"I was impressed with Hoffman's
ability to so ably play someone so often imitated but never as good as
in this performance."
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Bennett Miller ("The Cruise") directs this appealing Truman Capote
biopic, that in its cautionary telling still leaves us questioning the
moral judgments and the journalistic ethics of its wily protagonist–someone
viewed as a manipulator and filled with a bloated ego and a bad case of
attention getting self-infatuation–but also as a great writer. The film
never questions Capote's writing talents, which I think is an oversight,
as I never found him to be more than a talented writer with an ability
for self-promotion and a talent for writing slick magazine pieces that
were at their best when they were bitchy.
Capote is based on the 1988 book by Gerald Clarke; Dan Futterman
is the actor turned screenwriter who provides a clever script that takes
us in many directions trying to get a handle on its slippery anti-hero
hero and is not afraid to take some pot shots at the celebrity conscious
author's noted vanity and bouts of insincerity, but gets lost in trying
to see through all Capote's self-deceits. It basically chronicles Capote's
obsessive drive to write his masterpiece, "In Cold Blood," which was turned
into a cult film favorite in 1967 by Richard Brooks starring Robert Blake
as Perry Smith, one of the killers. Brooks' film annoyingly tried to say
something banal about the killer's abusive upbringing being responsible
for creating such a monster, which thankfully Miller's film didn't do in
such blatant Freudian terms.
Truman was flying high after success with his novel Breakfast at
Tiffany's and relished being in the spotlight and entertaining his "jet
set" friends with wild tales about his offbeat lifestyle and celeb gossip
from an insider, always making himself look witty and on top of things.
In November of 1959, a newspaper story in the NY Times about the murder
of all four members of the Clutter family in the remote western town of
Holcomb, Kansas, caught his attention and he got permission from his editor,
William Shawn (Bob Balaban), at The New Yorker, to go there and write a
magazine piece about the case. He also got the okay to bring along his
Southern childhood friend, Nelle Harper Lee (Catherine Keener), to be his
"research assistant and personal bodyguard." She just completed her manuscript
for "To Kill A Mockingbird," which was soon to take the country by storm.
While there Capote interviews the Kansas Bureau of Investigation lead agent
investigating the case, Alvin Dewey (Chris Cooper), a stern cop he reluctantly
wins over due to schmoozing about his celebrity pals with his star-struck
wife (Amy Ryan), and subsequently interviews other members of the tight-knit
conservative community he could con into breaking their natural silence
to outsiders and who are willing to talk with someone so outlandish–a
gay Southerner living in NYC and speaking in an odd high-pitched voice
and appearing as an elfish man dressed in exclusive fashionable clothes
such as his Bergdorf Goodman scarf that is sure to make him stand apart
from the locals.
Truman immediately saw this incident as the opportunity he was waiting
for to write a non-fiction novel and change the way such books were written
forever by creating this new genre in literature. It was to be his goldmine,
and he was determined to get the story any way he could. The problem I
had with all that, was Capote was never a great author as much as a popular
one and that all he produced was just another crime story–albeit one that
was well-written and became a best seller. But the man was no Dostoyevsky;
in fact, he was no Norman Mailer, whose subsequent book The Executioner's
Song was based on the same theme of media involvement with a convicted
killer and is a more demanding work challenging the death sentence and
how the judicial system has a bias against those without good connections
and a good mouthpiece.
The film will follow Truman as he spends about six years getting
this story, which will end when the killers are executed. He will help
get the killers legal help but rebuff them when they get a stay of execution
which could ruin his upcoming book sales. What he will do best is bring
his flowery prose to sanitize this senselessly brutal crime; what he really
felt seems questionable and to be more about him than any sincere sympathy
for the victims or the killers. When the murderers Perry Smith (Clifton
Collins Jr.) and Dick Hickock (Mark Pellegrino) are caught in Las Vegas
and brought back to Kansas to be put on trial, Truman bribes the prison
authorities to have unlimited visiting rights with Perry Smith. He's someone
Truman connects with as an outsider like himself, as he learns both had
a neglected childhood experience and they form a kindred soul relationship–each
trying to sweet talk the other into believing they're real pals, but with
Truman proving to be the more guileful manipulator. The best thing Truman
says about Perry is "It's as if Perry and I grew up in the same house,
and he stood up and went out the back door while I went out the front."
The film is carried by Hoffman's masterful performance, where he
completely inhabits his character and catches his subtle nuances. Hoffman
shows how difficult it was for his character to write this book, which
led him away from his glamorous lifestyle and longtime companion Jack Dunphy
(Bruce Greenwood) for long stretches. That Capote gives up some of his
hedonistic pleasures for his art, is termed as a great sacrifice. The filmmaker
does a good job showing Capote being sometimes confused about what are
his true feelings and we are ultimately left thinking of him as an ambiguous
figure with a dark cloud hanging over his talented head. What the film
could never do was make Capote's predicament meaningful, emotionally involving
or heartfelt. There was a cold detachment that left me not caring to know
more about the author or loving the film, instead I was impressed with
Hoffman's ability to so ably play someone so often imitated but never as
good
as in this performance.