In Wim Wenders’ The American Friend,
a loose adaptation of a Patricia Highsmith story, the eternally shape-shifting
Tom Ripley, this time an American in Germany, manipulates Jonathan Zimmermann, a
mild-mannered, law-abiding picture framer, into becoming an assassin for
mob-related interests. Jonathan comes to Ripley’s attention as the only person wise
to his feeding of fake paintings into the local art auction circuit (director
Nicholas Ray plays the forger); Ripley’s subsequent targeting of Jonathan is therefore
in part personal, but also – noting the
Western-style styling and affect of Dennis Hopper’s reading of Ripley – an implied
assertion of American cultural supremacy, calculated to push the upstart back
into his place (even though the climactic action all takes place in Germany – and mostly
in a portion of it that seems very much of the old-world - the last shot is of
Ray’s character in New York, suggesting both the county and city’s prominence
as a generator of narrative, and Ray’s own inexhaustible significance). Having overheard
that Jonathan is seriously ill, Ripley collaborates in persuading him that he
may have even less time than he thinks, such that the payoff from committing a
crime becomes more attractive and the downside of being caught less significant:
the intimate nature of the subterfuge emphasizes the existentially pervasive
nature of the American threat (bolstered by the apparent ability to manipulate members
of reputable medical organizations); as time goes on though, Ripley seems to
warm to his victim, although whatever “friendship” he offers can hardly be
separated from looming jeopardy. Jonathan in a sense emerges victorious
from it all, that is by dying, an action seeming here almost
self-induced, an expression of his determination to control at least a final portion
of the narrative. And so Ripley is left alone, singing “I pity the poor immigrant,”
a seeming expression of his abandonment by his sort-of-friend, and (no doubt only temporary) loss of control.
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