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Review by Seth Rogovoy
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Review by Seth Rogovoy
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[FILM REVIEW] Bill Cunningham New York
Review by Seth Rogovoy
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FILM REVIEW: Capote
11.09.05
Capote
Directed by Bennett Miller
with
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Catherine Kenner
Chris Cooper
Bob Balaban
At the TRIPLEX, Great Barrington, Mass., at least through November 17, 2005
This movie could also be called The Making of In Cold Blood, as almost in its entirety it focuses on the four-year period of Truman Capote’s life devoted almost in its entirety to the researching and writing of his most famous work, In Cold Blood. Before that book, he was something of a celebrity writer; after, he was, apparently, the man who – for better or worse -- pioneered the non-fiction novel as we know it.
Philip Seymour Hoffman puts in a tremendous, Oscar-caliber performance as Capote, capturing the man’s voice, swishiness, and subtle (and not-so-subtle) arrogance and narcissism. The movie plunges the viewer into Capote’s working methods, which, particularly for a working journalist, are thrilling to watch. If the film is to be believed, Capote was able to conduct his interviews entirely without taking notes or recording, and then go back to his desk and transcribe the conversation to within “94% accuracy,” which he claims several times – all the while living a life of heavy alcohol intake (perhaps he didn’t drink until AFTER transcribing his interviews).
The film mostly focuses on the relationship, such as it was, between Capote and one of the two notorious killers of the Kansas family on which the book is based, Perry Smith. One of the film’s flaws is while it does capture Capote’s own narcissism, and hints at his identification with Smith, it doesn’t really show us enough about how or why this happened. The film shows how Capote exploited this relationship with Smith in order to write what he predicted from the outset would be his groundbreaking book (he calls it that before he’s even written a word, only to have New Yorker editor William Shawn parrot those very same lines later in the movie), without dwelling in any overt way on the ethical quandaries this behavior raised.
In fact, Capote couldn’t possibly get away with his methods of back then today, when he would be seen as grossly interfering with the story on which he was reporting, to say nothing of selling his subject down the river (or, in this case, literally, to the hangman). It was in his interest, in terms of the narrative as well as in terms of finishing the damn book, to have his subject executed sooner rather than later. To the movie’s credit, it doesn’t try to be one of those ever-common moralistic tales of condemnation, but this is also the film’s weakness – it doesn’t really seem to have a point of view. We see Capote acting horribly; no one around him really says “boo”; the closest anyone comes is Harper Lee, who is hardly given anything to do other than to look at Capote with knowing eyes. We also never really get a sense of just what it was about Smith that was so compelling to Capote, other than his inability to look at someone who on the surface bore no resemblance to him and yet see himself. Perhaps for that, viewers will need to read the book, and undoubtedly sales of In Cold Blood will skyrocket if this film is a success.
Which it probably should be. While Capote is something less than a great film, but it’s certainly worth going to see, if only for Hoffman’s amazing performance – and some terrific scenic design, capturing that late-1950s/early-‘60s era of suburban “décor” in which the swinger/martini/Rat Pack mentality made its way into the mainstream.
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