The American Friend [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Overview

"Wim Wenders' mines Dennis Hopper's real-life experience as a painter and collector in this existential take on the American gangster film based on a Patricia Highsmith novel featuring the notoriously sociopathic Tom Ripley. Hopper stars as the eponymous American, currently a middleman selling the work of American painter Derwatt (Nicholas Ray), who has feigned his own death to increase the value of his paintings. While auctioning this work in Berlin, he meets art restorer Jonathan Zimmerman (Bruno Ganz), who he learns is suffering from an incurable blood disease. When a shady friend (Gerard Blain) requires Ripley to find a ""clean"" non-professional to do a contract hit in order to pay off a debt, even he is reluctant. But he quickly realizes that the physically vulnerable Jonathan would be perfect for the job, and tries to get him to accept by employing various subterfuges to persuade him that his condition is even worse than it is. For his part, Blain guarantees the restorer that his family will be financially secure for life, and a deal is struck. As usual, nothing works out quite as expected."

Product Details

Release Date:	01/12/2016
UPC:	0715515165716
Original Release:	1977
Rating:	NR
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	A
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround]
Language:	English
Time:	2:06:00

Special Features

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

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Bruno Ganz	Jonathan Zimmermann
Dennis Hopper	Tom Ripley
Lisa Kreuzer	Marianne Zimmermann
Gerard Blain	Raoul Minot
Nicholas Ray	Prokasch
Samuel Fuller	Amerikaner
Peter Lilienthal	Marcangelo
Daniel Schmid	Ingraham
Sandy Whitelaw	Doktor
Jean Eustache	Friendly Man
Lou Castel	Rodolphe
Andreas Dedecke	Daniel
David Blue	Allan Winter
Stefan Lennert	Auktionator
Rudolf Schündler	Gantner
Gerty Molzen	Lady
Heinz Joachim Klein	Dr. Gabriel
Rosemarie Heinikel	Mona
Satya De la Manitou	Angie
Axel Schiessler	Lippo
Adolf Hansen	Schaffner
Andrea Deck	Actor
Rudolf Schundler	Gantner
Wim Wenders	Bandaged Man
Jürgen Knieper	Composer

Technical Credits

Wim Wenders

Wim Wenders	Director,Screenwriter,Producer
Pierre Cottrell	Executive Producer
Theo Nischwitz	Special Effects
Michael Wiedemann	Executive Producer
Joachim von Mengershausen	Producer

Editorial Reviews

Wenders homage to the American noir includes cameos by two of the genre's most significant figures, Nicholas Ray and Sam Fuller, and stars actor and director Dennis Hopper, whose life and career perhaps most perfectly embody the idiom's celebration of self-destruction. The doppelgänger motif, which threads through Highsmith's work, perhaps most familiar from Hitchcock's version of Strangers on a Train (1951), is also the dominant metaphor of Wenders' film, but in keeping with the director's characteristic ambiguity, the difference between Ripley and his victim are less distinct and sharp-edged here, as the cold-blooded artmonger actually shows some compassion, and the upstanding Zimmerman displays a capacity for evil. Despite the linear plot, the film, like much of the director's work, is suffused with a sense of contingency and randomness, placing a scrim of philosophical detachment between the audience and the drama's doomed characters. Hopper, then in extremely ill health, gives one of the most touching, least flamboyant performances of his career, and Ganz is equally effective as the ailing, anxious artisan.