Purple Noon (1960) René Clément

Purple Noon (1960) René Clément  [1:57]

Criterion Collection Blu-ray and DVD

Spine #637

Purple Noon is a film that suffers only from it’s Americanized title. The French title, Plein Soleil (In Broad Sunlight) is more fitting. You just can’t help feeling a little exotic as you watch three carefree, beautiful people sailing a yacht along the Mediterranean underneath a sun that exposes the underlying evils and passions of human nature, the darkness and deceit that lie hidden, waiting for just the right moment to emerge. 

But I get ahead of myself. Purple Noon is an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s famous 1955 suspense novel The Talented Mr. Ripley. Most people are probably familiar with the more recent film version from 1999, The Talented Mr. Ripley, directed by Anthony Minghella, starring Matt Damon, Jude Law, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Gwyneth Paltrow. The 1999 version is a good film, but far less subtle in its handling of Highsmith’s material. Alain Delon (in only his third film) as Tom Ripley is mostly quiet, calculating, and unhesitatingly cold-blooded. And good-looking. Handsome has never been so dangerous. 

Ripley is in Italy, trying to persuade his friend Philippe Greenleaf (Maurice Ronet) to return to San Francisco where he can take over the family business. Philippe has no intention of doing so. Why should he, when he can sail the Mediterranean with his girlfriend Marge (Marie Laforêt) on his yacht? Ripley begins to grow envious of Philippe and plots how he could possibly steal Philippe’s money, woman, and lifestyle.

In his excellent essay from The Criterion Collection, Geoffrey O’Brien points out that Clément’s version is stylistically about as far away from film noir as you can get. Everything is bright, exposed and out in the open, laid out before the glaring sunlight, which makes Ripley’s crimes even more chilling. There’s no (or very little) effort to hide the darker desires of human nature as they emerge in Ripley. Ripley is slick, holding no regard for laws, rules, or even society’s conventions of right and wrong. Obviously he doesn’t want to get caught, but the fact that he flaunts his evils in the midst of such a well-illuminated, beautifully atmospheric landscape makes his brazen transgressions practically in-your-face. 

Purple Noon works as a character study, a thriller, an utterly fascinating examination of coveting, and as an example of gorgeous cinematography. This is an extraordinarily beautiful film, and I say that having only seen it streaming on my computer. (I can only imagine what the blu-ray must look like. Maybe I'm coveting it? Hmmm....) The film also proves that Alain Delon is far more than just a pretty face, giving a performance of Tom Ripley that’s filled with subtlety, depth, and of course, charisma. This is a must-see if not a must-own. 

(In French with English subtitles)

4.5/5