Feverish and Unforgettable: The American Friend (1977)

May 20, 2024 — The American Friend (1977)

4.5/5

“The blue’s not right,” Jonathan Zimmerman (Bruno Ganz) whispers to a colleague at an art auction about a painting. He has a point: the blue isn’t right at all, not in the painting and not in the film; nor are the reds.

The American Friend (1977) is gorgeous in its atmospheric colors and on-set locations. Jonathan’s apartment by the sea is soaked in a deep brooding blue, Paris in a foggy blue-grey. His wife’s crimson wool jacket and the bright red hotel walls and most of all, Tom Ripley’s (Dennis Hopper) shockingly scarlet bedsheets flash like radio signals. They’re trying to tell me something, something feverishly important… but I can’t quite put my finger on what, or why.

I haven’t looked up prior reviews of this film, and I haven’t heard interviews with the cast or the director. I don’t think I entirely understand why the series of events of the film unfold in the way they do, but I’m not certain I need to know every precise detail either. This film has an atmosphere I could drown in and that seems just as important as the intricacies of the plot. In this unreality, logic is tilted on its axis, and the line between contemplation and action is blurred irreparably by the end of the film.

The American Friend (1977) follows Jonathan, a Swiss framer living in Hamburg, as he becomes entangled in a criminal underworld of art, by (no prize for guessing correctly) his American friend Tom. Jonathan has a blood disease that will kill him, sooner or later, and this becomes the hook the players use to drag him into their games. I’m not familiar with the novel, Ripley’s Game by Patricia Highsmith the film is based on, and though I’m not sure I need to be, I do wonder if that would clarify certain weaknesses in character motivation and the broader criminal plot.

Every character has a distinct sense of style that comes through their outfits and their actions, as well as the few lines of dialogue they’re given. Jonathan’s son is in a yellow raincoat, the first time we see him; and Tom is always around a pool table. Raoul Minot (Gerard Blain), is nearly always seen in his white scarf. All the more impactful, then, when we see it later spotted with blood.

I should mention that I watched a 2014 digital restoration of this film, and my fascination with the colors may not be replicated in the original. And though the stark blue and reds caught my eye immediately, the muted browns, yellows, and greys in the film add to the environment too. It’s not even so much their vibrant, vivid impact as it is the knowledge that they were all so meticulously chosen by a filmmaker with a vision. The events, the characters, and the sets are deliberate but beautiful. They have meaning, but they do not feel forced or arranged. That will stick with me.

This film is contemplative, brilliant, eerie. Hopper as Ripley gives a fantastic performance, complemented by the soundtrack, and the visuals. This film is strange but unforgettable. And I have a feeling next time I watch it, I’ll have half a dozen new reasons why.