May 31, 2006 12:34 PM
Capote - Movie Review
Watched Capote the other night. As a writer, I found it very interesting. It's a very, very heavy movie - so unless you like your entertainment on the somber side, you probably don't want to see it.
Truman Capote was author of Breakfast at Tiffany's and the toast of New York's glitterati establishment when in 1959 he decided to travel to Kansas to research and write about the murder of a Kansas farm family.
I remember reading the resulting book, In Cold Blood shortly after it was published in 1966. It was a book that was different than anything that had been written before. What Capote's editor told him - "This book is going to change the way people write" - was true. Capote was the first writer to really merge the factual structure of nonfiction with the elegant writing of fiction, producing a compelling narrative that readers could not put down.
The significance of that is hard to understand 40 years later, but that’s precisely because all nonfiction writers today are beneficiaries of that legacy.
While I was familiar with the book, however, I did not know much about Truman Capote. I did not know that Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, had been his faithful friend since his mother dropped him off to grow up with relatives in Alabama (have learned since that Capote was the Lee’s model for Dill, Scout’s friend in the book). “Nell,” as Capote called her, accompanied him on his initial trip to Kansas, where her quiet presence probably gained Capote – who was quite flamboyant and narcissistic – entrance into the lives of the people he needed to talk to in researching his book
But the greatest part of his research was made up of interviews with one of the convicted killers. During the hours he spent with him in his prison cell, Capote not only learned every detail of Perry Smith’s haunted background, but also confided similar negligence in his own. Capote’s mother was a floozy who traveled town-to-town and locked her son in hotel rooms while she went out prowling for men. Although I didn’t share Capote’s compassion for Smith, Truman’s vulnerability – as portrayed by Philip Seymour Hoffman – was enough to make me weep.
As happens now and then to writers, Capote became way over-involved with his subject, even hiring lawyers to help Smith appeal his death sentence – thus building animosity in the Kansans who had offered him their friendship in the early days. But then, as the appeals dragged on for four years – winding up at the Supreme Court – and Capote was unable to finish his book because the story had not ended, he became locked in an emotional nightmare.
Clearly, because of similarities in their backgrounds, Capote over-identified with Smith. But he finally achieved some clarity, telling Harper Lee, “It’s as if Perry and I grew up in the same house and one day he stood up and walked out the back door and I stood up and walked out the front.” (Because of some similar wildly different reactions to the past among my siblings, I can identify with that!)
When the Supreme Court finally refused to hear the case, the killers were executed and Capote finally finished the book.
Particularly compelling were the endnotes, which revealed that Capote never finished another book.
He died in 1984, leaving the epitaph “More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.”
This was a brilliantly conceived and executed movie and the casting and acting were superb. But like I said, only watch it if you like your entertainment on the heavy side.
Comments
Glad to hear a review from a trustable source on this movie, I've been wondering if I wanted to watch it for a while now. Thanks!
Posted by: sarahgrace | May 31, 2006 1:58 PM
Personally, I am not sure if I liked the movie or not. I felt deeply disturbed, in the end as if Capote wanted his friend to die because he was too ashamed of how his book was going to portray him. I couldn't figure out if it was that or he was just tired of dealing with the whole situation. I personally felt that he wanted him to die because his ambitions got the best of him. It showed him lying to Smith on more than one occasion about the progress of the book.
I think knowing that this really happened, really tore at me. After the movie I went to read about the actual events. It was a learning experience and I can understand how someone could befriend someone despite them doing something so horrible. I have understood how someone could do an act in a split moment that would change thier lives forever, if not alter another person life as well. Anger is a horrible thing. Perry Smith's murdering that family was a split second decision, at least according to the movie. I didn't find anything to dispute that in the little I read online.
And the epitaph on Capote's tombstone was a fit one. I agree with it completely. The wisdom in those words....
Posted by: Mrs. DMG | May 31, 2006 2:19 PM
He did lie on numerous occasions. My read was that he was a coward and he was allowing the worst of his writer attributes - getting the story at all costs - to come out.
I thought he was in agony at the end because he couldn't finish the book until Smith had been executed. So he went from trying to save him to hoping he would die as soon as possible.
He really was reduced to a pitiful state, and any parts of his heart that had opened seem to have shut down completely. Back in New York he was as callous and superficial as ever.
But he was altered - which was why I think he could never finish another work.
Posted by: barbaracurtis | May 31, 2006 2:49 PM
Yes! As usual, you said it better than I could have. The way that you stated it in response to my post was pretty much how I felt. I just don't write as nice as you:)
Blessings~
Posted by: Mrs. DMG | May 31, 2006 3:57 PM
