btw...the best part of An American Friend was Mueller's camera work and lighting followed by hopper's odd intensity. This was made in Europe (under the then existing tax shelter laws which gave birth to dozens of films that otherwise would not have been made - including the great war film "Cross of Iron") at a time when Hopper had killed his US career and was paying the bills in low-budget fare overseas (like "Mad Dog Cole" from OZ). This period has his best work imo.
Patricia Highsmith was an extremely odd person. And Ripley is probably one of the oddest characters in modern fiction.
I was never a dennis hopper fan, though he did do some good things recently -- Bruno the art collector in Basquiat etc. Some of the scenes playing opposite David Bowie as Warhol are great.
I thought Damon was a good Ripley -- a blank that's filled in slowly. Plus, there's Philip Seymour Hoffman.