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‘I Hate Clear Blue Skies’
Why Steven Zaillian brought a monstrous, black-and-white version of The Talented Mr. Ripley to Netflix.
The series’ moral ambiguity flourishes thanks to all that methodology, which is exactly the kind of thing Zaillian excels at writing (see the chess gameplay of his directorial debut, Searching for Bobby Fischer; the statistics-reliant maneuvering in Moneyball; or the calculated bribery in Schindler’s List). Its black-and-white cinematography is bold, angular, and unsettling (thanks to cinematographer Robert Elswit, who previously worked with Zaillian on The Night Of, alongside other returning collaborators like composer Jeff Russo and casting director Avy Kaufman), which ends up serving Scott’s version of the scheming orphan well. In the series’ stark color scheme, the bloody damage Scott inflicts on these men and the lonely locations in which he abandons their bodies make both Ripley the character and this portrait of his ascension feel like Highsmith’s text filtered through a German Expressionist fever dream.
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