The Talented Mr. Ripley
Mythomania, bio-mania and post-mortal constellation of Casanova in one film
LIES AND MYTHOMANIA
The Talented Mr. Ripley is a 1999 film directed by Anthony Minghella based on the novel of the same name by Patricia Highsmith. It stars Matt Damon as young Tom Ripley, as well as Jude Law as Dickie Greenleaf and Gwyneth Paltrow as Marge Sherwood, Dickie's girlfriend.
The plot finds its incipit in the meeting between Dickie's father and Tom, who is mistaken for an old college friend of his son. In reality, the latter has not attended any college and has no idea who Dickie might be, yet Mr Greenleaf, convinced that the two boys are friends, urges Tom to go to Italy at his own expense to convince his son to come home. Dickie is squandering the family's income and has no intention of returning to work for his father's company.
Tom does not reveal the misunderstanding that has been established and decides to accept the proposal, travelling to Mongibello and presenting himself to Dickie and his fiancée Marge in exactly the same clothes as he had presented himself to his father. In a nutshell, Tom pretends to be someone he is not and through a series of peripeteia and clever strategies sets up a concatenation of lies that will lead him to make everyone believe he is Dickie himself.
I would like to point out that in the course of this article I will reveal some situations that arise in the film. For those who subscribe to the Netlix platform, the film is currently available for viewing.
In this film, the protagonist unequivocally expresses one of the constellations of the peri-insular cortex: mythomania. It manifests itself in the presence of two simultaneously active foci in the right and left peri-insular.
More precisely, when we have one focus in the mucosa area of the rectum (left) and one in the flat epithelium mucosa area of the bronchi (right). In the case of left-handed males or right-handed women, the first conflict is experienced in the left hemisphere, whereas in right-handed males and left-handed women, the first conflict occurs in the right hemisphere.
A person in this constellation has a constant need to tell made-up stories and in most cases cannot distinguish reality from fiction. He can even be said to believe the lies he tells.
Tom is the perfect representation of the mythomaniac. He is seemingly harmless, introverted and extremely intelligent. No one would initially suspect him and indeed, he tends to create situations to make other people believe he is someone else. The most interesting thing is that he succeeds very well. His ability to tell improvised lies is quite impressive. Like a spider he weaves a web of lies designed to make the unsuspecting interlocutor fall into his trap. For almost the entire duration of the film, in fact, he not only passes himself off as Dickie, but he himself believes he is Dickie, even wearing his clothes, even moved by a sexual attraction towards him. At the same time, he is able to turn back into Tom when he has to hide the fact that he has murdered the very person he pretends to be, namely Dickie.
Marge will very often turn up at his door asking for explanations about her boyfriend's disappearance and Tom will construct a deception with the aim of making her believe that Dickie, now dead, wants nothing more to do with her.
He is a reality actor, creating continuous stories and managing to weave them together flawlessly with a logical sense that leaves little room for misinterpretation. It is the skill of the mythomaniac. Telling things that do not exist and making himself credible in that sense.
BIO-MANIA
As I collaterally mentioned earlier, there is also a murder in this film. It comes to this epilogue due to the fact that Tom, once he finds Dickie, becomes friends with him and starts hanging out with him. He becomes so attached to him that he does not spend a single minute without him, which as time passes begins to annoy Dickie, who begins to express his displeasure at Tom's constant presence in his life. It gets to the point where Dickie expressly asks Tom to leave and the latter, overcome by a fit of rage, kills him following a scuffle during a boat trip off the coast of Sanremo.
Interestingly, in this case we are faced with the addition of a further schizophrenic constellation, namely that of rage or the bio-maniac constellation. We are still in the area of peri-insular constellations and more precisely with a double focus, one always in the area of the mucosa of the rectum and another in the area of the gastric and duodenal mucosa, of the bile and pancreatic ducts.
A subject presenting this type of constellation tends to be impulsive and has fits of rage. The nuances with which any vicious circle of impulsive acts manifest themselves obviously depends on the hormonal balance and the intensity of the conflicts in the respective hemispheres. If the conflict of the left hemisphere (mucous membrane of the rectum) is more intense, one speaks of bio-manic, while if the conflict of the right hemisphere (stomach and pancreatic and bile ducts) is more intense, one speaks of bio-depressive. These two territorial areas are activated when a territorial conflict is perceived in a rancorous and angry way.
Bianchi and Pellegrino in their book 'Il Viaggio Impossibile' (The Impossible Journey) highlight the fact that Hamer wanted to add the prefix 'bio' to counter the common opinion that these types of aggressive rages are the result of some kind of psychic distortion. In the view of the five laws, it is in fact a biological super-programme that gives one the ability to defend oneself against a stronger aggressor. Actually, to understand the total normality of such a reaction, one only has to observe what other mammals do in nature.
Have you ever heard a dog growl and when you put your hand near it, it tries to attack you by biting you or barking violently? Growling is the result of a territorial threat, whereas aggression occurs when the territory has been violated. The dog has warned. Do you still want to go ahead despite the warning? You will pay the consequences.
When cornered, the subject concentrates all his forces in a raging attack that can only kill the opponent or force him to flee. Once again, the hormonal balance plays a key role, as the two conflicts that make up the constellation can be switched off or on again depending on any conflicting tracks and thus diversifying the manifestations of anger.
It is therefore important to realise that rather than isolating the subjects who manifest sudden outbursts of anger, the conflicts that triggered these reactions should be understood, but the social and legislative set-up in which we find ourselves in no way allows us to observe these events from the point of view of biological laws.
THE CASANOVA
In Tom's character I have evinced a further constellation, namely that of the Casanova, which I have written about in a past article. It is a nuance of the post-mortal left-handed constellation with a double conflict of territory in the area that is triggered by attack and loss of territory. On the left the area involved is that of the coronary veins and pulmonary arteries and on the right that of the coronary arteries.
In the film, the constellation turns on and off in alternating phases and in fact Tom's sexual attitude is ambiguous and at the same time extremely calamitous. Both men and women like him, and this is the main symptom that makes it clear that the constellation is not in fact always active. He does not show any emotional stirrings, neither with regard to the sentimental involvements he faces, for instance with his friend Peter, who falls madly in love with him, nor with regard to the consequences of the lies he tells.
The manic state due to oestrogen foreclosure certainly makes him more male and inclined to take back the territory that has been taken from him. When, on the other hand, he also activates the right area, thus shaping the constellation, he becomes an entertainer, no longer 'macho' but extremely seductive.
He is also extremely dangerous, an ambiguous flanker, a skilled assassin, a serial manipulator. The most overwhelming proof of his inability to feel any kind of emotion lies in the fact that he even kills the only person who loved him for who he really was and not for the false identity he had designed for himself: Peter.
For those who, like me, are scholars of biological laws and have the desire to delve into the swirling theme of schizophrenic constellations, I believe that this film can be a good test-bed for the fruit of one's studies. In this sense, cinema helps me a lot in understanding the possible conflicts that drive the different protagonists through their vicissitudes. In the case of Mr. Ripley, the conflict in my view is the spasmodic need to become 'somebody'. He himself at one point in the film evokes the following sentence:
I always believed it was better to be a 'fake somebody' than a real nobody
We are therefore in the theme of the right to exist and thus move into the sphere of the meso-recent foil. It is in fact also the devaluation of one's own person that feeds the above constellations of the cortex, giving lifeblood to a condition that will lead him to become a veritable serial-killer. Tom is in fact also an obsessed megalomaniac who is convinced that he can achieve anything.
As you may have guessed, biological laws once again provide useful insights into the dynamics of the human mind. Although I have no knowledge in the field of psychiatry, it was not difficult to detect certain behavioural patterns that are perfectly described in the body of study of schizophrenic constellations. You will also understand that these are once again programmes that our brain puts into action whenever it perceives the need, based on the laws of life. Every biological programme or super-programme has its own supra-sense that must be carefully analysed and is accessible to anyone who wants to delve into its essence, in the total absence of preconceived judgement or thought. If the study and attention paid to these topics also involves recreational activities such as watching a film or following a play, then it can also become fun. Culture, art, and cinema are immense catalogues of human behaviour to be observed and treasured, first and foremost for oneself and why not also to help those around us.
I conclude this article by exhorting readers who have had the opportunity to watch this film to write in the comments what they think about the considerations I have made, emphasising the fact that these are totally subjective observations resulting from the study I am undertaking in the world of the five biological laws. What I write is therefore not something to be taken literally. Everything is open to question.
I will leave you with one of the most important scenes in the film in my opinion, namely the last dialogue between Tom and Dickie, which ends with the latter's death - !! Spoiler alert !! -