CNS Movie Review: Capote

Capote

By Harry Forbes
Catholic News Service

NEW YORK (CNS) -- The author of "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and the darling of New York society surprised everyone when he decided to chronicle the disquieting murder of a Kansas farm family in the "nonfiction novel" that he would call "In Cold Blood."

The acclaimed book became a praiseworthy film in 1967, and later a television miniseries. Now in "Capote" (Sony Classics), based on a book by Gerald Clarke, we have a gripping account of how the effete writer with the distinctive baby voice got his inspiration.

Capote is played to perfection by Philip Seymour Hoffman, and in Dan Futterman's screenplay, we see how the writer was in a creative rut circa 1959, and how the newspaper account of the horrific murder sparked his interest.

With his New Yorker magazine editor's (Bob Balaban) blessing, he headed west -- with his longtime pal, Harper Lee (Catherine Keener), who would later write "To Kill a Mockingbird" -- and despite his fey, urbane manner, totally at odds with the stolid citizens of that Kansas community, he manages to charm the locals, starting with the Kansas investigator, Alvin Dewey (Chris Cooper), and his wife (Amy Ryan). By disingenuously being "open" with them, they respond in kind.

His methods are unorthodox, and often questionable, as when he slips into the funeral home, and lifts the lids of the victims' coffins.

When the killers -- Perry Smith (Clifton Collins Jr.) and Dick Hickock (Mark Pellegrino) -- are finally apprehended, Capote bribes the warden to have unlimited access to them, and especially befriends Smith, the more sensitive of the two, who opens up to the benevolent stranger. Smith had been refusing all food, but Capote lovingly spoons him baby food and gets him back on his feet. When Smith relates a pathetic childhood in orphanages, Capote tells him that he, too, had been abandoned.

Capote's kindly interest, however, is shown to be largely motivated by his desire to get good material for his book. Smith talks to him, but doesn't reveal details of the actual murder, which are what Capote needs most. Back home, Capote callously regales the socialites with hair-raising anecdotes.

As the writing of the book drags on over the years, Capote actually becomes impatient for the killers to be executed, so he can put closure to his book, and though he helped them obtain a "proper lawyer" early on, his true intent now comes to the fore, and he evasively skirts Smith's request for more legal aid. When Capote learns there's been yet another stay of execution, he virtually takes to his bed in despair. "They're torturing me," he selfishly wails.

Director Bennett Miller's sobering film masterfully recreates the early 1960s as Capote travels back and forth from the superficial New York glitterati to the bleak aura of death row at Kansas State Penitentiary in Leavenworth. Music is used sparingly, and the effect is riveting.

Hoffman does a spot-on impersonation of Capote, and paints a picture of a man whose vanity and frivolousness often get the upper hand. It's far from an approving portrait, and a well-observed scene of Capote disdaining Lee's masterpiece at the movie premiere of "Mockingbird" says it all.

Hoffman is well supported by Keener, Collins, Cooper, Ryan and the rest.

For a while it seems the film might be painting too sympathetic a picture of the culprits, especially Smith. But even as Capote warms, or seems to warm to him, we're given enough of a balanced picture so that we can plainly see Smith is far from a wounded puppy. Smith's sister, for instance, warns Capote that her brother would "just as soon kill you as shake your hand." And vulnerable and hurting as Smith is, you see he might be using Capote as much as the other way around.

Capote's homosexuality is barely touched on, except for calls back home to his then-partner, writer Jack Dunphy (Bruce Greenwood).

"Capote" is one of the best adult films of the year, and Hoffman a shoo-in for an Oscar nomination.

The film contains brief violent images, an implied homosexual relationship, scattered profanity and rough language, crude expressions, a vulgar anecdote, sexual reference, and a hanging. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-III -- adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R -- restricted.

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Forbes is director of the Office for Film & Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

END

Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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