Capote
Yesterday I had a chance to see Capote, the biographical film about Truman Capote which covers the time when he wrote In Cold Blood.
I was going to write my own review but when I read Roger Ebert’s review, I saw so many of my own observations about the film in his article, I realized there was no need to?
Bennett Miller’s “Capote” is about that crucial period of less than six years in Capote’s life. As he talks to the killers, to law officers and to the neighbors of the murdered Clutter family, Capote’s project takes on depth and shape as the story of conflicting fates. But at the heart of his reporting is an irredeemable conflict: He wins the trust of the two convicted killers and essentially falls in love with Perry Smith, while needing them to die to supply an ending for his book. “If they win this appeal,” he tells his friend Harper Lee, “I may have a complete nervous breakdown.” After they are hanged on April 14, 1965, he tells Harper, “There wasn’t anything I could have done to save them.” She says: “Maybe, but the fact is you didn’t want to.”
“Capote” is a film of uncommon strength and insight, about a man whose great achievement requires the surrender of his self-respect. Philip Seymour Hoffman’s precise, uncanny performance as Capote doesn’t imitate the author so much as channel him, as a man whose peculiarities mask great intelligence and deep wounds.
As the story opens Capote is a well-known writer (of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, among others), a popular guest on talk shows, a man whose small stature, large ego and affectations of speech and appearance make him an outsider wherever he goes. Trying to win the confidence of a young girl in Kansas, he tells her: “Ever since I was a child, folks have thought they had me pegged, because of the way I am, the way I talk.” But he was able to enter a world far removed from Manhattan, and write a great book about ordinary Midwesterners and two pathetic, heartless killers. Could anyone be less like Truman Capote than Perry Smith? Yet they were both mistreated and passed around as children, had issues with distant and remote mothers, had secret fantasies. “It’s like Perry and I grew up in the same house, and one day he went out the back door and I went out the front,” he tells Harper Lee.
That’s pretty much what the movie is about: what happens to those who walk out the back door compared to what happens to those who walk out the front.
From the movie you get the impression that he would never have written In Cold Blood if it hadn’t been for the assistance and friendship of Harper Lee.
Capote’s biography on Wikipedia states that he implied that he had played a role in writing Lee’s famous novel, To Kill A Mockingbird.
Capote was a lifelong friend of Monroeville neighbor Harper Lee and was allegedly the inspiration for the character of Dill in her best-seller To Kill A Mockingbird. Capote frequently implied that he himself had written a considerable portion of her novel; some even say he ghosted the entire novel. At least one person—Pearl Kazin Bell, an editor at Harper’s—has gone on record as believing his assertions were true.
Visit the official film site for Capote. It’s really well done and has the same creepy yet riveting atmosphere of the movie. The movie captures very well the atmosphere of Capote’s relationship with his subject matter.
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January 17th, 2006 at 12:24 pm
[...] I’m still a little disappointed that Capote has not been recognized in the best direction, best film and best script categories, but maybe the Academy Awards will change that. [...]
January 31st, 2006 at 7:43 am
[...] Capote was also nominated for best picture. I have been consistently disappointed that other awards have overlooked this remarkably well-written and crafted film. [...]
January 31st, 2006 at 10:09 am
I had not read your discussion until today but I have seen Capote. It got five of the big nominations. It is very well made. The producer and writer is Dan Futterman. He is an actor. He was Robin Williams’s son in The Birdcage. He also appears on the TV show Judging Amy. He is very good writer and I hope he does more. The story about Capote claiming he ghost wrote To Kill A Mockingbird sounds like Truman selling wolf tickets. Has Harper Lee ever commented on his statement?
August 20th, 2006 at 2:35 pm
I just saw Capote on DVD and thought it was excellent. Although all the performances were very good, I thought Clifton Collins Jr. was superb. The vulnerablity and depth that he showed in his portrayal of the killer Perry Smith was amazing. He really allowed me to see Perry as a human being and not just as a cold blooded killer. I also loved the muted colors and the simplicity of the film. It was very well made and definitely a thumbs up!