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In 1959 Truman Capote (Philip Seymour Hoffman) was a columnist for the New Yorker magazine. One day he read a newspaper article about a mass murder in small town Kansas. The multiple murder intrigued Capote. So he asked his editor at the New Yorker magazine, then William Shawn (Bob Balaban), to allow him to write a longer article about the evolving mass murder case. Truman Capote felt the true story should be made into one as provocative as fiction. The Kansas mass murder was so inexplicably brutal. It occurred in a town of people where it was a strain to even imagine a mass murder could happen there. After his editor agreed, Capote ventured to the town taking with him a close friend Harper Lee (Catherine Keener)--novelist of "To Kill a Mockingbird." Capote's (gay) difference was accentuated in Kansas. However, with finesse and intellect he earned the trust of Alvin Dewey (Chris Cooper), the Kansas Bureau of Investigation agent who was working the murder case of the Clutter family. In short, Capote's New Yorker magazine article turned out to be a full-length book. It's this unforgettable 1960's book's invention and the influence researching and writing it had on Truman Capote that inspires this dramatic true story film. Interestingly, Capote also familiarized himself with the murderers of the Clutter family: Dick Hickock (Mark Pellegrino) and Perry Smith (Clifton Collins Jr.). Surprisingly, Capote found out he was more like Smith than he ever expected to learn or admit. Capote and Smith became "friends," never realizing Smith would still be alive (rather than executed) before the nonfiction text was published. Therefore, the author was forced to contend with the morality of his text. Capote's research and writing would play a role in Smith's execution and the literary creation of how Smith would be marked in readers' memories. Ths bolder issue is the power of one writer's life over one murderer's death, plus many readers' impressions of the murderer. Capote co-stars Bruce Greenwood (Capote's long term gay lover Jack Dunphy) and Amy Ryan (Mary Dewey, investigator Alvin Dewey's wife, one of Capote's confidantes). It's one of the better stories about a writer I've seen.Read full review
I was bowled over by Philip Seymour Hoffman's portrayal of Capote. He was masterful and had every detail of Truman Capote's quirky mannerisms and fine nuances. He truly deserved his Oscar for this role! The film covers the seven-year period of Capote's life when he was researching and writing "In Cold Blood." Clifton Collins, Jr. is thoroughly convincing as the disturbed young murderer, Perry Smith, while Chris Cooper plays the role of Alvin Dewey (the Kansas Bureau of Investigation agent who was primarily responsible for breaking the case) with a certain remoteness and sharp eye on Capote's motives. Catherine Keener is fascinating as Capote's dear friend Harper Lee (whose own novel, "To Kill a Mockingbird," is soon to hit the market) as she accompanies Capote on some of his research trips to Kansas and lends him an ear back in NYC. Like actor Chris Cooper, this film struck close to me personally as we were both children and teens during this seven-year period and lived in the Kansas City area. We both well remember when the Clutter family was murdered in their farmhouse in rural Kansas, all the news coverage, the capture of the murderers, their trial, appeals, and eventual execution.Read full review
Capote, the movie, takes us to the dark side of the American story in more ways than one. It’s a tale about the way narcissism can poison relationships and twist values. It deals with the causes and aftermath of a terrible, multiple murder but it also questions the pursuit of fame and success. It tells us: "Be careful what you wish for". Born in Alabama in 1924, Truman Capote, wanted fame and success more than most and he achieved it early. He has been described as the most perfect writer of his generation. But as an extravagant gay man, Capote was fascinated for public attention long before the concept of celebrity was part of the American culture. On Nov. 16, 1959, Truman Capote noticed an article in a newspaper about a Kansas family who were killed. Immediately, he telephoned the editor of The New Yorker, where he held a weekly column, wondering if he would be interested in an article about the murders. Later in his life, Capote said that if he had known what would happen as a result of this impulse, he would not have stopped in the little town in Kansas, but would have run away "like a bat out of hell". At first, Capote thought the story would be about how a small community was dealing with the tragedy. That’s until two men, Perry Smith and Richard Hickock, are arrested and charged with the crime. As Capote gets to know them, he's consumed by a story that would make him rich and famous, but eventually destroy him. His non-fiction novel, In Cold Blood, became a best seller and inspired a movie, but Capote was emotionally devastated by the experience and it’s been said that it haunted him to his death. Sort of an alternate angle on In Cold Blood, Capote chronicles the unlikely friendship between writer and murderer. Capote and Smith shared a sense of defiance and loneliness, but as the film progresses, the relationship grows one-sided, and Capote's attitude toward Smith changes from empathetic and compassionate to exploitative and manipulative. In that respect, the film is also about the tricky ethics of journalism and the way in which Capote the writer was eventually swallowed up by Capote the celebrity. That second Truman Capote is the one who still lingers in the public imagination, and Hoffman does a superb job at revealing the lonely man behind the extroverted public persona. What an extraordinary performance. Isn’t the point of a good movie when you walk out of the theater and can’t stop thinking about it? For me, it was disturbing, I’m still thinking about it and I’d recommend to anyone who actually likes a movie with substance to see it. I’ll see it again. I know that already.Read full review
Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance was so good as was Clifton Collins Jr. as Perry that I now may read the book. These two actors formed a convincing bond in this film about Truman Copote's book In Cold Blood. The first crime was the murders of a family of four in Kansas in 1959 by Perry Smith and Dick Hickock. The second crime was how Capote used these men to further his writing career by pretending to befriend them and getting them appeals only to let them hang in the end so he could finish his book. The film clearly showed Capote as a man who would do anything to make his book a success.
I didn’t even know what this movie was about when I saw it, but I wanted to see what all of the hype was about. After I watched the extras with the real Truman Capote, I could understand why Philip Seymour Hoffman received so much praise. He did a great job imitating Capote even down to the pauses he took in his speech. As for the story itself, I thought it was done from an interesting perspective. Though I hadn’t recognized his name, I had read Capote’s book, IN COLD BLOOD. To see a movie, not about the book but about the writer as he’s writing the book, was different. I liked it and feel that it deserves all the press it has received.
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