Purple Noon [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Director: Ren? Cl?ment, Raymond Hakim, Robert Hakim

Overview

Two wastrel Americans tool about Italy. The rich Ronet is merely nasty; the poverty-stricken Delon is a potential murderer. Though both men share the same girl (Marie Laforet), there is a subliminal theme of homosexual envy throughout. This is underlined when Delon tries on Ronet's clothes and decides he looks better in them--and that he'd be better off if he was Ronet. Originally released as Plein Soleil, Purple Noon was based on The Talented Mr. Ripley, a novel by Patricia Highsmith, the same writer responsible for Hitchcock's "doppelganger" classic Strangers on a Train.

Product Details

Release Date:	12/04/2012
UPC:	0715515090117
Original Release:	1960
Rating:	NR
Source:	Criterion
Region Code:	A
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono]
Language:	English
Time:	1:57:00
Sales rank:	11,268

Special Features

New Interview with Ren? Cl?ment scholar and author Denitza Bantcheva; Archival interviews with actor Alain Delon and novelist Patricia Highsmith, on whose book The Talented Mr. Ripley the film is based; ; Original English-language trailer; ; Plus: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Geoffrey O'Brien and excerpts from a 1981 interview with Cl?ment

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Alain Delon	Tom Ripley
Marie Lafor?t	Marge Duval
Maurice Ronet	Philippe Greenleaf
Erno Crisa	Inspector Riccordi
Elvire Popesco	Madame Popova
Frank Latimore	O'Brien
Bill Kearns	Freddy Miles,Freddy Miles
Ave Ninchi	Signora Gianna
Viviane Chantel	Actor
Nicolas Petrov	Boris
Nerio Bernardi	Actor
Lily Romanelli	Actor
Romy Schneider	Actor
Barbel Fanger	Mr. Greenleaf
Walter Grant	Bit
Marie Laforet	Actor
Jess Hahn	Actor
Nino Rota	Composer

Technical Credits

Ren? Cl?ment

Paul G?gauff

Patricia Highsmith

Ren? Cl?ment	Screenwriter
Paul G?gauff	Screenwriter
Robert Hakim	Producer,Producer
Patricia Highsmith	Screenwriter
Goffredo Lombardo	Producer
Jacques Carr?re	Sound Effects
Maurice R?my	Sound Effects

Editorial Reviews

In plot and tone, René Clément's Purple Noon is closer to the spirit of Patricia Highsmith than Anthony Minghella's high profile 1999 adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley. Where Minghella attempted to give the characters psychological motivation, Clement presents Tom Ripley has nothing other than a self-serving killer. Henri Decaë's cinematography is as pathologically removed from the action as Tom; the aristocratic Mediterranean backdrop is somehow flat and sickly unalluring. With an impassive eye and steady pace Ripley's crimes unfold with cold-blooded rational. This story telling deliberately wrecks havoc with the audience's sympathies. Tom is a villain but we can't help but identify with his attempts to avoid capture for his murder, and we are ruthlessly pushed and pulled between feeling anxiety for his safety and for the welfare of his potential victims. Alain Delon is both a blank slate and an eager young man on the make, like Tony Curtis' Sidney Falco with no qualms about making compromises because he has no morals to compromise. The film similarly refuses to take a moral stance on its characters. With her Ripley books, Highsmith deliberately played into the gothic frisson elicited by watching a monstrously bad deed go unpunished and Clement also understands the allure of a well-structured bit of entertainment that dares the audience to indulge their darkest instincts. In 1996, Purple Noon was theatrically re-released in the United States by Martin Scorsese in conjunction with Miramax Zoe.