A few months back, I saw Capote, starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman. My fascination with the writer, Truman Capote, is hard to explain although he certainly did inspire many of his contemporaries to find him intriguing-- some to despise him. He had a terrific wit, determination to be who he was whether it suited anybody else or not, used his humor viciously, used his humor to make friends, wasn't particularly loyal to those friends, was insightful and a very creative writer. He might be considered the father, in a literary sense, of what we have come to know as docudramas.He lived the creative life to the hilt from the successes to the depression that often comes along with creative work. His books have been made into films, he knew everyone who was important in his era, he had fame and wealth, success in his chosen field, but it is questionable if he ever really knew happiness-- certainly it was fleeting if he did.
Capote had a damaged childhood that scarred him in ways which nobody with 'normal' childhoods can probably grasp. Being very different looking, which he enhanced, added to that in terms of how society saw him; and yet he didn't care. He was who he was and delighted in his uniqueness.
The film Infamous has been the second one made in two years about Capote and his writing of the book, In Cold Blood. Both movies are similar for the general time period they cover. Capote got more critical acclaim, but for me Infamous was the one that I will watch more than once. For me it captured more of the passion of the creative spirit and brought out the dichotomy of life.
One man can be raised with a damaged childhood and become a world famous writer. Another man can be raised with a damaged childhood and brutally murder four innocent people. Explaining how that can be won't be done in a single movie, but the exploration of the fact it happens is certainly worth time to ponder.
In 1959, Truman Capote and Harper Lee went to a small town in Kansas to interview the townspeople and find out how those people had been impacted by having their friends, a whole family, murdered in a brutal fashion. His coming there was a collision of cultures, him from s0-called high society, and these plain folks, many of whom had probably never ventured far from where they were born. His uniqueness led to it taking some time before they trusted him enough to tell him their feelings.
There were a lot of illuminating scenes in this film; but for me, one that said it all was a short one. Capote and Lee were interviewing an old rancher. The three of them stood out on the grasslands. The cowboy said what a good manager of his land the murdered man had been, how he had gone to church, done all that could be expected of anyone, and not just done it because it looked good but really took it all into himself. To see a family like that so brutally murdered disrupted his own view of life. He said it made him see that we have no real control over our lives. We think we have control, and then a big wind comes along and knocks us off our feet, we get cancer, see a woman we want who isn't ours, or some violence happens to us, and we realize we have no control at all.
The cast was impeccable with Toby Jones as Capote, Sandra Bullock as Harper Lee (author of To Kill a Mockingbird and Capote's childhood friend), Daniel Craig as Perry Smith (one of the murderers), Jeff Daniels as Sheriff Alvin Dewey, and a lot of other recognizeable stars playing the celebrities of their time. As Daniel Craig portrayed Smith, it wouldn't be hard to see how Capote could have really fallen in love with him which this film suggests was what happened.
Although the film, Capote, was good, and it got a lot more acclaim when it came out; for me, Infamous was far better for its ability to make me think about life, of the good and bad in people. It moved within two worlds and gave the viewer a slice of both to take away.
3 comments:
Oh I so agree with you Rain...I thought "Infamous" was so much better a film, in every way...I was very moved by it and found both Toby Jones performance and Sandra Bullock's too, really really deep and layered and I completely forgot that both of them awere 'actors', and that is no easy task...which, btw, was not true for me in "Capote" at all....I LOVED that this film included the ladies, too, because that deepened everything about the complexity of this man's dilemma as a hunan being....I too, will watch it more than once---in fact I actually bought the DVD. "Capote" was a cold film to me in many ways...this film was not at all cold, and I think that is one of the things that made it so very heartbreaking, too...I do think that this book---IN COLD BLOOD was one of the most brilliant pieces of "reportage" as we now know it, ever! That Capote never really wrote another book is quite amazing and yet....not as surprising as one would think upon true reflection..and this film gave one so much more of the humanity-gone awry of Capote---and that was heartbreaking, too...
Hello Rain,
Both movies are worth seeing, I think, because they show different parts of the story and the personalities. More is more!
We saw 'Infamous' when it was new at the theater - stunning on a large screen. What was interesting to me was that in books and articles you are told that Capote was so charming that he could make anyone tell him their secrets, but in this movie, especially in the scene where he first meets the family of Alvin Dewey [played by Jeff Daniels], you actually witness as Capote turns suspicious strangers into friends.
Phillip Seymour Hoffman had to use all his acting ability just to try to resemble a person who was physically smaller, while Toby Jones was already much closer in stature, so he could use his talents and expand into a larger-than-life personality.
It was fun to see both versions, but I wouldn't even make a guess as to which was closer to the truth - just enjoyed them as movies rather than factual biographies.
Annie the Garden Blogger
thank you both for your comments on this. Annie, you made a good point on the physical differences in the two stars.
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