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Capote (2005)
Rate:
9
Viewed:
2/26
2/26:
Prior to seeing Capote, I thought it had to include the famed writer's time spent on the book
In Cold Blood, but little did I know that was going to be the
entire film.
Hence, there's no way of understanding what's going on unless you're familiar with the case by having read
the book or seen the film just like Shot in the Heart
as a follow-up to The Executioner's Song. An error is made
at the end of the film: Truman Capote witnessed Dick Hickock's hanging and left before Perry Smith was
scheduled to be next.
I had zero worries when it came to Philip Seymour Hoffman's potential of capturing Truman Capote in terms
of the way he talked and how he behaved; everything he did is right on the money along with almost looking
like him. Therefore, Philip Seymour Hoffman deservingly won the Oscar for Best Actor. As for the roles of
Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, I thought it would've been impossible to live up to the performances by Robert
Blake and Scott Wilson, respectively, but Clifton Collins, Jr., has done a very good job while Mark Pellegrino
isn't bad.
The story of how Truman Capote got started with the Clutter case and did his research with the help of Harper
Lee, who's obviously famous for writing To Kill a Mockingbird
which had been submitted for publication before setting out for Holcomb, Kansas, is fascinating. So are the
incidental details as a way of adding more to the film.
One thing that's left out is Truman Capote and Harper Lee stopped being friends afterwards because he got
jealous when she became famous overnight and didn't think much of her literary talent. Another reason is that
she did a lot of work for him, writing over 150 pages of material in his book, but went unacknowledged by
the author.
Anyway, I agree that In Cold Blood was a seminal book for the True
Crime genre because of how Truman Capote gathered information from all fronts including the killers themselves.
But it has several major problems. One, the book is full of purple prose. Nobody writes like that because
only the facts matter. It's why Vincent Bugliosi's Helter Skelter is
the gold standard.
Two, Truman Capote made up some stuff including dialogues. That's because he was a compulsive liar. There
are some passages in the book that he couldn't have possibly known. Three, and this is quite important, the
book is too sympathetic to Perry Smith which explains why Dick Hickock comes off as a common criminal. While
reading the book, I got the feeling that Truman Capote fell in love with Perry, and they may have had sex.
The movie strongly implies the first but is mum on the second count.
Regardless, although a literary giant for a couple of decades, Truman Capote never wrote a novel again and
instead appeared on talk shows like...all the time. Sometimes, he was drunk and seemingly on
drugs. In the long run, he got classified as "famous for being famous," causing people to forget that he wrote
Breakfast at Tiffany's and
In Cold Blood. Eventually, Truman Capote died from excessive abuse
of drug and alcohol at the age of 59.
All in all, In Cold Blood and Capote complement each other
very well.