Capote
(Sony Region 1 NTSC DVD)
(2005)
review by Died with Boots On

November 16th, 1959. Seventeen-year-old Laura Kinney (Allie Mickelson) knocked on the door of the Clutter's Victorian plantation house, dressed in her Sunday best, her father idling in the street. When no one answered, Ewalt, her father, told her to quietly walk in and make sure all was well. Afterall, why would a Bible-thumping, 4-H club, all-American family like the Clutter's miss a Sunday service? Creeping up the stairs, nervous that she was intruding, Laura went to her best friend's, Nancy Clutter's room. Creaking open the door, Laura's eyes fixated on the limp body of her friend, and the blood that was spattered up the wall from the hollowed origin of Nancy's head.

Later that week, established novelist Truman Capote (Hoffman) – author of several works including "Breakfast At Tiffany's" – telephoned his superior, the editor of The New Yorker, William Shawn, wondering if any interest lay in an article about the Kansan Holcomb murders. Interestingly enough, later in his life, Capote said that if he had known what would happen as a result of this impulse, he would have never stopped at the Clutter plantation. In its early stages, before he even wrote a single word, Capote thought his serial article turned novel would be about the coping mechanisms of a rural community shaken by the media blasted tragedy.

After catching a train with his dear friend, Harper Lee (Keener), author of "To Kill A Mockingbird," Capote leaves his metropolitan lifestyle for the one he left when he escaped Alabama. Becoming friendly with Alvin Dewey (Cooper), the primary Kansas Bureau of Investigation agent on the quadruple Clutter homicide, and his wife, Capote begins work on his piece. Interrupted by the telephone, Dewey excuses himself from the dinner that his wife had prepared for their two houseguests. He receives word that two drifters, Perry Smith (Collins) and Richard Hickock ( Mark Pellegrino) were picked up and arrested in Kansas City, and charged with the murder of the Clutter family. The rest of the movie follows Capote as he is consumed by Perry's story. Blurring the line between friendship and love, Capote finds himself caring for Perry as he is unfit even to care for himself. "It's as if we grew up in the same house, and while he went out the back door, I went out the front," Capote confides in his friend, Harper.

Based upon his own well-documented, groundbreaking nonfiction novel, "Capote," as director Bennett Miller resurrects from the dead, is a visual and cerebral masterpiece that finally does the Clutter murders and the misunderstood novelist justice, as far as the big screen goes, anyway. Documenting those crucial years in Capote's life that brought about his eventual fame and fortune, "Capote," at its heart, is about an irredeemable conflict. Truman wins the trust of the two convicted killers and arguably falls in love with Perry Smith, while needing them to die to supply closure to his book.

Philip Seymour Hoffman was more than deserving of the Academy Award he was endowed, as he channeled the mannerisms, speech impediments, and physicality of the deceased literary leviathan. "Capote" is a peculiar film that provides insight into the psychological workings and mentality of an eccentric man who is fueled by his own selfish desires, but at the same time feels remorse over his hardwired personality, shameful that he feels greatly for Perry, and yet has no guilt in exploiting him. Lee asks, "Do you hold him in esteem, Truman?" to which he defensively responds, "Well, he's a gold mine."

My one gripe is this. Perry Smith, as performed by Clifton Collins Jr., though developed through his own narrations, cannot hold a candle to Richard Brooks' portrayal of Perry Smith in his film "In Cold Blood." I say this not because the pageantry or psychology had more depth, but merely because we were treated to his history, to his whereabouts during the several months between the murders and his imprisonment. In this Bennett Miller adaptation, Perry's story is like an incomplete jigsaw puzzle, each piece painfully excavated by Capote, who at this point, would rather be pulling teeth.

Some people complain about the censorship of the murders, and although we do bear witness to a staccato montage of the grizzly shotgun blasts, there was a good reason for the iron curtain. When Capote opened the casket of Herb Clutter, his entire face was swathed in gauze. Through the restriction of the identities of the Clutter family by positioning their faces toward the wall, or concealing their physiognomy with bandages, the audience understands that the focus of the film is not on the murders or the victims. Truman Capote brings about the same effect in his novel, as the reader begins to realize that it wasn't the Clutters who were killed "in cold blood," but the murderers. "If I leave here without understanding you," Capote whispers to Perry during one of their many sessions, "the world will see you as a monster. I don't want that." Don't let this film pass you by.