The American Friend (Wenders, 1977)

I find Tom Ripley, first Patricia Highsmith’s literary shape-shifter recently played with devastating results by Matt Damon and John Malkovitch, a fascinating and confounding character, a man who seamlessly morphs in identity as easily as he can strike a fatal blow with a lead pipe. The amazing part of Ripley’s transition to the big screen has to do with the way his representations have complicated such a morally loose villain. Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) with Damon and Liliana Cavani’s Ripley’s Game (2002) with Malkovitch, approach Ripley at different stages of his development. Damon’s incarnation, youthful, silent, looks for confidence in high society Italy while Malkovitch’s older, wiser, even deadlier Ripley seems to finally live by some sort of demented code. But both act violently when cornered, a trait which defines Ripley’s ability to survive.Which brings me to The American Friend, Wim Wender’s initial take on Highsmith’s Ripley’s Game some twenty-five years before Cavani’s. Casting Dennis Hopper as Ripley automatically differentiates Wender’s vision from the glossier, later films. Hopper’s gaze, one filled with instability, intrigue, and vagueness plays a wonderful foil to Bruno Ganz’s every-man picture framer, Jonathan Zimmerman. Wenders pits American art dealer Ripley as the puppeteer and German Zimmernman, supposedly dying of a rare blood disease as his puppet. Ripley, who owes a French gangster a favor, uses Zimmerman’s mortal paranoia as leverage toward assassinating two rival gangsters. Do the murders, and your family will be set up for life after you’re gone.Wender’s uses Hopper perfectly, the sly fox smile, the swift death blows, the manipulation of weaknesses, all play into the narrative with disturbing ease. THe quickness with which Zimmerman’s moral dilemma diminishes only adds to Ripley’s fascination with his friendship. The American Friend plays on this aspect much more than the other films. Ripley feels regret at getting Zimmerman involved, but not enough to try and change the violent path that awaits both of them. Ripley’s cold, lifeless eyes give Zimmerman confidence, a foreign feeling of control over his life he has never felt before, a beacon of support to pull the trigger. Wender’s compliments all of this tension with his patented stunning Robby Muller visuals, cramped interior spaces of dense texture contrasted with open arena’s of cloudy industry (New York, Hamburg, Paris). The American Friend churns and burns with relationships based on desperation; for friendship, for peace, for certainty, and after all the agony of not knowing who you are or why you are here, for death. One trait does bind all three Ripley’s; his survival skills rival that of the cockroach.P.S. Props for using two master directors, Sam Fuller and Nicholas Ray in bit parts. Awesome grizzle!