Cold Mountain (North Carolina) settlement on the real-life mountain. The peak is accessible only by hiking a spur of the strenuous Art Loeb Trail. A major motion picture based on the novel was distributed by Miramax Films in 2003. The movie was actually filmed in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania. A Miramax Films spokesperson cited higher production costs however director Anthony Minghella had said that the lack of old-growth forests and period buildings as well as the lack of dependable snowfall were the primary reasons he chose not to film in Western North Carolina. A 2015 opera production followed. "Cold Mountain Hunter" a 2004
Tom Ripley Tom Ripley Thomas "Tom" Ripley is a fictional character in a series of crime novels by American novelist Patricia Highsmith, as well as several film adaptations. The five novels in which he appears—"The Talented Mr. Ripley", "Ripley Under Ground", "Ripley's Game", "The Boy Who Followed Ripley", and "Ripley Under Water", published between 1955 and 1991—are referred to collectively as the "Ripliad". Highsmith introduced Tom Ripley in "The Talented Mr. Ripley" (1955) as a young man making a meager living as a con artist. The novel also supplies him with a back story: orphaned at age five when his parents drowned,