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      Why Filmmakers Love to Adapt Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley

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      In the new series and in five previous movies, the character serves as a blank slate to examine the mores and concerns of the time.Tom Ripley’s background is always sketchy. Patricia Highsmith provides only a few rudimentary details in the first few chapters of “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” her 1955 novel that kicked off a series of five books about the elusive con artist. Tom lives in New York, in near-destitute circumstances. He has some friends — acquaintances, really — whom he hates, mentally labeling them “the riffraff, the vulgarians, the slobs.” He wants nothing more than to be rid of them, and after the first few chapters, he succeeds. He receives money from an aunt in Boston; she raised him after his parents drowned in the harbor there. He hates her, too.When we meet Tom, he has been committing check fraud through the mail, amassing payments in the amount of $1,863.14 that he does not plan to cash. The con job was, he thinks, “no more than a practical joke, really. Good clean sport.” He’ll destroy the checks before boarding the ship that will take him to Europe, where he’s tasked with hunting down Dickie Greenleaf, the scion of a shipbuilding mogul who’s been wasting time, and money, in Italy.The curious thing about these features of Tom Ripley’s life is that they add up to nothing. Highsmith structures them as telling details, the kinds of specifics that writers employ like shorthand to build a person in the reader’s mind. But in fact, we get very little from them, and at every turn our attempts to wrap our heads around this character are rebuffed. You might think Tom is a man of taste and talent, except he doesn’t exhibit any real taste, and the talent seems limited to a knack for forgery and impersonation. You might think he’s a malevolent mastermind seeking to bilk a wealthy family of their fortune, but he’s really just pathetic, far more concerned with making sure the Greenleafs view him as a man of their own social class. Unfortunately, he’s charmless.Tom is not particularly handsome, clever or well-connected. He’s just miserable, but he doesn’t have much in the way of plans, or goals, beyond getting away from where he is.This does not make Tom Ripley a screen-ready hero. He’s not even really a strong template for an antihero. But that has not stopped filmmakers from trying. Five films and now a Netflix series, starring a parade of alluring actors, have tried out various angles on the Ripley question. Who is this guy, really? A criminal? A climber? A sociopath? A thief?Alain Delon in “Purple Noon,” which offers a French existentialist take on the character.Criterion CollectionWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Rufus Sewell Plays a Gasping Prince Andrew in ‘Scoop’

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      In the feature “Scoop,” streaming on Netflix, Rufus Sewell plays the disgraced royal blundering through a 2019 BBC interview.Before filming started on “Scoop,” a Netflix feature about Prince Andrew’s notoriously misjudged 2019 interview on the BBC, the actor Rufus Sewell, who stars as the disgraced royal, turned up on set to shoot a few photographs that would appear in the background. Loaded with makeup and prosthetics, including false teeth and a feathery wig, Sewell felt leaden and self-conscious, he said, fearful that his impersonation would slip into parody.Then, he recalled, he sat down opposite an elderly man working as an extra. Had they worked together before, the man asked Sewell; he looked vaguely familiar. “No,” Sewell told him, “but obviously I wouldn’t have looked like this.” The man seemed confused, and was even more bewildered when Sewell explained, “This isn’t my real face.” The extra laughed: “What do you mean it’s not your face?”This interaction, though strange, was very helpful, Sewell said in a recent video interview. “I realized that it wasn’t about passing for Andrew,” he added. Instead, the man “hadn’t doubted for a second that I was a human — that I was a real person,” Sewell said. “That gave me a real freedom and a lease on life.”The right way of playing Prince Andrew, Sewell said, was in “the uncanny valley between me and him.”Eamonn M. Mccormack/Getty ImagesSewell’s performance as Prince Andrew, who is also known as the Duke of York, is impressive, not so much because of the resemblance (which is, at times, striking), but because he slyly channels the spirit of the man who so horrified the British public by seeming to justify his friendship with the financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.Sewell avoids the typical pitfalls of playing a real person as a broad, exaggerated impersonation. His duke is a spasm of nervous tics and shifty glances, of unctuous charm and feigned candor. Watching the journalist Emily Maitlis (an excellent Gillian Anderson) walk in to conduct the interview wearing pants, he gawks at her and shouts, “Trousers!” It feels true to the Prince Andrew the public knows, however little viewers may not believe what the character says.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Best True Crime to Stream: Scams, Schemes and Costly Lies

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      Four picks across television, film and podcast that depict the art of the con.There are so many true crime offerings dedicated to scams, frauds and con artists that it can be overwhelming. Many of these stories are astonishing and worthy of attention, whether the deceptions are financial, medical, romantic or otherwise. Often most surprising is how relatively painless it seems to lay such traps, and how many people, regardless of personal circumstances, take the bait.Here are four picks across television, film and podcast that stand out, all of which underscore what can unfold when a hunger for money, power or prestige is put above all else.Documentary Film“Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal”With college acceptance season upon us, it seems appropriate to revisit one of the most outrageous education scandals in recent years: a $25 million bribery scheme that prompted a federal investigation called Operation Varsity Blues. The mastermind behind it was William Singer, a basketball coach turned college admissions counselor who ran a criminal enterprise that opened a fraudulent path for wealthy people to have their children accepted by elite universities under the guise that they had earned entry based on academic and extracurricular excellence. Test scores were doctored, for example, and athletic credentials were fabricated in ludicrous ways.Dozens of powerful people were accused and arrested, most famously the actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, who both served time in prison.In this 2021 film, the director Chris Smith puts a fresh spin on re-enactments, long the life blood of true crime television and films, by recreating full scenes and pulling dialogue directly from wiretaps. Matthew Modine (“Stranger Things,” “Oppenheimer”), who plays Singer, and other actors bring it all to life.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      To Live Long and Prosper, Do What George Takei Does

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      For the “Star Trek” actor and author of the new children’s book “My Lost Freedom,” it’s all about green tea and antioxidants. “I drink it every day, all day. I am an addict,” he says.When George Takei talks about his childhood, he speaks of both anguish and beauty.The actor best known as Sulu from “Star Trek” was only 5 when he and his family — like thousands of Japanese American citizens during World War II — were relocated from their Los Angeles home to a string of incarceration camps.Takei captured some of his family’s wartime experiences — in a horse stall in Arcadia, Calif., a camp in Rohwer, Ark., another one in Northern California — in his picture book, “My Lost Freedom,” due out April 16. “This is an American story that Americans need to know about,” he said in a video call.The book continues his mission to shed light on a dark chapter in U.S. history. It follows his 1994 autobiography “To the Stars,” his 2019 graphic memoir “They Called Us Enemy” and the 2015 musical production “Allegiance,” which was inspired by his life.Takei, 86, discussed meeting dignitaries with his husband, Brad, as well as the keepsakes he treasures and his one healthy addiction. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1Seeing Your Work in LightsI got a phone call that the marquee for “Allegiance” was going up at 8 a.m. Our apartment was so close to Longacre Theater, in Manhattan, we ran down there to see the letters being put there. It was thrilling — a life landmark experience! I wished both my parents could be there.2Big BandAt Rohwer, my father arranged to borrow a record player from the camp administration every couple of months, and after dinner, the tables were dragged away, the benches were put off to the side, and the teenagers got to have a dance. My bedtime music was the music from the mess hall. I still get a lump in my throat when I hear big band music from the 1940s.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Zone of Interest’ Oscars Speech Is Defended by Jewish Film Artists

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      Remarks about Israel that the director Jonathan Glazer made as he accepted an Oscar for “The Zone of Interest” drew a letter of support after facing criticism last month.More than 150 Jewish actors, filmmakers and other artists signed an open letter that was published on Friday in defense of remarks about Jewishness and the war in Gaza that the director Jonathan Glazer made in his Oscars acceptance speech for “The Zone of Interest,” his film about the Holocaust.Glazer’s speech has become one of the most hotly debated in Oscars history, drawing an open letter of strong denunciation from other Jewish film professionals last month and now one of support.“Right now we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people,” Glazer, who is Jewish, said at the Academy Awards on March 10. “Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?”The new letter expresses support for Glazer. “In his speech, Glazer asked how we can resist the dehumanization that has led to mass atrocities throughout history,” it says. “For such a statement to be taken as an affront only underscores its urgency.”Its signatories included the actors Joaquin Phoenix, Hari Nef and Debra Winger; the directors Joel Coen, Nicole Holofcener and Boots Riley; the playwright and screenwriter Tom Stoppard; and the artist Nan Goldin, according to Variety, which reported the existence of the letter on Friday. Its signatories were confirmed by Sarah Sophie Flicker, an artist and cultural organizer who helped organize the letter.“We stand with all those calling for a permanent cease-fire, including the safe return of all hostages and the immediate delivery of aid into Gaza, and an end to Israel’s ongoing bombardment of and siege on Gaza,” the letter says.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Making Films About Outsiders, Increasingly in the Mainstream

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      Goran Stolevski, who is from North Macedonia and grew up partly in Australia, has made three features in three years, all teeming with unruly emotion.Periods of personal crisis have often yielded writing sprees for Goran Stolevski, a Macedonian filmmaker who has made three critically acclaimed features in three years.Although his recent spate of theatrical releases — all by Focus Features — could make it seem as if success has been quick to come by for the filmmaker, it has been proceeded by long seasons of debilitating professional uncertainty.Right after turning 30, Stolevski wrote four feature screenplays in a nine-month period he spent living in Bristol, England. Writing gave shape to his days as an unemployed artist who couldn’t get any of his projects off the ground. Two of those screenplays became his recent features “You Won’t Be Alone” and “Housekeeping for Beginners.”Then, after his 2017 short film “Would You Look at Her” won a prize at the Sundance Film Festival, Stolevski was out of work for another two years, and wrote four more screenplays.Stolevski, now 38, had written at least 10 scripts before making his 2022 feature debut, “You Won’t Be Alone.” An evocative tale about a shape-shifting witch in a 19th-century Macedonian village, it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. His sophomore effort, the 1990s-set Australian gay romance “Of an Age,” opened in U.S. cinemas in early 2023.“I wouldn’t make every film I’ve written, but there are some I’m obsessed with; they need to exist outside of my head,” he said in a video call in January from this year’s Palm Springs International Film Festival where his third feature, “Housekeeping for Beginners,” screened.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      When a Sasquatch Comes to Central Park

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      A publicity effort for the movie “Sasquatch Sunset” had one of the film’s cast members in full sasquatch costume, wandering through Central Park.If you were near the Ramble in Central Park on Thursday afternoon, you might have thought you were in a “Planet of the Apes”-themed episode of “What Would You Do?”Because you may have witnessed a 6-foot-7 longhaired sasquatch slowly traversing tall rocks and promenading through thickets, grunting at the sky and scaring children and dogs silly.But what you saw wasn’t Bigfoot. It was a big gimmick.The sasquatch sighting was a gorilla — sorry, guerrilla — publicity effort for “Sasquatch Sunset,” a new film directed by the brothers David and Nathan Zellner that opens in New York on April 12.Conceptually, the promotional shenanigans in Central Park were in line with the film’s irreverent sensibility. A mix of bro comedy, National Geographic documentary and emotional family drama, it stars Riley Keough and Jesse Eisenberg as members of a pack of kind-eyed sasquatches who brave life and death in the wilderness.Nathan Zellner, who plays the male alpha, was the human underneath the hairy suit on Thursday. A natural grunter, he was greeted by big laughs and phones aloft the moment he stepped out of a van across from the American Museum of Natural History.Inside the park, Trey Hope stopped to gawk and take a snapshot. What was it and why was it there? He wasn’t sure.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Woody Allen’s Muted Milestone with “Coup de Chance”

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      “Coup de Chance,” a milestone, is being released in the United States after opening in Europe months ago.This weekend, 13 movie theaters around the country will be showing “Coup de Chance,” a brisk French-language thriller about a bored wife in Paris who cheats on her wealthy, aloof husband with an old high school classmate, triggering fatal consequences.Minus the opening credits and certain trademark elements — jazzy score, moneyed setting, themes of murder and luck, dry cosmopolitan banter — a typical viewer could watch the movie without knowing it is the 50th film directed by Woody Allen.The foreign language (one in which Allen is not fluent — his original script was translated for filming), the absence of the kinds of American stars that typically crowd Allen’s casts, the low-key reception with which this milestone has been greeted: All suggest the awkwardness surrounding this new release by a filmmaker as distinctive as he is polarizing.“We just continue to do what we’ve been doing, and we’re happy that it’s opening,” Letty Aronson, Allen’s sister, who has produced his films since 1994, said in an interview this week. She said “Coup de Chance” was financed in Europe, and declined to disclose its backers.“I’m happy that it’s opening,” she added. “Woody is only interested in the creative part — once that’s done and he makes the film, he never sees it again. If you told him it wasn’t opening in the United States, it wouldn’t matter to him.”Allen, 88, has a more than half-century career as a writer and director of influential classics such as “Annie Hall” (1977) and “Crimes and Misdemeanors” (1989). A late period commencing with 2005’s “Match Point” has featured collaborations with stars like Scarlett Johansson, Timothée Chalamet and Cate Blanchett, who won an Oscar for “Blue Jasmine” (2013). Allen’s 2011 comedy “Midnight in Paris” brought him his fourth Oscar, for original screenplay, and took in more than $150 million worldwide — a megahit by the standards of independent cinema.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More