Pic about "In Cold Blood" is cold potatoes

Rating: 3/10 (21 November 2005)

I've said for years that there are three classes of movies. The first class is comprised of movies that are pure art. They generate new thoughts in your mind or feelings in your heart. They affect you. The second class of movies are just nice stories. They're worth the ticket price for a couple of hours of escape-the-real-world entertainment. The third class of movie, of course, is that which is neither art nor a nice story. We've all seen one or two Class Three movies.
Like Truman Capote may have invented a new and wonderful style of writing, his namesake flick may have invented a new, fourth class of movie. Unlike the sensational "In Cold Blood," I call this new class of movie the "Shame." Indeed, it's a shame that such a deep and creative subject, the writing of ICB, was wasted on such a cut-and-paste, one-dimensional picture.
For whatever reason, 46 years after Richard Hickock and Perry Smith entered a farmhouse in Holcomb, Kansas and murdered its occupants, the story of that awful night still intrigues many. Since that event, "In Cold Blood" was written, a blockbuster 1967 movie was made, a 1996 television mini-series was produced, and countless other television specials have aired. In fact, in a recent newspaper article easily available over the internet, the present owners of the Clutter house complain that their farm is visited by hundreds of Capote fans each year.
Taking all of this into account, it stands to reason that "Capote's" audience will be made up largely of people who have read--or even studied--"In Cold Blood." Although the movie is not about the murders, but about Capote's writing about them, ICB-ites will be disappointed to find "Capote" plays fast and loose with the facts.
To begin with, Nancy Clutter's body was discovered by Nancy Ewalt and Susan Kidwell, not the fictitious Laura Kinsey. ICB readers will also see that Bobby Rupp has been replaced by some vague character named "Danny." Even more offensive is some interview (the only one of its kind in a movie about researching and writing a book) the movie stages between Capote and Kinsey in which Kinsey hands over Nancy Clutter's diary. Any researcher will tell you that Kansas Bureau of Investigation Agent Alvin Dewey turned over the diary. So does common sense: after all, are we really to believe that after discovering Nancy's bloody body, "Laura Kinsey" rushed back into the house and grabbed the diary? And speaking of that house, it's worth noting that the house--just some old farmhouse--depicted in "Capote" looks nothing like the real Clutter house, many pictures of which are readily available on the internet and in which the original 1967 movie was filmed. I don't know how much money was spent on making "Capote," but it appears that a ticket to and a few nights in Holcomb, Kansas talking to the people the real Capote interviewed were not in the budget.
The list of inaccuracies goes on and on. As anyone will read in the Lawrence World Journal's 45th anniversary series on the crimes, Alvin Dewey, the consummate politician, became quite close and remained close to Capote. Indeed, the newspaper is flush with photos of Capote and the Deweys. Perry Smith, as the real Capote notes, although uneducated, was very conscious of his grammar and would have never spoken in the manner his character presents in "Capote." "The Corner" part of ICB is full of dialogue with Richard Hickock, who, in the movie is so ignored by Capote that he conspicuously sulks. The biggest fraud of all, however, is that the movie puts Truman Capote at Smith's execution. Capote, as is well-documented, attended Hickock's hanging but couldn't bear to watch Smith drop into eternity.
The flow of the movie is rough and unnatural as well. Everybody knows that each scene in a movie is a building block for the climax, but in well-written pics, the scenes flow together and the audience doesn't think of each scene as mere construction work. In "Capote," quite the opposite is true: each scene and the dialogue therein accomplish only what is necessary and, having made their point,hastily move on.
Finally--and my reader now probably thinks I just can't be pleased--I have to comment on the story itself. Is this about Truman being attracted to Perry Smith? If so, why was he attracted? Was it the way Smith asked him for aspirin that made him find Smith so stunning? How did Alvin Dewey morph from a man offended by Capote's cavalier attitude toward whether he solved the case to being Capote's friend, shepherding him through the investigation? What made Dewey--in one minute--move from nearly threatening Capote to allowing him to review his notes? None of this is answered.
What is the point of this movie? I guess it was to show that Capote felt guilty about not doing more to save the life of Perry Smith. First of all, the movie is unclear about whether Capote really tried to get Smith a second attorney and had anything to feel guilty about in the first place. Second, if the movie wants to tell us Capote felt guilty, it needs a lot more than Harper Lee's one liner telling Capote "You didn't really want to save him." Good advice to screenwriters: Don't tell us your message. Show us your message. The message of a good movie does not come from a line delivered by or to the protagonist. It is made obvious in far more subtle ways.
At the heart of a story based on truth is the truth. If a movie maker wants to give their movie any credibility, they should research the facts first. Not to do so gives rise to a shame.
/s/Jack Bridges Key Largo, Florida