FemaleFirst.co.uk: DVD: The American Friend [1977] [DVD]

The American Friend [1977] [DVD]
enlarge	Director: Wim Wenders Actors: Dennis Hopper, Bruno Ganz, Nicholas Ray, Samuel Fuller, Lisa Kreuzer Studio: Axiom Films International Ltd Category: DVD List Price: ~~£15.99~~ Buy New: £7.60 as of 10/9/2010 18:44 BST details You Save: £8.39 (52%) New (13) Used (3) from £7.60 Seller: Revision Rating: 7 reviews Sales Rank: 18808 Format: Anamorphic, PAL Languages: English (Unknown), German (Unknown) Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over Region: 2 Aspect Ratio: 16:9 - 1.78:1 Number Of Discs: 1 Running Time: 121 Minutes Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2 Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6 EAN: 5060126870234 ASIN: B0019GJ4JC Theatrical Release Date: 1977 Release Date: July 14, 2008 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days


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Editorial Reviews: Amazon.co.uk Review A thriller that's nearly devoid of thrills? That's not a complaint--it's what makes The American Friend one of the most stylish (and at the time most expensive) films to emerge from the new German cinema of the 1970s. Loosely adapting Patricia Highsmith's mystery novel Ripley's Game, director Wim Wenders shifted priority from plotting to character, emphasising a richly colourful and atmospheric approach to locations in Hamburg, where a picture-framer (Bruno Ganz) is lured into an assassination scheme involving a mysterious Frenchman (Gerard Blain) and the titular American friend, Tom Ripley (played by Dennis Hopper, a far cry from either Matt Damon's portrayal of the same character in The Talented Mr Ripley or John Malkovich's in the 2003 version of Ripley's Game). The plotting is vague to the point of irrelevance; Wenders prefers to maintain the aura of mystery rather than generating any conventional suspense and expresses his affection for American movies by casting favourite directors Nicholas Ray and Samuel Fuller in pivotal supporting roles. The result is an intoxicating example of cinematic cross-pollination. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews: Showing reviews 1-5 of 7 1 2 Next » " nothing to fear but fear itself" December 6, 2009 technoguy (Rugby) 1 out of 1 found this review helpful This is not a film of Highsmith's book,Ripley's Game,for that you need to go to the later version with Malkovitch as Ripley.This is inspired by that book,creating it's atmosphere and characterisation with a shift into the central consciousness of professional framemaker Jonathan(Bruno Ganz),who is the heart and soul of the film,away from Ripley(Hopper) who merely pulls the strings.This film is predominantly set in Europe,with an American unifying aesthetic.Jonathan has been diagnosed with terminal leukaemia and following a chance encounter with the enigmatic Ripley he finds a way to ensure a stable future for his family. Ganz suggests the internal conflict with his moral beliefs and loving family outlook.He is lured in by the bait Raul Pinot (Blain) offers him :new tests in the American Hospital in Paris by a top specialist. Ripley has been the catalyst for this new adventurous, amoral life,following a slight he receives from Zimmerman.Ripley is a loner cowboy adrift in Hamburg,consumed with existential angst. He is drawn towards Zimmerman's hard-working honesty and warm family home. In an early scene Ripley records his thoughts in a taped diary:"There is nothing to fear but fear itself...I know less and less about who I am or who anybody else is".Hopper has never been better or more restrained and calm. There are two marvellous set-pieces set on trains.The first thriller sequence is in a subway station depicting Jonathan's inept murder of an underworld figure. The second set on a moving train where he is joined surprisingly by Ripley, is worthy of Hitchcock. There is a lot of physical force and suspense,the use of garrotting and bodies pushed out of trains. There is a lot of black humour in a scene with tickets.Also there is a homage to American film noir (cf two directors,Ray and Fuller cast as conmen and criminals),also the role of Ripley as a sleazy conman with mob connections.Ripley shows his humanity by wanting to be Jonathan's `American friend'.There is great chemistry between the two leads.What is stressed is everybody's moral ambivalence. The truly interesting expressionist quality of the cinematography,unusual use of colour and lighting,with cityscapes bathed in dark blues and dark greens and a somewhat faded background palette overlaid with strikingly bright and saturated primary colours for particular objects or costumes.There is the influence of Edward Hopper on the framing and camera angles,with Knieper's brooding score to suggest the intensity and danger round every corner of the seedy industrial backlots of Hamburg.There are a lot of motifs centred around picture slides and moving pictures which figure in gift exchange between the `friends' His wife Erica(excellent Kreuzer) is aware Jonathan is not giving her the whole picture:"I don't even want to know what you do with your American friend".The corruptive influence of American movies is a major theme. This will be seen as one of Wender's major films with Alice in the Cities and Kings of the Road. Not Ripley's game - and the better for it June 5, 2003 18 out of 23 found this review helpful I ordered this DVD after I saw Ripley's Game. An American Friend, as it happens, is very loosely based on the same Patricia Highsmith novel. Zimmerman is a picture framer, who, expecting his death from an incurable disease, is persuaded to commit murder for money. The story follows Zimmerman, rather than Ripley. Zimermanns life - one rather imagines it to have been as free from adventure and excitement as a Shire Hobbit's - turns into a slow motion rollercoaster ride. Bruno Ganz' performance is moving as an ordinary man stepping way outside his boundaries whilst no one is looking. Dennis Hopper's appearance saves the film from being too much of an "Old Europe" introspective sort of movie. If you like to visit Ripley's world and think Hollywood might not not get it right - then this is a very interesting variation of it. EXCELLENT MOVIE July 12, 2010 DevonDaze What are we reviewing here? Is it the movie or the piece of plastic that the movie resides on? The film is one of my all time favourites and gets no better nor is it in any way diminished by being sent through the post to me by Amazon on a disc of plastic. See the film - it speaks for itself. The Talented Mr Wenders February 27, 2009 Trevor Willsmer (London, England) 2 out of 3 found this review helpful From the days before foreign cinema/arthouse movies became big business and were still a fit playground for non-mainstream imaginations instead of auditions for Hollywood (although this in fact was just such a showpiece for Wenders), Wim Wenders take on Patricia Highsmith's Ripley's Game has lost little of its power and allure over the past quarter of a century. A Franco-German-American co-production - a concoction which would now spell a massively compromised disaster - it uses its varied cultural backgrounds rather than allowing itself to be stifled by them as the possibly terminally ill (German) Ganz is covertly influenced by (American) Hopper's crooked art dealer to take a (French) gangster's lucrative offer to perform 'one - maybe two' contract killings. The film buff references are there, but filtered through European cinema as much as Hollywood noir - the hero has tests at the hospital Oanassis and Jean Gabin died, Jurgen Knieper's music takes its lead from Bernard Herrmann scored for harmonica and synth and the gangsters are played by a mixture of German, French and American directors. Additionally, the then on the brink of critical rediscovery Nicholas Ray is cleverly cast as a painter everyone thinks is dead and who uses the assumption to up the prices of the multiple copies of his paintings he churns out. While such self-conscious touches are often used to hide a lack of imagination or personal vision, this is very much Wenders' film and one with its own distinct identity. Ray's 'life after death' is less a conceit of casting than a reflection on Ganz's predicament as part of the old world (he used to restore works of art) caught in a world being rebuilt around him in which he has no place or future. Where Ray filters his art through pragmatism and survives (itself a perfect metaphor for his Hollywood career), Ganz is too caught up in his own mortality, his desperate need to be certain of his fate turning into a subtly conveyed love affair with his own death. What's more, this is a film where everything fits. Hopper's early ramblings into his pocket tape recorder in an attempt to remind himself of the person he's forgotten he ever was after years of lying to others at first seem a self-indulgence, but his words at the beginning of the film - "We have nothing to fear but fear itself" - provide the motivation for Ganz's actions, as the picture framer who constantly puts himself in the frame (both literally and figuratively) allows his paranoia over his disease to set him on the road to his rendezvous with death. As a thriller it has two great setpieces - Ganz's clumsy stalking of his first assignment on the Metro and a double-killing gone wrong on a train that is real edge of seat stuff. By comparison, the finale loses its way somewhat, with the characters giving into both their and the situation's absurdity with a giggling fit. Despite this, the film doesn't disappoint, holding the attention throughout its deliberate and sometimes esoteric build-up and staying in the memory long after it has finished. One of the best foreign films of the seventies and still Wenders most completely satisfying work to date, it's well worth a second (or even first) look. Anchor Bay's deleted DVD is well worth tracking down - as well as a good widescreen transfer of the film that makes the most of Wenders' and cinematographer Robby Muller's ambitious use of colour and sweeping camera movements, it boasts an excellent extras package, including audio commentary, 30 minutes of deleted scenes, outtakes and behind the scenes footage and the film's trailer. "I like to make money and I travel a lot." Tom Ripley also enjoys now and then corrupting a good man December 5, 2008 C. O. DeRiemer (San Antonio, Texas, USA) 1 out of 1 found this review helpful If you're thinking about a man who just wants to lead the good life, it's hard to beat that charming sociopath, Tom Ripley. Conscience is just a vestigial organ in Ripley's psychological anatomy. He enjoys the things money can buy. Just don't get between Ripley and what he wants, or underestimate his sense of due respect. His appreciation of amusing irony can cut your life short, or make it unpleasant, or both. Der Amerikanische Freund (The American Friend), a German film by Wim Wenders based on Patricia Highsmith's Ripley's Game, gives us a couple of ironic pleasures of our own. First, if you're into the enjoyment of corrupting a good man by turning him into an assassin, the story is hard to beat. Second, we're able to compare this same story brought to the film by two interesting directors and to observe differences in approach and style. This version by Wenders came out in 1977 and featured Dennis Hopper as Ripley. Ripley's Game, directed by Liliana Cavani, came out in 2002 and featured John Malkovich as Ripley. Both films have merit. Both, unfortunately, sank almost without a trace. Seems a lot of people just don't have a taste for irony or the corruption of the innocent. Jonathan Zimmermann (Bruno Ganz) is a happily married man who is a picture framer. He briefly meets Tom Ripley at an auction but refuses to shake his hand. Ripley's reputation has preceded him. Jonathan has a serious blood disease and then learns he has little time left. He desperately wants to make sure his wife and young son, both of whom he loves deeply, are provided for when he dies. (Dougray Scott plays the same character, renamed Jonathan Trevanny, in Ripley's Game.) Then Zimmermann gets an offer for a great deal of money. All he has to do is murder a bad guy or two. One way or another, Tom Ripley is involved, And things go wrong. The worst is that Jonathan and Tom develop a kind of friendship that should be morally repugnant if you're a good guy like Jonathan. For all us good guys in the audience, however, the situation is so well set up that all that follows is fascinating, creepy and unnervingly satisfying. Don't count on happy endings. Both versions of Highsmith's novels are well worth seeing. I'd give the edge to Ripley's Game for two reasons. Wenders approaches the story, in my view, too deliberately and auteurishly. Cavani gets us going more efficiently and keeps up the pace. Since both directors wrote their own screenplays, I think Cavani simply came up with a better-crafted movie. Part of that impression is due to the actor who plays Ripley. Ripley's style, his amusement, his lack of a moral code is central, and John Malkovich is better at this kind of cool approach than Dennis Hopper. Plus, I'll admit, I've never much cared for Hopper's acting or his voice. Bruno Ganz and Dougray Scott are first rate. Ganz was and is one of Germany's most acclaimed actors. Nearly 26 years after The American Friend, Ganz starred as Adolph Hitler in Downfall (Der Untergang). It was a mesmerizing performance. One of Scott's best roles was Tom Jericho in Enigma. This comparison business comes down to the happy chore, if you're interested, of watching both movies, enjoying them, and observing the differences, especially in the portrayals of Tom Ripley. While Ripley's Game is definitely John Malkovich's movie, The American Friend comes very close to being Bruno Ganz's. You won't be disappointed in either movie; you'll just probably enjoy one a little more than the other. Wenders also slips in some inside jokes, something that, for me, is akin to condescension. The idea that a clever few are enjoying the thrill of knowing something not available to most is juvenile. Among the pleasures for the insiders is Wenders casting in small parts as crooks a number of directors. You may or may not enjoy seeing Nicholas Ray and Samuel Fuller on their last legs. Both the video and audio on the DVD seemed muddy to me. There are several extras, including a commentary track featuring Wenders and Hopper. A good deal of the film is in English, but the subtitles when used are easy to read. Showing reviews 1-5 of 7 1 2 Next »

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