Movie Review: "Capote" Is Beyond Definition
Moviegoers deciding to see "Capote" with the notion that they
will walk away with more of an understanding of the
megalomaniacal, self-destructive author will be disappointed;
Truman Capote is more of an enigma at the end of the movie than
he was at the beginning.
The film depicts a four-year segment of Capote's life which
begins days after four members of a Kansas farm family are
brutally murdered, and ends after the execution of one of the
killers. In between, Capote finds himself drawn into a complex,
approach-avoid relationship with convicted murderer Perry Smith
as he researches and writes In Cold Blood, his
best-selling book on the murders. Actor Philip Seymour Hoffman
literally vanishes into the role of Capote, who veers between
complete self-absorption and an overwhelming empathy for Smith
and back again, and one has to wonder: Is the compassion real,
or coldly manipulative, or both? Clifton Collins Jr. is quietly
intense as the young Smith, who comes to rely on Capote's
friendship and is periodically abandoned; the young convict
reaches a kind of peaceful resolution of his feelings for Capote
at the end. Not so with Capote; hardly a model of stability at
the outset, his personality disintegrates until by the end of
the film he is firmly locked onto the path which will eventually
destroy him.
Director Bennett Miller and screenwriter Dan Futterman make a
gutsy decision in refusing to explain or psychoanalyze either
Capote or Smith; while it's normal to want explanations - Why
did the killers do what they did? What was Capote's motivation
in helping, and then not helping, and then meeting a final
obligation to Smith? Did Capote, who saw himself in Smith, see a
sympathetic human being, or did he see a monster? - The reality
is that real life rarely has the kind of answers or emotional
resolution we all crave. Hoffman's unflinching portrayal of
Capote makes no apologies or explanations for any of the
writer's actions but simply shows him in all his contradictions.
A possible irony of the movie is that In Cold Blood, the
pivot around which the movie revolves, was recognized at the
time of its writing as an entirely new literary genre, and
"Capote" is so utterly unique that it cannot be defined as
belonging in any conventional category. Neither standard bio-pic
nor psychological drama, it is nothing so much as Truman
Capote's shattered psyche splayed open for everyone to see. Both
Hoffman and Collins deserve kudos in what is essentially a
two-man show, in spite of spot-on performances by an excellent
supporting cast.