Always Right Movie Review'dustries

There have been an extremely limited number of movies that have interested me enough to cause me aggravation waiting for their slow march to the shelves of rental stores, but after I read In Cold Blood last year, it was a long and painful wait for the movie Capote to come out on dvd. Like the title character, I was inclined to say "It's torture, what they're doing to me..."

Of course, maybe what prompted Capote to say those words carried a little more emotional weight, as he was speaking of waiting seemingly endlessly to know the fates of two men on death row.

A little background for those who are not familiar: Truman Capote was one of the great American writers of the 2oth century. His works include the controversial 1948 bestseller Other Voices, Other Rooms, as well as Breakfast at Tiffany's, and of course In Cold Blood--the fascinating writing of which is the centerpiece of this movie.

Capote had a somewhat troubled childhood while moving around with his wandering mother until he was dropped in Alabama, where he was raised by his aunts for a while. By coincidence or fate he lived next door to, and became lifelong friends with, a certain woman named Nelle Harper Lee, another one of America's greatest writers who wrote a little novel you may have heard of called To Kill a Mockingbird. Capote then moved to New York, and attended the highly prestigious and historical private institution--the Trinity School. There he reportedly scored a 215 on the entrance IQ test.

Capote never attended college. He took a very low-level position at The New Yorker for a while before he published a short story that won the O. Henry Memorial Award. From this he received enough attention to be able to write and publish Other Voices, Other Rooms, and from there became a celebrity.

Capote--an open homosexual--quickly became one of New York's social elite: A flamboyant personality known for his lisping, high-pitched voice, outrageous dress, and wild mannerisms.

After this success he was working for The New Yorker as a writer, and Capote stumbled across an article in The New York Times that told of the apparently senseless slaying of a prominent family in a rural, western Kansas town called Holcomb. Something about the article struck Capote, and he convinced his editor to let him travel to Holcomb to write a story on how the killings had affected the community. What grew out of this seemingly random seed of inspiration is now part of literary history.

Suffice to say, a New York intellectual with the mannerisms of Capote stands out a bit in the extreme rural areas of the midwest, and perhaps causes a bit of distrust among the locals. Yet somehow Capote managed to find inroads into the very inner circle of the investigation into the killings headed by Alvin Dewey of the local law enforcement, and even managed to get his hands on the diary of the murdered family's teenage daughter from her best friend, and perhaps most importantly, when the killers were finally captured he secured nearly unlimited visiting rights while they languered on death row...and delved deeply into their minds and hearts.

Capote soon realized that he wasn't just going to be writing an article. He was going to be writing a book. And as he put it, he knew even before writing a single word that it would be so good that when he thought of it, he could "hardly breathe." After reading In Cold Blood, I would concede that he was not being inappropriately hubristic about the perceived quality of his future work.

Crucial to Capote's success in getting "in" with the people of Holcomb was his "research assistant": Harper Lee. She befriended, for example, the wife of Alvin Dewey, making it possible for Capote to write about the investigation. Without her down-to-earth personality to help win over the citizens of Holcomb for Capote, it is highly doubtful In Cold Blood could have been nearly as complete. Maybe it couldn't have been written. At any rate it was extremely interesting to me to compare Lee and Capote's journey with interesting episodes in the book, and at various points, go "Ah--so that's how he was able to find out about such and such..."

This movie is not about the story of In Cold Blood, even though the events depicted there serve as the backdrop. This movie of course is about Capote and the manipulative way he went about writing the novel and the effect it had on him. Central to the movie is his relationship with one of the killers: Perry Edward Smith. After Capote gained virtually unlimited visiting rights, he spent years with Smith and his accomplice Dick Hickock, and he manipulated Smith into divulging his innermost thoughts, as well as, eventually, the truth about what happened in the house of the murdered family on the night of their deaths-- and "why" they had been killed.

The crux of Capote, however, is the competing forces of empathy and ambition to glory. He empathizes with one of the murderers. While Capote talked with Smith, he began to feel something of a kinship with his ambitious, tortured soul. In the movie he says he feels as though he and Smith were brothers, and that Smith had gone out one door (poverty, poor relationships, and failed dreams) while he had gone out another (social, financial and literary success). At the same time he knows that his novel about him and the murders is going to be a classic. Thus, when Perry and his accomplice get a stay of execution, with the possibility they might go free, Capote finds it tortuous. He needs them to die so that the book can be finished. It can be argued that Capote "loves" Perry through his identification with him, but when Perry dies he will be happy--and from the movie it is definitely not because justice is served. He will be exulting that he himself can finally revel in glory by completing the great novel he envisions. These competing feelings wreak emotional havoc on Capote in the film and it is suggested that Capote's decline into drugs and alcoholism later in life was a result of his guilt.

Capote is an intense and subtle movie whose merits and instances of plot go far beyond what I have written here. There are some great bits of humor. At the premiere of the film adapted from To Kill a Mockingbird, Capote is subdued and withdrawn as he receives news that the killers have a stay of execution. He is unable to feel good about Harper Lee's moment in the spotlight. There's a well-acted scene between the two in which Lee is saddened about Capote's self-absorption but I also got the feeling of her being somewhat resigned to her friend's personality and identification with his similar artistic sensibilities. When she leaves him be, drinking alone at the bar, he says of the premiere to no one except himself "Frankly, I don't know what all the fuss is about."

This is To Kill a Mockingbird we're talking about here. The film highlights Capote's narcissism.

Despite having what might be considered an ambition so ruthless as to be considered villainous, Capote, along with Harper Lee, are among my favorite writers. Therefore this movie was a pleasure to watch just to see these authors brought to life with such skill. Harper Lee could have been defined a bit more, I thought, but the actress, Catherine Keener (The 40-Year Old Virgin), probably did about the best possible job with the material. And In Cold Blood is probably my favorite book of all time--or at least it is neck-and-neck with one or two others. It is an example of what Capote termed a "new genre" he claimed to have invented: the non-fiction novel--journalism with a literary voice. Perhaps one reason In Cold Blood had such an impact on me is that I identified so closely with the community of Holcomb and its citizens--being from another midwestern agricultural town on the plains of very similar character. In fact, a brief look at a map shows that my hometown lies on almost the same line of longitude.

In Cold Blood examines the dichotomy of the world of American's "normal" middle-class, and America's dark and real underbelly. It is also a harrowing and poignant look into the nature and motivations of the two violent men glimpsed in Capote, and conclusions can be drawn as to the nature and motivations of American violence in general. It's not that we have to excuse murder, but we should try to understand it. In Cold Blood and To Kill a Mockingbird both do what writing should do, whether fiction or non-fiction: give people a greater comprehension of how the human world functions, even if it means taking a hard look at the uglier aspects of society and of ourselves. Then, just maybe, it helps things change for the better.

Capote is an excellent film concerning the story behind the book, but, perhaps obviously, it does not concern itself with the events of the book itself much beyond what is necessary for elucidating the nature of its title character. Only those who have read it will be able to pick up on the literary importance of the characters seen here outside of Truman and Lee. For example, the brief glimpse of the friend and boyfriend of the murdered teenaged daughter, or of the longer but incomplete look at Perry Smith. You get a feeling about why Truman empathizes with him, but unless you have read the novel you don't really know what Perry's story is. My suggestion is to read In Cold Blood first if you haven't already, then see this movie to get a deeper understanding of it.

For his portrayal of Truman Capote, Phillip Seymour Hoffman won the Oscar this year for best performance by an actor in a leading role, in addition to the Golden Globe, Critic's Choice, and Screen Actors Guild awards.