Closet logic
March 23, 2024 2:20 AM Subscribe
"I could watch Carrie and her pig blood, Pam on a hook in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I didn’t mind Seth Brundle spouting wings and pus, Regan MacNeil going from twelve-year-old girl to devil spawn. But when Tom gets bolder, when he transforms, I found it hard to stomach. I didn’t watch the movie again for years. Conceiving of Tom as only a murderer—sociopathic, obsessed platonically—I could ignore how queer he really is." from My Funny Valentine, an essay about The Talented Mr Ripley and realization by Michael Colbert
Looking back on it, I'm not surprised--the second gay love affair that turns to murder is an add on. In the book it's clear that he's obsessed with Dickie and if you're grown, you know it's at least partly sexual, but there's no implication that the punishment for Dickie's murder is that Ripley now has to murder every fling he has. The movie has more of that tragic gay vibe.
posted by kingdead at 5:30 AM on March 23 [3 favorites]
posted by kingdead at 5:30 AM on March 23 [3 favorites]
One of the great things about this essay is how well it communicates being bright but young, queer but closeted, in that moment full of potential but a potential smothered beneath a small lifetime of thwarted desire. (And of course one of the 'young' parts is, guy, did you realize it was a book? did you read the book before you launched into your essay?) These days the Ripley I feel closest to is the grouchy aging John Malkovitch one. He should come back in 20 years and write an essay on that one!
posted by mittens at 9:11 AM on March 23 [7 favorites]
posted by mittens at 9:11 AM on March 23 [7 favorites]
The Talented Mr Ripley is one of my favourite movies - I'm a sucker for stories about someone on the outside being brought by chance into a world they would never otherwise have had entry to.
The TV adaptations of Brideshead Revisited and The Jewel In The Crown (from Paul Scott's Raj Quartet) are sublime examples, They were both made in the 1980s, and, faithful to the original novels, were as circumspect as the times in which they were set required them to be about the homosexuality which was the undercurrent of both stories.
In the Ripley movie, I always thought Freddie (Philip Seymour Hoffman - in a small, but superb and pivotal-to-the-plot performance) was also attracted to Dickie, which is why he saw through Tom's attention/intentions immediately. Peter was killed because he was the only person on the ship who knew Tom was Tom and not Dickie and it would have been impossible to conceal it on the journey. Tom had to choose love or death - not Peter's death, but his, if he'd been caught.
posted by essexjan at 10:30 AM on March 23 [6 favorites]
The TV adaptations of Brideshead Revisited and The Jewel In The Crown (from Paul Scott's Raj Quartet) are sublime examples, They were both made in the 1980s, and, faithful to the original novels, were as circumspect as the times in which they were set required them to be about the homosexuality which was the undercurrent of both stories.
In the Ripley movie, I always thought Freddie (Philip Seymour Hoffman - in a small, but superb and pivotal-to-the-plot performance) was also attracted to Dickie, which is why he saw through Tom's attention/intentions immediately. Peter was killed because he was the only person on the ship who knew Tom was Tom and not Dickie and it would have been impossible to conceal it on the journey. Tom had to choose love or death - not Peter's death, but his, if he'd been caught.
posted by essexjan at 10:30 AM on March 23 [6 favorites]
Great essay. I bounced off the book in a way that I didn't with the movie. Book Tom, if I'm remembering my objections correctly - it's been decades -, was far more monstrous and amoral. Less approachably human. That was a quality of a lot of Highsmith's stories for me. Beautifully written people in a cruel and cold world that I don't want to spend a minute with. (And I think you'd have to be stone cold dead not to get all the barely subtext text in the stories)
Movie Tom felt decidedly more human, more approachable and in a way, more pathetically so. Less amoral and more greedy grasping. Maybe because of Damon's natural charisma, but I found I could spend more time with his Tom and empathize with him more. Plus, let's face it... beautiful people in beautiful places in beautiful clothes living a beautifully sad and empty lifestyle we could fantasize about.
posted by drewbage1847 at 11:54 AM on March 23 [1 favorite]
Movie Tom felt decidedly more human, more approachable and in a way, more pathetically so. Less amoral and more greedy grasping. Maybe because of Damon's natural charisma, but I found I could spend more time with his Tom and empathize with him more. Plus, let's face it... beautiful people in beautiful places in beautiful clothes living a beautifully sad and empty lifestyle we could fantasize about.
posted by drewbage1847 at 11:54 AM on March 23 [1 favorite]
This is a great essay. I also came across Ripley in my twenties, and remember uncomfortably identifying with Damon's Ripley. I have both the film and the soundtrack around somewhere. Highsmith's Ripley is a different sort of person - and perfectly successful. By the second book in the series he has an extremely comfortable life that is only rarely disrupted by novels.
I've read a decent number of Patricia Highsmith's novels, and she seems utterly uninterested in justice - bad things happen to her characters, but they aren't punished for doing bad things. (Sometimes they're punished for no particular reason, and then do bad things. Her books feel off-kilter, when you're used to novels where people get what they deserve.)
Which makes adaptations of The Talented Mr. Ripley interesting, because they generally do not want Tom Ripley to end up free and rich and happy. Netflix is remaking it as a series starting next month, and I'm looking forward to seeing what Ripley is like in 2024.
posted by mersen at 6:52 PM on March 23 [4 favorites]
I've read a decent number of Patricia Highsmith's novels, and she seems utterly uninterested in justice - bad things happen to her characters, but they aren't punished for doing bad things. (Sometimes they're punished for no particular reason, and then do bad things. Her books feel off-kilter, when you're used to novels where people get what they deserve.)
Which makes adaptations of The Talented Mr. Ripley interesting, because they generally do not want Tom Ripley to end up free and rich and happy. Netflix is remaking it as a series starting next month, and I'm looking forward to seeing what Ripley is like in 2024.
posted by mersen at 6:52 PM on March 23 [4 favorites]
I was introduced to Highsmith by the Ripley adaptation featuring Alain Delon -- `Purple Noon`. A wonderful movie! Dark, with a lot of silence and menace. Overall it cheeses a bit, some of it feels "Alfred Hitchcock TV movie", but I'm fine with that.
I love Highsmith's dark somewhat alien viewpoint, I've read a number of her works. Highly recommended.
posted by shavenwarthog at 1:20 PM on March 24
I love Highsmith's dark somewhat alien viewpoint, I've read a number of her works. Highly recommended.
posted by shavenwarthog at 1:20 PM on March 24
"I would rather be a fake somebody than a real nobody" is the big line from the movie, but for those with the honesty and courage to go into the subtext there is so much more to the story. Brilliant essay. (Great title too.)
posted by blue shadows at 12:17 AM on March 26
posted by blue shadows at 12:17 AM on March 26
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posted by augustimagination at 2:48 AM on March 23 [2 favorites]