Movie Review: Capote

I must admit, I didn't really know who Truman Capote was. I knew he played Lionel Twain in the 1976 film Murder by Death, because I remember seeing it as a 10 year old and wondering who the strange old guy was. I also knew that the boy Dill in To Kill a Mockingbird was based on him. I guess I knew he wrote Breakfast at Tiffany's but I had never heard of In Cold Blood.

For those of you like me, Truman Capote was a famous writer (in the 1950s and 60s), as the film describes it, the most famous writer in America . He was openly gay, had an eccentric manner and a unique childish voice. In 1959 he read about a murdered family in Kansas and decided to write about the effect of the murders on the town. He went to Kansas with his childhood friend Nelle Harper Lee (who wrote To Kill a Mockingbird) to do research. The criminals were caught and Capote interviewed them at length and he turned his story into the first "non-fiction novel" about a true crime and the criminals. Perry Smith and Richard Hickock were convicted and sentenced to death. The film starts with him reading about the murders and covers through their executions 5 years later.

Philip Seymour Hoffman seems to transcend acting and becomes Truman Capote. An Oscar nomination seems assured. Catherine Keener plays Nelle, Clifton Collins Jr. is Perry Smith, and Chris Cooper plays agent Alvin Dewey. They all do a fine job, but the film is owned by Hoffman.

We start out seeing Capote holding court at a New York party, being the center of attention and loving it. In Kansas, when he first meets Alvin Dewey he points out the scarf he's wearing is from Bergdorf, when Dewey leaves the room he mentions his hat is from Sears Roebuck. Later, Mrs. Dewey invites the famous author to their home for dinner and Capote wows them with tales of Humphrey Bogart and John Huston as well as touching stories showing his serious side. He succeeds in getting Dewey to talk about the investigation.

Capote meets murderer Perry Smith and we see him make a connection, he feels sorry for someone else alienated from society. Despite his poor background, Perry uses words like "mendacious" and keeps a journal. Capote says to Lee, "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." For a long time we see Capote seem to befriend Smith and then we start to see him talking to his editor and to friends about this wonderful story he's found and how he just needs to get Smith to talk about the actual crime and his book will be the book of the decade. We see Capote lie to Smith to get the information he needs but Smith resists. It's not clear if Smith is using Capote or not. It's also not clear if Capote actually cares for Smith or is merely using him. It's probably wasn't clear to Capote either.

In order to have more time to get their story, Capote has helped Smith and Hickock get better lawyers. This worked a little too well, as the appeals go on for 4 years. Capote starts drinking heavily and hopes that their appeals are denied so that he can get the end of his story. While his views are clearly self-absorbed, he also feels guilty about not helping murderers who call him friend. We learn in epilogue that Capote never finished another novel and died in 1984 of complications from alcoholism.

The film is not perfect. It drags in the second half as Capote's novel is delayed. Though that probably helps put the audience in Capote's position a bit. The script is minimalist but not completely so. Hoffman's portrayal shows all the inner angst he must but the script also provides some exposition in wonderfully biting lines . He tells Lee "There wasn't anything I could have done to save them." and she replies "Maybe, but the fact is you didn't want to." Capote might have changed the literary landscape with In Cold Blood, in but in doing so he realized how self-absorbed he really was and he couldn't recover from that. I'm just glad we got to go along for the ride.

An interesting note. The theater was selling the paperback In Cold Blood at the concessions stand. They were also selling DVDs of the 1967 movie starring Robert Blake. I've never seen this done before but think it's a great idea. I picked up a copy of the book and look forward to reading it.