I just got done watch this film, DVD, last night. My watching of movies is not done at one sitting (or standing), but happens in 10-minute snippets, or more. When I get near the end I let it go. I'm doing some exercises, though, and so I'm watching during that time, then off till night or morning. I mention all this to make the point that moods, interests, and points of view fluctuate over days. So if you're watching a film, and you're depressed one day, happy the next, so-so the next, in pain for some reason, giddy for some reason, it's like you've watched five or six films instead of one. Meaning that the viewer makes some investment/projection in the film depending on what's going on. So with all that in mind, my review one day was five stars, another four, another three, another one. And not in that order.I liked the movie for the way it was presented and also for the extra little insights -- hopefully true -- into the writer's life, his interactions in the whole Kansas murder case.
The lead, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, gives a beautiful performance of portraying Truman Capote. Going through my Rolodex, I guess I never knew Truman Capote, but I remember seeing him on TV quite a bit. My own thoughts about him at the time, he was a celebrity on TV whose basic character was one of humor; I remember everyone laughing at him and with him; his higher nasally voice was a characteristic that leaped out. I wasn't a reader so hadn't read anything by him. Truman Capote to me was a generic celebrity who showed up on all these shows, and people laughed at him and with him, and he seemed delightful but weird. That was then, this is now!
In the film, Capote is laboring over his book, In Cold Blood. It requires a lot of research, a lot of visits out to Kansas, a lot of visits with the murderers, mainly Perry Smith. The other guy, Richard Hickock, is more hardened, more detached from caring about it, a lot less introspective or mentally ambitious. But Perry has a whole artistic side, feels like he could be a famous public speaker, artist, writer, whatever. So Capote and Perry get this bond, and Capote tells Harper Lee that it is like they're two people from the same home, except Perry went out the back door and Truman went out the front.
Capote is duplicitous (to use a big word like Perry is always doing) in the story, helping the convicted men essentially to further his own cause, making sure it's a great book. So he's torn between his attraction for the men, mostly Perry, and his own interests, i.e., getting the whole story, then hoping they will be executed posthaste so he can get it finished. But because Perry won't tell the whole story -- holding back for whatever reason, because he has an appeal in the works, etc. -- Truman is wasting a lot of time with him, and they come to a disagreement over that. Truman lies to him several times, doesn't want Perry to know the book's title, doesn't want him to know what progress he's making on the writing, etc. I'm not too sure that's such a great tact to take, but, at least in the portrayal if not in real life (who knows?), Truman is a fine liar.
Anyway, he gets more distraught over the whole thing. He has a downward spiral sequence. Some of this is necessary for the movie, no doubt, man against himself or something. He's out of touch, out of sorts, plodding along, they're holding the phone up to his ear, and I'm dozing off, too. But he rallies -- get me to the gallows on time! -- rallies just in time to get to the prison -- huff huff -- to chat with Perry and Dick. This is interesting. The warden gives him five minutes, and they use up the whole five minutes in chronological time, real-time. But they don't say much, just human emotion. Then we get to it, the actual hanging, the hood, the steps, the last words -- different than what are reported in the book -- and Perry is dead. (Sorry about giving away the ending.)
OK. Is this a good movie? Yes. It definitely takes its time, zeros in, has a very quiet, understated way of presenting the situation, and has lot of good human, soulful interaction sorts of scenes. Truman lives in a couple different worlds, and certainly a different world than Perry except when they're one on one with all that deep eye contact. Truman knows Elizabeth Taylor, publishers, celebrities, has fancy places to go to and fancy things to do. Bon vivant! Man about town! And then he knows this Perry person, as sketched out above.
The movie makes Truman seem tragic at the end. Like he got what he wanted, but it ruined him in some sense. I don't know about that. That might've been necessary for the portrayal. It doesn't seem like it would've been too hard to put Perry in the past and press on to greater victories! But my own sympathy really wasn't for these guys. I can see them at the human level easy enough and sympathize that they had some hard knocks. But the brutal killing of that family would never be far from my mind. And as far as I'm concerned they got what they deserved, just a few years too late.
Good movie. Some memorable violence scenes, the shootings, cutting the throat. A memorable scene of the cotton-shrouded body in the casket. But a lot of this nastier stuff is interjected in quick, less than one second snaps. The essential flow of the movie is slow, deliberate, and insightful, very human.
