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The American Friend



Wim Wenders pays loving homage to rough-and-tumble Hollywood film noir with The American Friend, a loose adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's novel Ripley's Game. Dennis Hopper oozes quirky menace as an amoral American art dealer who entangles a terminally ill German everyman, played by Bruno Ganz, in a seedy criminal underworld as revenge for a personal slight—but when the two become embroiled in an ever-deepening murder plot, they form an unlikely bond. Filmed on location in Hamburg and Paris, with some scenes shot in grimy, late-seventies New York City, Wenders's international breakout is a stripped-down crime story that mixes West German and American film flavors, and it features cameos by filmmakers Jean Eustache, Samuel Fuller, and Nicholas Ray.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED EDITION:

• New, restored 4K digital transfer, supervised by director Wim Wenders, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Audio commentary from 2002 featuring Wenders and actor Dennis Hopper
• New interview with Wenders
• New interview with actor Bruno Ganz
• Deleted scenes with audio commentary by Wenders
• Trailer
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: An essay by author Francine Prose

A rotten-toothed Ray in the throes of the death-rattle in tandem with mid 70's Hopper (strangely subdued, but brilliant) is reason enough to invest in this masterpiece....

....Yet Ganz, genius that he is, steals the picture.

I LOVE this film.

My favourite Wenders so far too. Nice to see Criterion finally get around to some of his films.

I'm wondering if they will be adding additional supplements to this one. Not sure why it would be a two-disc DVD release otherwise, unless the two interviews are enormous. As listed, it doesn't seem to be enough to warrant a second disc as all the rest (audio commentary, deleted scenes with commentary, trailer) is on the current Anchor Bay single disc DVD. Though, granted, not with the feature in a 4K scan.

Thrilled about this release. Can't wait. It will also incent me to finally pick up the other "Ripley" adaptation in the Collection -- "Purple Noon".

The film is 124 min long, and that's common practice for Criterion to put the extras on a separate DVD for movies that long.

This is an amazing release, it looks great and the new interviews are more than welcome. I can't remember the last time a disc hasn't left my player for days. I'm so glad to sell off my DVD.

kristophers wrote:This is an amazing release, it looks great and the new interviews are more than welcome. I can't remember the last time a disc hasn't left my player for days. I'm so glad to sell off my DVD.

The last time that happened to me was with Jaques Tati's Playtime. My copy of is arriving tomorrow, fingers crossed.

Once more, a European release has a slightly better encode than the Criterion:
http://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?d1=9817&d2=9818&c=3952" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Of course the Criterion here doesn't reach the My Private idaho lows, but still there is an evident difference.

Of course, this is the kind of discrepancy one only notices on Caps-a-Holic. Furthermore, a bunch of recent Studio Canal titles have been disasters (Man Who Fell to Earth).

I looked at those caps and could barely see a difference.

Good to get a reminder though that importing the Criterion wouldn't be the most sensible option given the cost. I'll likely get the German disc.

I only watched about 20 minutes of this, but I wonder if Hopper's character was inspiration for Wes Anderson visually for Owen Wilson as Eli Cash in The Royal Tenenbaums, specifically at the beginning when he's wearing the hat.

I don't see the resemblance and think that Eli Cash was meant to stick out as sort of a contrived "Western" persona dressing to impress as a literary celebrity, even though he grew up in NYC - a variation of the "dude" stereotype in westerns, who wears fancy clothing from specialty stores. Cash is wearing an outright costume.

The German bluray caps seem to show more natural and prevalent grain. But the Criterion has been well handled, and doesn't seem to have introduced any nasty artefacts. It looks beautiful in motion.

I watched this for the first time on the weekend, and was totally enthralled. Bruno Ganz was extraordinary. I was less enamoured of Hopper's Ripley, but he grew on me. After sampling a few bits of the commentary track, I can't wait to watch it again with commentary.

This has got me pumped to watch Kings of the Road again, having not seen it for close to 30 years.

bugsy_pal wrote:This has got me pumped to watch Kings of the Road again, having not seen it for close to 30 years.

I rewatched it recently and I always forget just how beautiful a film it is. Spectacular black and white footage and some of the most poetic and evocative day-for-night shooting I've ever seen.

My family was punished for traveling to the authoritarian climate disaster zone of Florida by being stricken with both COVID and strep, so despite voting for this as the Film Club selection before leaving, I just got to it this afternoon. A quick immediate reaction to assuage my guilt:

I quite enjoyed Wenders' noir pastiche, especially once it became clear that the typical atmosphere of inescapable corruption and impending doom was going to be swirled with humorous black comedy (mostly around Ganz' incompetence as an underworld hitman) and the unusual emphasis on discordant and seemingly superfluous details (the man stumbling on the escalator in the Paris airport, the television in the hotel shocking Ganz, the last shot jumping back to New York for another look at Nicholas Ray). Like the schizophrenic score or Hopper's typically unstable work as Ripley, the film's mix of tones and moods isn't always easily comprehensible but never fails to hold your attention; a tighter last act might have made for a more traditionally satisfying resolution to the plot, but I thought it worked as a continuation of the film's generally loose, character-focused strengths.

Ganz is really remarkable, making his character's gradual transition from melancholic anxiety to amused fatalism understandable in a way I'm not sure the script does on its own, and making credible behavior that might have felt inexplicable in lesser hands. Similarly noteworthy is Robby Müller's cinematography, working with impressive dexterity in brightly lit subways, shadowy nighttime exteriors, and warm natural sunlight; even if the film didn't hang together at all as a narrative, the many striking compositions would make this worth seeing on their own.

Another minor detail I enjoyed: the Zimmermann's apartment initially feels so warm and welcoming, but the lighting and production design slowly becomes more sterile and alien as Jonathan slides farther and farther away from his life and into Ripley's.

DarkImbecile recorded some great thoughts above - especially the atmospheric, absurdist details observed (and behavioral flubs made) by Ganz due to his hypervigilance in foreign escapades. Revisiting this, I was most impressed by Hopper, who never 'popped' for me in past watches. He's "matured" (so to speak) from the tortured antisocial personality Ripley presented with in the first novel and its adaptations, and brings him into the complex and undiagnosable character he is. Hopper achieves this through a performance that retains an overarching philosophical position of amorality, but locates clear subjective morals in a human sensitivity and care for people who embody qualities he respects. Hopper has always been able to achieve an organic, raw humanity in his performances, so he's the perfect fit for elevating Ripley beyond the definable and into the corporeal enigma; he's the guy who can pass as a good buddy or detach as an unknowable alien. He suggests that perhaps the humane role he's playing isn't actually a role at all, but a part of his real self - just a shade he can morph from when a skewed sense of self-preservation kicks in, since there are superficial (to us) priorities to maintain that exceed his fellow man in his personal hierarchy. But the friendship is still authentic, and needed to be earned by both men with evidence to the other like any friendship does.