Script To Screen: “The Talented Mr. Ripley”
A pivotal scene from the 1999 movie The Talented Mr. Ripley, screenplay by Anthony Minghella, novel by Patricia Highsmith.
A pivotal scene from the 1999 movie The Talented Mr. Ripley, screenplay by Anthony Minghella, novel by Patricia Highsmith.
Plot Summary: In late 1950s New York, Tom Ripley, a young underachiever, is sent to Italy to retrieve a rich and spoiled millionaire playboy, named Dickie Greenleaf. But when the errand fails, Ripley takes extreme measures.
Here is the scripted version of the scene:
Here is the film version of the scene:
The movie is tied closely to what’s in the script… with the exception of the individual shots. Coverage by the director of both actors, then cut together in post. But the dialogue is almost word for word the same in the movie.
I would like to make this point. The script provides yet another example of a so-called ‘unfilmable’ which are supposedly — according some mysterious screenwriting ‘gurus’ — unacceptable. But there’s this right there in the script:
His hand goes to his pocket. HE’S GOING TO HAVE TO DO IT.
He’s going to have to do it.
This is the screenwriter going inside the character’s mindset, his inner world to convey what is going on in the moment. It is not dialogue. It is not action. It is ‘unfilmable.’
And yet the screenwriter felt fine in using it, indeed, CAPITALIZING it to underscore the point. Why? Because it is the best way to convey the tone and atmosphere what is transpiring between the two characters.
We should be judicious when we editorialize like this, but the simple fact is screenwriters do have the right to do this… as long as we do it well… as here.
One of the single best things you can do to learn the craft of screenwriting is to read the script while watching the movie. After all a screenplay is a blueprint to make a movie and it’s that magic of what happens between printed page and final print that can inform how you approach writing scenes. That is the purpose of Script to Screen, a Go Into The Story series where we analyze a memorable movie scene and the script pages that inspired it.
For more Script To Screen articles, go here.