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The American Friend

Der amerikanische Freund

France, West Germany

1977

125 Min
Color
1.85:1
English, French, German
  • Currently 4.0/5 Stars.
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DIR Wim Wenders

EXEC Renée Gundelach, Margaret Ménégoz

PROD Joachim von Mengershausen

SCR Patricia Highsmith, Wim Wenders

DP Robby Müller

CAST Dennis Hopper, Bruno Ganz, Lisa Kreuzer, Nicholas Ray, Samuel Fuller, Gérard Blain, Peter Lilienthal, Daniel Schmid, Jean Eustache, Rudolf Schündler, Sandy Whitelaw, Lou Castel

ED Peter Przygodda

MUSIC Jürgen Knieper

Cannes (In Competition), New York, Stockholm (Retro)

Synopsis

Tom Ripley has a sweet deal with an art forger. The forger creates the paintings, Tom sells them. But another criminal business associate wants Tom to go in for an even riskier enterprise: murder. Tom suggests his associate ask a local picture framer instead. That man has a fatal disease, or so it’s rumored. More, he has a wife and kid that surely he wouldn’t want to leave penniless. Let this picture framer be a hit man, and no one will suspect. The terminally ill craftsman may agree to the misdeed, and several more, but he’ll end up needing Tom Ripley in a pinch. –IMDb

Director

Original

Wim Wenders

Born in Dusseldorf just after the end of World War II, German film director Wim Wenders grew up with an insatiable appetite for American movies. Not all that interested in big-budget products, he, instead, developed a fascination with B-movies, notably melodramas and Westerns. After studying Medicine and Philosophy in his native country, Wenders took up art in Paris (a mecca for viewing American films), and then returned to his homeland to attend Munich’s Academy of Film and Television. Like many of his French movie-fan brethren, Wenders began his career writing film criticism before directing a few short subjects of his own, and, in 1970, he and several other young filmmakers formed a production-distribution firm, Filmverlag Der Autoren. Summer in the City (1970) was Wenders’ first feature film, but it was his 1973 adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter that first brought him attention outside of Germany. The film included many accomplishments, most notably coaxing… read more

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Picture of Ingrid Bergman

Ingrid Bergman

3Mar13

Wim Wenders' adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's "Ripley's Game" is exceptional and features strong performances from a talented cast. Bruno Ganz is wonderful as Jonathon and I enjoyed seeing Samuel Fuller and Nicholas Ray on the other side of the camera too.

Baby Rocco likes this

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jamie-scott-dyson

1Mar13

love this film so much and can't even explain why, it just leaves me with a great feeling

Brian O'blivion and chanandre like this

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Zachary George Najarian-Najafi

14Nov12

A clever film by Wenders. I love how he cast famous directors like Sam Fuller and Nick Ray as his mobsters. Dennis Hopper is terrifying and enigmatic as usual, but it's Bruno Ganz's performance that really carries the film. I just wanted to shake him and scream "Don't go with these guys!" The whole affair is tragic from the start and it can't be stopped. Great colors and camerawork, too.

chanandre and Omnimog like this

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Shoyish

25Oct12

Eli Cash

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W184

Records of Material Objects in the Cinema #7, or: How to Make An American Thriller in Europe

By Daniel Kasman on November 15, 2011

Two thrillers by François Truffaut and Wim Wenders surprisingly share the exact same cinephilic object.

read article
W184

Dennis Hopper, 1936 - 2010

By David Hudson on May 29, 2010

"Dennis Hopper, the maverick director and costar of the landmark 1969 counterculture film classic Easy Rider whose drug- and alcohol-fueled

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soundtrack

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