Abstract This article analyses the soundtrack’s role in generating suspense in two adaptations of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley: Anthony Minghella’s 1999 film and Steven Zaillian’s 2024 Netflix series, Ripley. Focusing on the murder of Dickie Greenleaf and the near-murder of Marge Sherwood, I contrast Minghella’s use of lush, extra-diegetic music to cue moral and emotional responses with Zaillian’s use of ‘noisy silence’, which emphasizes the visceral, diegetic sounds of physical labour. Drawing on Noël Carroll’s ‘paradox of suspense’, I explore how Zaillian’s adaptation generates tension despite the audience’s likely foreknowledge of the plot. I argue that by withholding the ‘safety screen’ of a musical score, Zaillian forces the viewer to re-experience the narrative through an uncomfortably intimate sonic lens, creating what Susan Smith terms ‘shared suspense’. Furthermore, the article uses this comparative analysis to challenge Ted Nannicelli’s praxiological distinction between film and television. Supporting Carroll’s scepticism regarding strict medium specificity, I contend that Ripley’s acoustic strategies signal a convergence of streaming television and cinema. Ultimately, I conclude with Carroll that these contrasting iterations—Minghella’s operatic melodrama and Zaillian’s suffocating quietude—are not competitive but mutually enriching, offering contemporary streaming television microaudiences a layered engagement with Highsmith’s antihero.
Joy McEntee (Tue,) studied this question.