Capote

A few months back, I watched an old Jimmy Stewart melodrama entitled Call Northside 777. It's a notable film both because it was among the first filmed on location in the city of Chicago and also because it helped to birth an entire genre of films - the true crime thriller. Call Northside was based on a real case, in which a reporter was turned on to the story of an innocent man on death row by a personal ad taken out by the condemned man's mother. The movie consistantly reminds you throughout that these shocking events are, in fact, based on a true story.

Of course, in 2005, it's not so odd at all to see a film based on the story of a true crime. In fact, as soon as an infamous tabloid-style murder happens now in America, work begins on the TV-movie. So it's only natural we'd get a film like Capote, a truly post-modern true crime film. Rather than focus on the criminals responsible for some heinous injustice, the film focused on the writer investigating the crime, turning his story into the main dramatic arc.

The film is something of a heady experience, an account of not just the murder of an entire Kansas farming family by two thugs but of the relationship that would develop between one of those thugs and writer Truman Capote. Capote's non-fiction novel, "In Cold Blood," and the brilliant film based on the novel, would make these two men (Dick Hickock and Perry Smith) famous after their executions.



So it's the story of the telling of the story of a murder. To be honest, it's not really a story that's screaming out to be told. When I first heard that such a film was being made, with Phillip Seymour Hoffman playing Capote, it occured to me that I didn't really know anything about the writing of "In Cold Blood," other than Capote got to know one of the killers in the years following the murder. It turns out I hadn't heard much about this period because it was largely uneventful.

The bulk of the film's action is taken up with Capote and his childhood friend Harper Lee (an underutilized Catherine Keener) going to Kansas to research an article on the killings. They speak with the local law enforcement (Chris Cooper), friends of the deceased and, of course, the two men who will eventually be convicted of the killings and sentenced to die by hanging.

They are Dick Hickock (Mark Pelligrino), a sociopath with a diarming, boyish quality and the thoughtful but soft-spoken Perry Smith (Clifton Collins Jr.) Capote feels an immediate kinship with Smith, possibly because they are both outsiders. Smith was an orphan, a half-Indian, and above all a painfully shy man who clearly has trouble fitting in. And Capote, of course, is the loud-mouthed, homosexual Southern gentleman who speaks with an unfortunately high, squeaky and lisped voice. As well, they both share issues of abandonment stemming from turbulent childhoods.

Capote works on his book, helps the duo find better legal representation than is provided them by the state of Kansas, and gives a well-received public reading. And that's about all for the action of the movie. In fact, almost all of the big, dramatic beats of the story are shown with more stark poetry in Richard Brooks' masterful 1967 film In Cold Blood. I'm not sure adding Capote himself in as a protagonist really adds all that much to Smith and Hickock's already-eventful story.

Thankfully, the film doesn't content itself merely with retelling the tragic story of the gruesome day in 1959 when Smith and Hickock killed a family of four in their beds. Director Bennett Miller and screenwriter Dan Futterman are interested in exploring the idea of subjects and authors, of how much a writer owes the people about whom he writes. Capote is criticized often in the film for "using" Perry Smith for his story. Has he really befriended this troubled young man, or does he just want to get close to him in order to pick his brain?

The film remains somewhat ambiguous on this point, possibly because the real Truman Capote wasn't sure how he felt about Smith. He clearly recognizes the horrific nature of Smith's crime, and there isn't a single moment in the film when Smith's guilt is called into question. When his lover Jack Dunphy (Bruce Greenwood) implies that Tru may have fallen for the boy, he doesn't immediately deny the idea out of hand.

But Capote is also an egomaniac, obsessed with his reputation and a positive reception for his writing. He seems to view Smith and Smith's story as somehow uniquely his, as his property, as the material for his book. When Smith refuses to tell him about the day of the murder, Capote becomes angry with him and refuses him further visitation. Capote repeatedly lies about the book's salacious title to Smith, fearing that it will upset him and cause him to refuse any further contact. When the prisoners are granted a stay of execution by the Supreme Court, Capote goes on a bender out of frustration; he can't publish his book until the prisoners are either set free or executed, he feels, because the story remains unfinished.

And now we have Miller's film, analyzing the way in which Capote analyzed Perry Smith. If Phillip Seymour Hoffman hopes to use this performance as away of obtaining an Academy Award, then wouldn't he be guilty of the same crime his film assigns to Truman Capote - of using a real life subject to obtain personal glory and fame?

In one memorable sequence of the film, after Capote has given the first public reading of "In Cold Blood," he earns a standing ovation. Hoffman lets a large, goofy grin slide slowly across his face. We recognize that it is this moment, not any sort of public redemption of Perry Smith, that has driven Truman's work these past three years. He is an artist seeking recognition for his work, first and foremost, and a caring human being who reached out to another human being a distant second. When later on he watches Perry Smith hang for his crimes, is it sadness that he feels at the loss of life? Or relief that a five-year ordeal has finally come to a close?

An end title informs us that Capote would never complete another book, and that he died in 1984 (20 years after "In Cold Blood") due to complications related to alcoholism. It's worth noting that his friend Harper Lee never completed a follow-up to her wildly acclaimed novel of this same time period, "To Kill a Mockingbird." What happened to these two artists around this time that stunted their future development? Capote gives us no inkling of an idea (although it hints around the notion that the trauma of watching Perry Smith die affected Capote deeply). Seems like that might have made an interesting film.

Even though it's a bit of a recycle, a near-remake that doesn't come close to the level of the original film, Capote is worth seeing for the wonderful Hoffman performance. Yes, he does the voice and the mannerisms well and he looks enough like Capote to sustain the illusion, but it's really in the quieter moments, without all the big flourishes, that the performance comes alive. An early scene in which Capote regales Chris Cooper's Officer Alvin Dewey and his family with lively conversation that quickly turns severe is masterful stuff, at once distant and intimate. And the interview scenes between Collins and Hoffman, which really make up the emotional core of the movie, are admirable for their directness and sincerity. This is a film about coming to terms with these people, about looking into their behavior and its roots, that refuses to fall back on mawkishness or sentimentality. That's a rare thing in an American film. Mark Forster, take notes.