Here and There

Icons are people too, or so the film Capote sets out to relate.

Truman Capote, perhaps best known for writing the book Breakfast at Tiffany’s (so different from the movie, they say), was between stories in late 1959 when he happened upon a headline in The New York Times. A rural Kansas family had been brutally murdered in the middle of a quiet night on the Great Plains. Capote immediately phoned his boss, New Yorker editor William Shawn, and said he had to go. The result, nearly six years later, was In Cold Blood, a true crime book that critics note as changing the tone and style of American writing.

The first twenty minutes of this movie are a roller coaster of inanimate beauty, subtle movement, shock, horror, comedy, and sadness. The film opens with a shot of a flat field, then cuts to the dead family’s house. Shortly afterward, their bodies are discovered. Cut to Capote, comfortable in his Manhattan penthouse, enjoying his morning paper. He stumbles upon the story and it grips him. The deep, immediate interest is visible on Hoffman’s face.

The following hour and some-odd minutes, though, are a poorly-paced rendition of the writer’s budding relationship with one of the killers, Perry Edward Smith. Hoffman’s outstanding performance betrays Capote’s interest in his subject, but the audience is cheated out of experiencing the true nature of the relationship. We don’t really know what draws the writer to the killer: does he truly relate to something in Smith’s history, as he tells the prisoner? Does he honestly feel Smith and his accomplice, Richard Hickock, were not provided adequate counsel at their preliminary hearing? Or, is it all just a ploy, the conniving writer going to any length to get the story?

(In an interview on The Daily Show, Hoffman suggests it started with going after the story, which demanded intimacy with the killers. From there, the fondness developed, and Hoffman doesn’t mince words. He calls it Capote’s love for Smith.)

Capote hides from his subject the fact that he’s begun writing. He also lies and tells Smith there’s no title. He knows he can’t blow his ride, but in tender scenes shot inside Smith’s cell, the filmmaker (Bennett Miller, director of 1998’s The Cruise) teases his audience by blurring the dynamic between the two men.

Ambiguity can be a good thing, in all walks of life. It’s perfectly natural, after all. We’re ambiguous creatures, forever slaves to making sense of it all. That’s built into the job description of writers, filmmakers, artists, maybe even iconic characters. In Capote, clarity is portrayed only by Hoffman, in the role of icon. Perhaps if Miller and his screenwriters had demanded more from their supporting characters, especially Clifton Collins Jr. in the role of Smith, we’d have a better handle on the answers we as an audience are looking for.

Hoffman is already collecting accolades and Oscar nods, deservedly, for his breathtaking role. I remember Capote from my early years, mostly as the guy with the glasses and a cool name who died just before I started fifth grade. I’m adding what I saw on-screen with the praise for Hoffman to come up with my own interpretation of the writer. As a journalist, I respect his drive, though not necessarily his methods. I also find myself a little cold to his dealings with people. The non-journalistic public will, on balance, see the fourth estate as a band of Gypsy users, out for their own good, for glory and fame. Capote seems to have embodied and perpetuated this stereotype.

But icons exist to push our conceptions of what it is to be human. There’s something in these people we can all use, and we throw the rest away. For me, sitting back and watching Capote go after the story, no matter that I didn’t exactly grasp his attraction, was all the inspiration I could ask for in a movie.

In the coming months, I’ll be reading In Cold Blood, a natural reaction to seeing this film, despite its faults. Look for a review in late November/early December.

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