637 Purple Noon

Discuss releases by Criterion and the films on them. Threads may contain spoilers!
Message
Author
User avatar
Gregory
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 4:07 pm

Re: 637 Purple Noon

#26 Post by Gregory » Tue Nov 27, 2012 4:59 pm

Excerpt from TimeOut Film Guide wrote:Delon's determined chill aside, there's much to enjoy: a narrative stitched together with old school expertise; vivid marine camerawork by Henri Decaë; a startling rinky-dink piano score by Nino Rota.
Pfffft, for one thing, the Rota score is gorgeous and features a variety of instrumental voices, themes, and moods. It's one of the main reasons I bought this.

User avatar
ptatler
Joined: Mon Nov 24, 2008 2:08 pm
Contact:

Re: 637 Purple Noon

#27 Post by ptatler » Wed Dec 12, 2012 10:34 pm

I wrote it up over at my blog. It's even better than I remembered it.

peerpee
not perpee
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 3:41 pm

Re: 637 Purple Noon

#28 Post by peerpee » Thu Dec 13, 2012 12:20 am

A cracking film and disc. Fans of Hitchcock and Polanski will adore it.

Blu-ray transfer made from the original camera negative!

Great 1971 interview with Patricia Highsmith too. Geoffrey O'Brien's essay in the booklet articulated brilliantly (and better than I could) a lot of the things I felt after seeing the film. I loved it.

User avatar
Fred Holywell
Joined: Thu Jun 10, 2010 11:45 pm

Re: 637 Purple Noon

#29 Post by Fred Holywell » Thu Dec 20, 2012 11:20 pm

Just watched this on DVD; nice upgrade from the Miramax edition, with some very good supplements (Where'd they find that trailer; was it ever released as "The Talented Mr. Ripley"?) A commentary would have made it perfect.

BTW, read that Maurice Ronet (Philippe Greenleaf) was the husband (some sources say 'partner') of Charlie Chaplin's daughter Josephine, an actress, who appears in Pasolini's "Canterbury Tales". They were together for the last six years of his life (he died of cancer in 1983), and had a son, Julien.
Last edited by Fred Holywell on Fri Apr 26, 2013 3:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
perkizitore
Joined: Thu Jul 10, 2008 3:29 pm
Location: OOP is the only answer

Re: 637 Purple Noon

#30 Post by perkizitore » Fri Apr 12, 2013 1:24 pm

Is this licensed from Studio Canal?

User avatar
cdnchris
Site Admin
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 2:45 pm
Location: Washington
Contact:

Re: 637 Purple Noon

#31 Post by cdnchris » Fri Apr 12, 2013 2:12 pm

Plaza Productions is the licensor.

You can see licensors here.

User avatar
tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: 637 Purple Noon

#32 Post by tenia » Mon Aug 12, 2013 1:34 pm

Ecran Large posted an update of the French Plein Soleil BD from SC : http://www.ecranlarge.com/dvd_review-list-16375.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
They have been able to screen the French BD VS the French DCP VS the Criterion BD in a theater (owned by Carlotta, so that's really the editors playing the game :o ).

The French DCP is equivalent to the French SC BD minus a logical lower resolution and a slight "veil" impacting the contrast.

Royhati
Joined: Tue Sep 05, 2017 2:07 am

Re: 637 Purple Noon

#33 Post by Royhati » Tue Sep 05, 2017 2:52 am

Tommaso wrote:You're right, but for instance the UK title "Blazing Sun" is at least a close translation of the original and would have identified the film a little bit better to international audiences, who might be a little at a loss with the American one. I mean, CC didn't translate a certain Melville film as "The terrible children", either.
What would be the typical translation of "plein soleil" in other contexts? I took it as "in broad daylight," but my French isn't very good.

Royhati
Joined: Tue Sep 05, 2017 2:07 am

Re: 637 Purple Noon

#34 Post by Royhati » Tue Sep 05, 2017 3:26 am

I just watched Plein Soleil for the first time the other day. I've never read the novel.
I enjoyed Plein Soleil quite a bit, but not as much as Minghella's The Talented Mr. Ripley, which, in my opinion, is a masterpiece.

Of course, it's hard not to compare the two films.
One thing that really surprised me was how closely Jude Law (who played Dickie Greenleaf in Minghella's version) physically resembled Maurice Ronet, whom I had never heard of before watching this film. I wonder how much that resemblance figured into Law's been cast in the part. He had always just seemed perfect for the role for his own part; but seeing the resemblance just made him seem even more perfect for it.

One of my favorite scenes in either film is the scene in which Greenleaf takes Ripley to a nighclub, where Greenleaf gets on stage and sings Tu vuo' fa l'Americano with the band. The scene really helps flesh out Greenleaf's character--and his relationship with Ripley, plus it's just a lof of fun. There's nothing like that in the Clément version, other than the scene early in the film of the two of them pretending to be blind and picking up a rich young woman late at night.

Then there's Philip Seymour Hoffman. Again, for someone who had not read the novel or seen any of the other films, he seemed perfect for the role. Yet after seeing the character as portrayed in Plein Soleil, he seemed an even better choice than I had thought before. Hoffman had the physical bulk of Billy Kearns (who played Freddy Miles in Plein Soleil), but was the far superior, more realistic actor. The scene between Hoffman and Matt Damon, when the oafish/thuggish Freddy confronts Ripley in the hotel room, is one of the standout scenes in the film. Kearns' performance was one of the weakest links in Plein Soleil--he just didn't seem credible; was just a poorly-acted caricature of a rich, oafish American.

Minghella's version completely dispensed with the ballet school, which is for the best. I'm not even sure what those scenes were supposed to be contributing in Clément's version. A carryover from the novel?

Both Damon and Delon were great for Ripley, although I give the edge to Damon. But I do think he had a better-written part to work with.

Clément's version wins in terms of the score. I had no idea before watching the film that Nino Rota had contributed.

Minghella's version is also blessed with the contributions of Cate Blanchett and Gwyneth Paltrow, both of whom I thought were wonderful in the film. Clément's version has just Marie LaForêt as Greenleaf's girlfriend. I don't know whether she was a particularly famous or beloved actor in France back in the day--she seemed just adequate for the role.

Although there were a lot of things that I preferred in the Minghella version, I do have to give the nod to Clément's version for the superior ending. Someone posted here that it seemed to have just been tacked on. To me, it seemed just about perfect. The ending in Minghella's version was one of the weaker parts of that otherwise-excellent production. A bit too melodramatic for me.

User avatar
Fandango
Joined: Thu Apr 29, 2021 12:09 am

Re: 637 Purple Noon

#35 Post by Fandango » Sat May 01, 2021 10:27 pm

Patricia Highsmith’s Talented Mr. Ripley contains all of the qualities of a fascinating character study. It is a novel that takes care not to admonish Tom for his pathological yearning, aiming instead to absorb the reader into its world, making them volitionally complicit in Ripley’s murderous desires and envies.

While Minghella’s adaptation remained true to certain elements of the novel, such as Tom’s subtle yet apparent homosexuality, Clément presented Tom as heterosexual. In the novel, Tom sees Marge as an encumbrance, yet in Purple Noon, she becomes an object of desire.

Clément’s adaptation of Highsmith’s novel is, through and through, American in every sense of the word. What we see is that Purple Noon is undoubtedly a beautiful film, encapsulating the culmination of America’s soul, with all of its signification. It is a film that captured the postwar American meridian. The audience may indubitably view the film and hearken back to the “civilizational peak” of America, disregarding that it was during this period that materialism and self-actualization were considered the highest goals of life.

Tom Ripley embodies this postwar American maxim, completely solidified through Delon's beauty and further bulwarked by his perennial yearning toward material prosperity—absent morality. Set against the backdrop of an untainted Italian paradise; its virgin-like qualities perfectly align with Protestant and Catholic virtues. The idealism here is second-to-none, and the film's aesthetic intentionally brings about feelings of equanimity, lust, and pining. In every sense of the word, Purple Noon is categorically and unequivocally materialistic. The characters are not guided by a compass of religious morality or notions of labor as virtue, but by an insatiable hankering of temporal pleasure.

In film noir, shades of grey, dark shadows, and low and Dutch angles augment seediness and immorality in the narrative; yet despite the contents of the film, Purple Noon is ubiquitously baked in sunlight. There are no “murky labyrinths” or confined spaces; all is open and colorful, inviting the viewer to enter and savior what is shown on screen. The film is saturated with affluence and opulence: color values, textures, location, wardrobe, and even Delon, the perfect distillation of Protestant beauty and values. Clément bombards the viewer with lavish landscapes of Italy, accentuating a beauty that is seemingly vast and abundant. Italy itself is presented as “underpopulated and unpolluted, a paradise for footloose Americans” (O’Brien, 2012).

At moments throughout the film, the audience can feel some compassion for Tom as an individual whose poverty is as circumstantial as the wealth of Dickie. In his relentless pursuit for the very best that life has to offer, the audience begins to feel that the only thing that will justify Tom’s choice in murdering Dickie, is success itself.

Clément’s adaptation of the novel takes some liberty with its ending, perhaps understandably so given the time it was made, but despite this, there is still a moment of triumph as Tom Ripley lolls in the sunlight, even as he approaches his impending end. The cinematography here is superlative, emphasizing the visceral summer heat, as if the ambient temperature were melting away the facade of civility and revealing the narcissistic firmament beneath.

In regards to the message, one cannot help but take away Geoffrey O'Brien's remarks about the film, where he wrote, "you really can have whatever you want, as long as you’re willing to kill people and are clever enough to cover up your crimes."

trobrianders
Joined: Sat Mar 02, 2019 10:18 pm

Re: 637 Purple Noon

#36 Post by trobrianders » Wed Feb 02, 2022 10:35 am

Just recently bought Les Felins on Blu-ray, Clement's follow-up to Plein Soleil also starring Delon along with Jane Fonda doing her French thing (there's an extended interview in French with Fonda from around that time on Youtube that's interesting). Les Felins is released by Gaumont and has original English audio or French audio (Fonda handled French well). Watched both back to back which I'd recommend doing. Plein Soleil is definitely the better film though.

User avatar
Matt
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:58 pm

Re: 637 Purple Noon

#37 Post by Matt » Wed Feb 02, 2022 3:15 pm

Les Felins AKA Joy House AKA The Love Cage - from your description, I was sure I had seen this and it wasn't until I looked it up and saw the VHS box that I was certain. It's been a very long time since I've seen it, but of course both Fonda and Delon are at the peak of their beauty here (photographed in luminous B&W scope by Henri Decaë). I remember it as quite a ridiculous story, but not out of keeping with many other '60s French crime films.

trobrianders
Joined: Sat Mar 02, 2019 10:18 pm

Re: 637 Purple Noon

#38 Post by trobrianders » Thu Feb 03, 2022 12:42 pm

Matt wrote:
Wed Feb 02, 2022 3:15 pm
Les Felins AKA Joy House AKA The Love Cage - from your description, I was sure I had seen this and it wasn't until I looked it up and saw the VHS box that I was certain. It's been a very long time since I've seen it, but of course both Fonda and Delon are at the peak of their beauty here (photographed in luminous B&W scope by Henri Decaë). I remember it as quite a ridiculous story, but not out of keeping with many other '60s French crime films.
It is ridiculous when taken literally but as a story of women going to lengths to keep a man in place, first the lady of the house and then her protogee, it's relatable.

Post Reply