Purple Noon (1960)

The scene is not only a summary of the entire film, but a prefiguration of Ripley's end. First, the camera selects an image of a fish caught on a line (this is Greenleaf, caught underneath the boat, as we later see). Then Ripley tastes some "fruits de mer', and this, unfortunately, is his relationship with Marge. He handles a small swordfish, symbolic of his murder of Freddie Miles. The camera then pans to the pale faces of small sting rays, dragged up from the sea --- the discovery of Greenleaf. Justice is delivered with the shot of the weighing scales, and then Ripley almost steps on a beheaded fish. His fate will be the same.

Interesting note:
With the film being held to an extremely limited budget restrictions, the production crew could not shut down the market square to film this scene. This resulted in a single take of Alain Delon strolling through the live open air market interacting with actual the vendors. This is made apparent by the significant amount of attention given to the camera by the people in the scene, who as we can imagine, were slightly confused as to why they were being filmed.


Credits:
Studio Canal
The Criteon Connection
David Harr

Plein Soleil - Purple Noon 1960

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