ITALY: THE FILM "RIPLEY'S GAME" WITH JOHN MALKOVICH, DOUGRAY SCOTT AND CHIARA CASELLI PREMIERED AT THE 59TH VENICE FILM FESTIVAL

Record ID: 393054

  • Title: ITALY: THE FILM "RIPLEY'S GAME" WITH JOHN MALKOVICH, DOUGRAY SCOTT AND CHIARA CASELLI PREMIERED AT THE 59TH VENICE FILM FESTIVAL
  • Date: 2nd September 2002
  • Summary: LIDO, VENICE, ITALY (SEPTEMBER 2, 2002) (REUTERS) SCU: (SOUNDBITE) (English) DOUGRAY SCOTT: I didn't really think about it. I mean I think at first I thought, oh Ripley but then the script was really good, and when I read the novel, i thought it's an intriguing character, and Ripley is twenty years on he's very different, he's a completely different character and it was L
  • Embargoed: 17th September 2002 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: LIDO, VENICE, ITALY
  • Country: Italy
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA5KURR2J06YULMM08A3O0L3YJC
  • Story Text: The talented Mr Ripley returned to Venice on Monday, 20 years older and more successful than in Anthony Minghella's 1999 blockbuster. John Malkovich arrived in Venice with his co-star Dougray Scott and director Liliani Cavani for the screening of their adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's 'Ripley's Game'.
    Liliana Cavani's "Ripley's Game", showing out of competition at the 59th Venice Film Festival, premiered to applause three years after Matt Damon portrayed Tom Ripley climbing from a lowly New York life to the Italian lap of luxury via a string of cold-hearted murders.
    "He's someone who's rather nice and charming in a slightly cold, detached way but does absolutely horrific things almost innocently and expects to get away with it," Malkovich, who plays the older Ripley, told Reuters.
    "People like him getting away with it because somehow he does things that their consciences wouldn't allow but which they have thought about doing in their darker moments of rage or disgust," he added in his slow, studied drawl.
    In the next instalment of the life of "The Talented Mr Ripley", based on novels by Patricia Highsmith, the callous social climber has fulfilled his dreams of wealth and is living in a Palladian villa in northeast Italy. But even though his pockets are bulging with money, hatred of inferiority lingers.
    When he hears British neighbour Jonathan (Dougray Scott) accuse him of having "so much money and so little taste"
    Ripley wreaks revenge by setting him up as a well-paid hit man, playing on his fears of what will happen to his family when he dies of terminal leukemia.
    "The illness is just another opportunity for Ripley to play him out in very subtle ways like giving him a box of bulbs -- a symbol of burgeoning life that Jonathan might not see," said Scott, who set British hearts aflutter as Major Rory Taylor in the television series "Soldier Soldier".
    The two end up working together in a series of murders and cover-ups, including a battle with Berlin mafiosi in Ripley's palazzo, complete with medieval mantraps, heavy 16th century shutters and the risk of getting blood on the frescoes.
    "One thing Ripley has learned is not to be surprised by sentiment or regret because he can be sure it won't last for long," said Malkovich, who stole the show with his steely gaze reminiscent of his Vicomte de Valmont in "Dangerous Liaisons".
    "There is something terribly black comedy about Ripley"
    said Cavani, who directed Dirk Bogarde in the 1974 film "Night Porter".
    "You commit a crime to get rid of a problem but then there are still annoying, dirty things to clean up behind you -- a heavy body to lug off, a splatter of blood on the door which you have to get rid of somehow."
    --
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register