimately be a man who isn’t fully there, but Scott’s portrayal of him helps us to understand why he is driven to do the things he does—and even to sympathize with him and root for him, just a little bit (especially as the police investigation seems to be closing in on him), which is not unusual for noir. Ripley’s actions, meanwhile, come nowhere near the soulless, perverse, psychotic murders of someone like Lou Ford of Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me (whose frank depiction, I argue in my book, pushed Michael Winterbottom’s 2010 film adaptation into revisionary noir). That Ripley ultimately seems to get away with his crimes, assuming still another new identity at the end of the series, preparing to depart Italy for some new adventures elsewhere, also goes beyond the typical noir ending, in which criminals tend to be punished for their crimes, no matter how sympathetic they might be. However, the ending of Ripley is true to the original novel; moreover, it differs from classic noir mostly because it is allowed to do so by the absence of the Production Code, so that this ending doesn’t really do much to make us re-examine the implications of the endings of classic noir.
Where Ripley comes closest to revisionary noir is probably in its portrayal of the title character’s uncertain sexuality. Despite his own protestations to the contrary in the original novel, many readers have believed that he is coded as gay there, an aspect that is played up in Minghella’s film but that is essentially eliminated in Purple Noon. As Richard Dyer has noted, “Some of the first widely available images of homosexuality in our time were those provided by the American film noir.” However, due to the Code and to widespread societal attitudes at the time, the images of homosexuality in the films of the original noir cycle were almost invariably negative, which might have made prevailing attitudes even worse. As Dyer goes on, “Given the dearth of alternative images, it is reasonable to suppose that these had an important influence on both public ideas about homosexuality and damagingly gay self-images.”
The visual element of this series is its strongest feature, yet I would argue that the visual aesthetic of Ripley, however stunningly effective it might be, functions more as an loving homage to the black-and-white aesthetics of the original noir cycle than as any sort of critical re-examination of noir visual aesthetics.”
Given that Ripley is a troubled killer, he would certainly seem to do very little to counter these negative gay images, though his prominent role in the series might at least call attention to the marginalized status of gay characters in classic noir. On the other hand, Ripley is not actually depicted as gay in the series but as something more complex and ambiguous. Ripley is played by Scott in a way Joy McEntee has described as making it impossible to decide whether he is fascinating and charismatic or just plain blank and charmless. In this sense, McEntee concludes, he is “just as Patricia Highsmith wrote him.” I might argue that Scott’s Ripley is even more of a cypher than Highsmith’s (mostly because the novel gives us more of a look inside Ripley’s thoughts), but uncertainty is key to both versions of the character, perhaps most obviously in terms of his sexuality.
Indeed, Zaillian and Scott go with the assessment by Marge Sherwood in the novel: “He may not be queer,” she writes to Dickie Greenleaf. “He’s just a nothing, which is worse. He isn’t normal enough to have any kind of sex life” (118). In the series, this air of uncertain sexuality is reinforced by other elements as well. Dickie’s sexuality is also a but hazy, for example, while his “girlfriend” Marge Sherwood (Dakota Fanning) consistently dresses in a rather masculine fashion. Meanwhile, the relationship between Dickie and Marge seems almost entirely lacking in heterosexual erotic energy. Most obviously, the series’ version of Freddie Miles, while possibly tending toward gay, is played by a nonbinary actor who gives the character a strongly ambiguous sexuality. One could argue, in fact, that the complex figuration of sexuality in Ripley goes far enough beyond anything in the original noir cycle that it asks us to re-examine the portrayal of sexuality in classic noir, which would push the series into revisionary noir territory, especially when it is compared with neo-noir films. One might compare, for example, the 1999 Minghella film, whose unambiguously gay Ripley only barely goes beyond classic noir and then only in ways that might be explained by the demise of the Code and thus do little to challenge the premises of classic noir.
Ultimately, though, what is most remarkable about Ripley has less to do with its characters and its overtly thematic material than with its mesmerizing black-and-white visuals. Shot by Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Elswit, these visuals are also quite clever in the way they carefully replicate the use of light and shadow in the original noir cycle, including the use of such iconic images as the “Venetian blind” pattern of parallel lines of shadow. The visual artistry of Ripley is also carefully synched with the series’ content. For one thing, the many striking noir shots of nighttime Italy brilliantly combine the beauty of Italy with an eerie Expressionist effect that is typical of noir. We are thus warned that this Italy might be a land of corruption and death, as well as art and sunshine. Many of the most beautiful shots in the series are themselves literally shots of works of art, as if to call attention to their own artistry. Yet these artworks often depict dark, noir-like material, while even the Picasso painting that functions in the series as an obscure object of Ripley’s desire suggests an air of corruption because of the hints (not present in the novel) that it might be a forgery.
One of the best examples of the interweaving of visuals and thematic content involves the frequent references to the Italian Renaissance painter Caravaggio that run throughout the series, including shots of a number of actual paintings by Caravaggio. We even see a number of “bonus” images of Caravaggio paintings late in the series as Ripley, having become fascinated with the painter, thumbs through an illustrated volume devoted to Caravaggio’s work. And Caravaggio (not mentioned in the novel) is a perfect choice for the series. For one thing, the painter himself was involved in a number of problematic activities (including a murder) in his own life that might be very much at home in noir. For another thing, the subject matter of his paintings involves a great deal of noir-like darkness and violence. Most importantly, though, the nature of Caravaggio’s paintings provides perfect support for the visual texture of Ripley. Caravaggio, after all, is primarily known for his striking use of patterns of light and shadows via a style that came to be known as “tenebrism” or “dramatic illumination,” which (for good reason) both sound like appropriate labels for the lighting aesthetic of Ripley—or of noir film in general.
By the end of the final episode, Ripley’s interest in Caravaggio has evolved into identification, and we are shown a series of intercuts between Ripley and the painter posed in similar positions, drinking wine and looking at art. This extremely effective technique makes clear that we are meant to compare Ripley with Caravaggio, reinforced by a shot in which Ripley lifts the head of the slain Freddie Miles by the hair in a clear allusion to the Caravaggio painting “David with the Head of Goliath,” which is itself featured in the film. It is left to us to decide, though, whether we think Ripley is consciously re-creating the painting or consciously thinking of himself as a sort of Caravaggio figure. (I say yes to both, but the series clearly leaves open the possibility that this comparison merely comes from Zaillian). It is also completely unclear whether viewers are to conclude from this comparison that Ripley and Caravaggio actually have a great deal in common (Ripley is, in the original novel, described as “talented,” after all) or whether we are to see the comparison (and possibly the title of the novel) as ironic and to conclude that Ripley, in fact, has none of the explosive talent of a true artist such as Caravaggio.
The visual element of this series is its strongest feature, yet I would argue that the visual aesthetic of Ripley, however stunningly effective it might be, functions more as an loving homage to the black-and-white aesthetics of the original noir cycle than as any sort of critical re-examination of noir visual aesthetics. The sheer beauty of the black-and-white cinematography of Ripley not only recalls classic noir but emphasizes its potential striking beauty. As a result, the strongest element of Ripley does not challenge classic noir at all but simply asks us to appreciate it more, reinforcing what we already know about noir and seriously limiting any revisionary energies that might be found in the content of the film. In short, the critical relationship between Ripley and classic noir goes beyond neo-noir in many ways, but Ripley is a textbook case of neo-noir in many other ways, especially in its black-and-white visuals. A series that depends so much on uncertainty and undecidability thus does not fit comfortably into either of the categories that I call “neo-noir” or “revisionary noir” in my book. Which is just as it should be.
Works Cited
Booker, M. Keith. American Noir Film: From The Maltese Falcon to Gone Girl. Rowman and Littlefield, 2024.
Dyer, Richard. “Homosexuality and Film Noir.” Jump Cut, no. 16, 1977, pp. 18-21. Accessed 22 September 2024.
Jameson, Fredric. Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Duke University Press, 1991.
McEntee, Joy. “Critics Can’t Decide if Andrew Scott’s Ripley Is Mesmerising or Charmless—Just as Patricia Highsmith Wrote Him.” The Conversation, 8 April 2024. Accessed 23 September 2024.
M. Keith Booker is the author or editor of over sixty books including Mad Men: A Cultural History (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), Tony Soprano’s America: Gangsters, Guns, and Money (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), Star Trek: A Cultural History (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018), and The Coen Brothers’ America (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019). He is professor of English at the University of Arkansas.