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Truman Capote (Hoffman), during his research for his book In Cold Blood, an account of the murder of a Kansas family, the writer develops a close relationship with Perry Smith, one of the killers.
Philip Seymour Hoffman: Truman Capote
Bennet Miller's Capote is a film that shows a great intellect albeit sometimes manipulative and cunning, in the way it captured the essence of Truman Capote, a man who achieved fame and notoriety with most of the fiction he wrote. This film concentrates in the period of his life in which he got obsessed by a notorious murder case of the fifties about the murder of a family in Kansas.
Dan Futterman has written the screen play based on the book by Gerald Clarke. The film is an account about the writing of the novel In Cold Blood that showed how the two young men who committed the heinous crime are caught, processed and hanged for their actions.
Having watched Infamous, I'd say this telling of Capote is far superior, and doesn't dangle on un-necessities and unneeded comedy. This also doesn't romanticize Capote and Smith relationship but rather shows the Vampiric leech-like way he sucks forth what he wants from Smith for his own means, in this case the book.
When Capote opens we get a vision of a lonely house in the distance. This being the Midwest, we are given a flat expanse devoid of elevations anywhere. The camera takes us to that lonely house as a young woman comes calling for her friend that lives in there. Not getting any response, she goes in to a room upstairs where she discovers her friend has been killed. The colours are dark, as is the tone of the film.
Truman Capote, who had been connected to the New Yorker magazine, sees the article in the N.Y. Times and gets interested. This case that shocked the country, at the time, shows a promise for the writer. The next time we meet him, he is in the small town in Kansas accompanied by his good friend and steadying influence, Nell Harper Lee, a writer.
''Ever since I was a child, folks have thought they had me pegged, because of the way I am, the way I talk. And they're always wrong.''
By becoming friendly with the sheriff's wife, Mr. Capote gets a privilege by having access to the two murderers. Truman is clearly deeply affected by his relationship with Perry Smith, a handsome dark man who shows a lot of intensity. By gaining their trust, Capote is able to put together his best selling book In Cold Blood, which will revolutionize American letters in the way the two criminals are portrayed.
Truman Capote, while pursuing the completion of his book, doesn't come clean to Perry Smith. In fact, when questioned about things he has learned, Capote gives evasive answers because he is not prepared to share with his main subject things that clearly should have been clarified from the start.
Watching the brilliant take of Philip Seymour Hoffman as Truman Capote on the screen, brought to mind another great actor, Daniel Day-Lewis, who like Mr. Hoffman is a chameleon in the interpretation of a character. Mr. Hoffman is perfect as the writer because he has captured every mannerism and the speech inflection of Truman Capote. Catherine Keener is perfect as Nelle, the true friend and companion. Bruce Greenwood plays Truman Capote's companion Jack Dunphy. Chris Cooper is totally under-used and strangely out of place as Sheriff Dewey.
Adam Kimmel excellent cinematography contributes to the atmosphere the director gave the film because of the use of muted colors in what appear to be the bleak winter of the Midwest.
Its premises alone makes this movie intriguingly fascinating. When was the last time you saw an eccentric but brilliant writer pitched against a to-be-convicted murderer, each trying to use the other? This is almost like watching the struggle in the boxing ring, with the fighters maneuvering to outsmart each other. Capote wants to get Perry Smith to tell him about that fateful night when Smith and Hickock (who received little attention in this movie) murdered a family in Kansas in cold blood during a robbery. Smith clings on to Capote as his savior. The subtle battle of wits, pawn and player, deceiver and deceived, is on.
''It's as if Perry and I grew up in the same house. And one day he stood up and went out the back door, while I went out the front.''
Despite a troubled childhood, Smith is a cold blooded killer. Even his own sister warns Capote that under the sensitive and sympathy-winning appearance, his brother is not to be trusted and can kill any one without blinking. Capote, on the other hand, dangles the bait of getting the best lawyer while all the time aims straight at getting Smith to tell him what happened on the night of the incident. Then, as we are almost ready to believe his tearful plead, to his sorry self essentially, that he couldn't have done anything to save the life of the murderers, his best friend, honest, sensible, successful Harper Lee (Catherine Keener) tells him, quietly and calmly "But the truth is, you didn't want to", because only the execution will allow Capote to complete the work.
The beauty of the piece is that it retains a certain element of ambiguity. We do not know for sure, one way or the other, whether the two had indeed developed a genuine friendship over the six years from the arrest to the execution. We do see a certain chaotic dissymmetry. During his six years in prison, Smith's only real meaningful connection with the outside world is Capote. To Capote, however, Smith is only a part, although a very important aspect of his life. The movie makers make sure that we remember this, by showing intervening scenes of Capote being the core of attention, as he always is, to a crowd of admirers, monopolizing a self-indulging conversation, always in love with himself, as Lee once put it. At the end of one of these scene, after another round of roaring laughters, Capote turns to one of the loyal listeners and quipped "And what have you been doing lately?", More roaring laughters in approval to his witty humour. There's our hero, thats the persona he creates for his public audience and friends. Which interestingly enough, in the end, we are left wondering if Capote had really been touch by this whole incident and the eventual death of Smith, thanks to the superb portrayal by Hoffman. Or more importantly had he lost a piece of his soul in a confusion of guilt laced with remorse for having put so much of himself into his book. It drained him, and nearly destroyed him in a way, which was the general impression I came across with afterwards. Maybe his alcoholism which claimed his life in 1984 was a way to deal with some inner demons he may have had looming over him. Yet Capote was a man who succeeded, yet at what cost to himself?
Truman Capote: And there wasn't anything I could have done to save them.
Nelle Harper Lee: Maybe not. But the fact is, you didn't want to.
8/10
