The Journalist and the Murderer

Rating: Null/10 (30 December 2011)

Truman Capote wrote "In Cold Blood" in 1966, a novel which detailed the 1959 murders of Herbert Clutter, a Kansas farmer, and his wife and two kids. Capote would travel to Kansas in an effort to learn everything about the crime. Accompanying him was Harper Lee (author of "To Kill a Mockingbird"), who assisted Capote with interviews and note-taking. The Clutter's killers were arrested some six weeks after the murders. Capote's book was published six years after he arrived in Kansas. Many regard "In Cold Blood" as having popularised the "faction" or "true crime" novel, which typically mixes fictional elements with traditional investigative reporting (Gonzo journalism would be borne shortly afterwards).
Capote's book was largely an exercise in whetting the reader's appetite, page after page dwelling on portentous scenery and the imminence of murder. What elevated the novel, though, was Capote's sympathy for Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, the two men responsible for the Clutter murders. As a homosexual and outsider, Capote found himself drawn to these two men, and became particularly infatuated with Perry, who was half-white, half-Cherokee, his dark skin and ancestry as much of a social stigma as Capote's homosexuality and fey, oddball mannerisms. Indeed, both Capote and Perry's families were riddled with suicides, and it was not lost on Capote that had he not been embraced by New York's literati he too may have, like Perry, tumbled into some abyss. What "In Cold Blood" thus unconsciously suggested is that the unsettled outsider exists precisely because the Clutters are "settled", comfortably embedded in rural America. The novel doesn't absolve the murderers, but nevertheless always implies that Perry and Dick are perpetually homeless, tormented, excluded and perhaps even driven to criminality because the Clutters have a home; are a long-embraced part of white America.
"Capote", a 2003 film by director Bennett Miller, doesn't delve into these aspects of the novel. "You are a kind and generous man," Capote, played by actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, says sarcastically at one point to a Kansas sheriff who "graciously" offers to categorise Perry as being "officially white", but for the most part such social/racial avenues are left unexplored.
Still, the film has other things on its mind. Though based on a book by Gerald Clarke, screenwriter Dan Futterman did much of his own research and was heavily influenced by a 1989 New Yorker article by Janet Malcolm (along with her subsequent book, "The Journalist and the Murderer"). Malcolm's thesis was that journalists inevitably betray the subjects they saddle up to; they suck up to the subject, flatter it, get close, exploit it for news, then cut all ties. Malcolm, who was interested in the ethical and psychological consequences of "journalist" and "subject" relationships, specifically focused on author Joe McGinniss's relationship with Jeffrey MacDonald, an Army doctor convicted of murdering his family in the 1970s. McGinniss, like Capote, would befriend "his" convict and write a book ("Fatal Vision") based on the murder he investigated. And like Capote, Mcginniss would lead "his" convict on, acting like he believed MacDonald was an innocent victim and acting like his prose would help MacDonald's case in and out of court.
So much of Miller's film revolves around Capote's guilt at having befriended killers in order to facilitate a book which benefits not the killers but Capote's own reputation (the film's title now has a double meaning: Capote's cold blooded treatment of Perry). Capote, the film argues, usd these criminals, manipulated them, led them on and then gave them the sudden cold shoulder, a betrayal which Miller argues led to Capote being consumed by guilt. "I did all I could to help you," a self-pitying Capote tells Perry at one point. But we know it's a lie. Because of his emotionally and morally exhaustive experience, Miller would have us believe, a shameful Capote never wrote another book. A postscript tells us he died an alcoholic, of a drug overdose.
Miller and Futterman over-estimate "In Cold Blood's" effect on Capote, but assuming they're right, this is still a very thin film. Social relations in America are downplayed, Capote and Perry's similarities aren't substantially delved into, and the ethical questions raised by Capote's "journalism" (he appropriates suffering at best, lies and manipulates at worst) aren't really fleshed out. The film doesn't go far enough. Still, in its own low-key way, "Capote" is preferable to the sentimental, preachy 1967 version of "In Cold Blood", and Miller's misty landscapes, haunting chords and greyish blue, near monochromatic palette captures well the brooding, southern Gothic tone of Capote's novel.
Interestingly, Miller's narrative structure loosely echoes that of Capote's novel, which waits and waits for Perry's own description of the grisly murders, until scenes of awesomely vicious, shocking violence hit us hard in the face. The rest of the film is comprised of gloomy shadows, forlorn faces and long shots of rural Kansas, all evocative of Capote and Perry's shared loneliness. For a better, somewhat similar film, see "Flesh and Bone".
Beyond all this, Philip Seymour Hoffman gives a convincing performance as Capote (this really was how Capote spoke and behaved). The film's ancillary characters are mostly cardboard, particularly Harper Lee, played by Catherine Keener. Like "In Cold Blood" and "Gone With The Wind", Lee's "Mockingbird" is another cherished American novel that's become a "classic" for all the wrong reasons. Though touted as a book about "racism", Lee's stance was mostly one of "gradualism", the author believing that the South should be allowed to sacrifice justice, and that it was capable of progress if left to slowly evolve on its own. Hoffman would pick up a Best Actor Academy Award for his portrayal of Capote.
7.9/10 – Very good and at times haunting. See "Infamous", "Flesh and Bone", "Murder on a Sunday Morning", "Paradise Lost 1 and 2" and 1967's "In Cold Blood". Worth two viewings.