3.
2 Ripley the Innovator: Killing to Become
“Why is it when men play they always play at killing each other?” (Talented Mr. Ripley
[Link])
The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) opens with the image of Tom Ripley sitting in a ship’s cabin, his
face is slowly getting darkened by shadows as a soprano sing of the biblical story of Cain and
Abel – the archetypal brotherhood which ends in betrayal and blood. The story can be seen as the
first instance of murder in human history. This allusion has double layers of meaning, not only it
foreshadows the event of murder by Ripley it also alludes the queer reinterpretation of the Cain
and Abel story. As Paola Di Gennaro argues, Cain is “always the ‘other,’ the marginalized, the
‘queer’ one, who must be expelled from the community” (Di Gennaro, 116). Framed by this
mythical story, the relationship of Ripley and Dickie is echoing the archetypal pattern of erotic
ambiguity, class envy and dependency. Ripley is not just a killer; he is a figure cast in the Cainite
mould: longing for acceptance, denied by society and ultimately marked for elimination.
In the opening piano performance scene, Ripley is wearing the Princeton jacket which he
borrowed – a lie that is the beginning of his deviant type which is the ‘Innovator’. According to
Merton’s typology of deviant type, the ‘Innovator’ is seen as a figure who accepts culturally
approved goals – such as wealth, class ambition and social prestige but lacks institutional means
of achieving these goals. Consequently, the ‘Innovator’ turns to illegal strategies to achieve these
goals. In Ripley’s case, his ambition to reach Dickie’s lifestyle is his aspirations for his class
mobility. But these goals are almost impossible for Ripley to reach due to his working-class
background where he has to constantly be a grifter to survive.
Anthony Minghella’s film The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) is a screen adaptation from Particia
Highsmith’s 1955 original novel in the same name, follows the story of Tom Ripley, a young
man of modest background who is mistakenly identified as an acquaintance of the wealthy
Princeton alumni Dickie Greenleaf. Ripley was hired by Dickie’s father to travel to Italy and
convince Dickie to come back to America. In Italy, Ripley becomes enchanted and infatuated
with Dickie’s charm and lifestyle. At one point Ripley’s obsessiveness repulses Dickie to
distance himself. With this rejection, Ripley’s identity fractures and at a fit of rage Ripley kills
Dickie and imitates his identity. The narrative progresses into a series of calculated lies and
further murders all driven by Ripley’s desire to be accepted.
Ripley’s desire starts to form even before Ripley and Dickie meet formally. In the balcony scene
at the Miramare Hotel. It can be seen as a ‘scopophilic’ exercise by Ripley as he watches Dickie
and Marge on their sailboat through a binocular. In the figure , as Ripley stares the camera
replicates his point of view, placing the viewer within a ‘scopophilic’ gaze that is saturated with
queer desire. Drawing on Laura Mulvey’s theory of scopophilia, the scene alters the main
gendered dynamic of the male gaze. Instead of male gaze upon a female, the gaze is directed
towards another man in the figure . Dickie becomes both the object of desire and a figure of
aspirational social mobility. In the first frame, Ripley observes both Dickie and Marge equally,
but in the next frame, the binocular’s framing isolates Dickie as a figure of obsession. In the
figure , Ripley’s face behind the binocular captures his transformation from watching to wanting
to become. This progression is in underscored by Ripley’s whispered monologue, “Questa...e la
mia faccia. Questa e la faccia di Dickie” (Minghella, 10), translating the words “This…. Is my
face. This is Dickie’s face”. Here, Ripley is conducting a linguistic appropriation- Ripley’s act of
naming Dickie’s face as his own marks the early discursive claim to the identity of Dickie. In
Merton’s Innovation typology, this scene establishes Ripley’s goal of beauty and wealth.
Through, General Strain Theory, Ripley’s fundamental strain is located which is his excluded
position and his yearning for connection. This strain can only be resolved by Ripley’s
appropriation. So, the binocular becomes Ripley’s first symbolic weapon which he uses to
visually consume and linguistically appropriate his desires.
Figure
Figure
Figure
Later, in the film this scopophilic initiation soon turns into an embodied performance, as Ripley
moves from being a looker to physical mimicry- most notably in the intimate scene where he is
caught while dressing up in Dickie’s clothes. Here, mimicry, aspirations and shame collide
together. In this scene, Ripley is caught in mid-performance- wearing Dickie’s clothes and
dancing to Bing Crossby and doing impressions. Ripley is not simply amusing himself as he
claims to be, but performing the character that he longs to become. Ripley’s desire is not to
disregard the elite world Dickie has, but to access it – by becoming Dickie. This substitution is
visually rendered through the mirror symbol in the figure . In this frame, Dickie’s reflection is
layered over Ripley’s body, visually communicating Ripley’s psychological erasure of self and
substituting with Dickie’s body. The nearby classical statue of a white, headless male body
functions as a symbolic representation of idealized masculinity. Like the statue, Ripley’s self is
fragmented as it lacks wholeness. Tracing the psychological strain of this scene, it can be argued
that Ripley is not simply mimicking Dickie but he is experiencing a failure of both goal
attainment and relational connection. The language of Ripley in this scene is very much hesitant
and apologetic: “I was just fooling around. Don't say anything. Sorry.” (Minghella, 34). On the
other hand, Dickie’s response “I wish you’d get out of my clothes” (Minghella, 34) is not short
of being curt and territorial. His speech asserts a boundary of class and dominance. Here,
Ripley’s innovation is rejected, triggering future strains.
Figure
Unlike the original novel by Patricia Highsmith, where Ripley’s murder of Dickie is cold-
blooded, Minghella’s film reinterprets the murder as an act of conflicted desperation. Here,
Ripley is not a psychopathic murderer but a volatile outsider crushed by shame and rejection. In
the figure , Ripley’s face tightens up as Dickie hurls insults at him by saying, “ You can be a
leech - you know this – and it's boring. You can be quite boring.” (Minghella, 45). Here, the
strain is building up right under the surface to an emotional implosion. Ripley’s murder is
triggered by a combined effect of different strain forms such as, loss of a valued relationship,
denial of emotional reciprocity and prolonged exposure to humiliation. Yet, in the lens of queer
affect theory, this moment can be seen as a reflection of structural violence. As Wen Liu terms
“queer discomfort” (6), a condition where queer subjects are “forced to comply and sustain
heteronormative spaces as their bodies encounter them in everyday interaction” (Liu,7). The boat
which is isolated at sea becomes a site of queer crisis, where shame and rejection intensify into
violence. In this figure , Ripley is hesitant in his act of murder with his clenched teeth and
smeared blood in his face. This is an embodiment of terror mid-act rather than the posture of a
cold-blooded murderer. Ripley’s use of the oar suggests his lack of control as he holds the
weapon in desperation. In the figure , Ripley is lying beside Dickie’s body in a blood-soaked
embrace. As he lays down beside Dickie’s corpse, Ripley is shattered because of the failure of
the attachment he tried to build. As Liu argues this form of attachment is not inherently
normative, instead queer discomforts lead to, “make new impressions in the sphere and create
alternative styles of attachment to spaces” (7). It is a tragic contradictory moment, as Ripley
could only achieve physical closeness with Dickie through violence. Here, Killing Dickie is all
about survival rather than hatred. The boat rocks gently in this frame exposing the unbearable
truth: Ripley is only safe when he is fatally alone.
Figure
Figure
Figure
The murder of Freddie Miles reflects a transition in Ripley’s deviance: from emotional outbursts
to calculated cover-up. Where the first murder was driven by desire and shame, Freddie’s murder
is provoked by threat and exposure. The scene is all about Freddie dominating Ripley through
class-coded humiliation. This is evident in the way Freddie’s interrogation of Ripley extends
beyond Ripley to the aesthetic of the room. He critiques the décor implying that Ripley is
pretending to be on the same class as Dickie: “Did this place come furnished? It doesn’t look like
Dickie... so bourgeois” (Minghella, 65). The space which was supposed to embody Dickie’s
personality instead is reflecting the awkward impersonation of Ripley. Freddie further exposes
the impersonation in his observation, “The only thing that looks like Dickie is you” (Minghella,
65). Ripley’s carefully curated identification of Dickie is slowly crumbling apart in this scene
and Freddie becomes the main source of that threat. Here, the strain Ripley experiences is
composed of humiliation, fear and a growing pressure of preserving his legitimacy.
The murder weapon which is a Hadrian bust is a symbolic detail added by Minghella adds a
layer of queer significance. As David Greven notes, “it is another significant motif taken from
the gay male archive, the Roman emperor Hadrian having been famously infatuated with the
youth Antinous, who died (under mysterious circumstances) when quite young.” (134). In the
figure , the shot of the Hadrian bust is blood-smeared and the nose is chipped away. This visual
metaphor serves as a form of Ripley’s psychological rupture. The chipped nose, marks the failure
of Ripley as an imposter and the fragility of constructed identities. In this shot, the framing
isolates the bloody relic without any human presence, signalling that after murder there is no
resolution for Tom Ripley. Here, in Merton’s Innovation lens, Ripley is trying to sustain his
illusion of upper-class identity by any means. Unlike the murder of Dickie, Freddie’s murder
leaves him with no emotions rather only silence.
Figure
The final murder which is also the final scene of the film represents the last chance of hope for
Ripley which he tragically ends. The murder is not driven by rejection, suspicion or humiliation
but by the intimacy of being known. Unlike other victims like Dickie or Freddie, Peter is the
only person who offers Ripley affection without cruelty: “Tom is talented. Tom is tender. Tom is
beautiful.” (Minghella, 101). The affection shown by Peter is everything Ripley hoped for. In
General Strain Theory, Peter represents not as a negative stimulus but a positive attachment that
Ripley cannot keep. The strain does not come from threat or humiliation but from sustaining
falsehood. Ripley kills Peter to further keep his pretension of being Dickie to achieve his
aspirations. Had Ripley chosen Peter instead of playing Dickie, he would have transitioned from
his ‘Innovator’ identity which is built upon deceitful pursuit of privilege lifestyle, towards the
“Rebellion” type. Choosing Peter would have allowed Ripley to reject both the cultural goal of
wealth and normative heterosexuality and the corrupt ways of pursuing them.
Ripley’s murder of Peter is never shown on screen- only suggested through Peter’s struggle and
silence. Peter’s final words , “Tom, you’re crushing me” (Minghella, 102), captures the
emotional collapse of the narrative : Peter is crushed physically and symbolically as Peter stands
as the only hope for Ripley to be real. In the visual aftermath, Ripley is alone in his cabin and the
mirror on the closet door swings open and shut reflecting his fragmented identity. In the figure ,
the mirror flickers, tilts and refuses to settle which visualizes Tom’s unstable identity. Also, the
cabin door shuts on Ripley as the credits roll further symbolizing Ripley’s entrapment in the
closet.
Figure
Ripley’s trajectory in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), is an example of the ‘Innovator’ type as
he embraces culturally approved goals like wealth and acceptance but resorts to illegal means,
such as grifting, impersonation and murder to attain them. His strains can be traced from
rejections, humiliation and the fear of exposure. Ripley’s murder marks the transition from
desperate outbursts to calculated acts, each trying to reinforce the false identity he must protect.
Ripley has his deep desire to be “a fake somebody than a real nobody” (Minghella, 101),
reflecting his survival as not himself but a fake persona. Here, his innovation is tragic as it
mirrors a world that denies legitimacy to those who don’t fit.
