CAPOTE Companion Piece

Rating: 9/10 (2 April 2006)

CAPOTE has been discussed in great depth and there would be little that I might had. The film had been highly recommended to me by a film professor and I had thought to rent it on DVD. While in Wall Mart I came upon a double disc offering CAPOTE and Richard Brooks 1967 film IN COLD BLOOD for a combined price of just under $20.00. I couldn't resist and found that they make for an excellent double-bill. The day following my screening of CAPOTE I took a look at the earlier film (which I had originally seen during its theatrical run). The two films work perfectly together, each enriching the other. Though IN COLD BLOOD was made 38 years before CAPOTE, it has a style that fits seamlessly with the later film. Even the different actors playing Perry Smith and Dick Hickock work well. Only the writer played by Paul Stewart in the Brooks film, representing Capote only with a different name, comes up short. That weakness is more then taken care of with Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance in CAPOTE. If you were as fascinated by CAPOTE as I was, then you may want to take a look at IN COLD BLOOD.