A brilliantly multilayered, sophisticated and understated melodrama about an incredibly complex character

Rating: 9/10 (27 February 2006)

In 2002 Nicole Kidman played one of the most memorable portraits of an author ever committed to the screen. Her introspective rendering of the troubled genius that was Virginia Woolf gave us an insight into the thought and literature of that great woman. We saw, through Kidman and the ensemble cast, the effect of one of Woolf's books, and a token of the rarefied insight she had made into human relationships.
Woolf, like Truman Capote, changed the course of literature by developing a new way of writing: with Woolf, it was 'stream-of-consciousness'  and with Capote it was the 'non-fiction novel'. Like Capote, Woolf remained isolated within her world, but in her case the isolation was created by mental instability and a society that was unready or unwilling to embrace her ideas (such as women's liberation). Capote's isolation was maybe due more to his own unresolved personality issues, to being badly treated as a child, and then finding that he did not 'fit' in the socialite world he inhabited; but mostly it was due to the conscious way that he approached his writing.
Capote is a slow, multilayered, sophisticated and understated melodrama about an incredibly complex character, and is brilliantly accomplished. It avoids the pitfall of trying to sensationalise the visually uninspiring action of typing or writing, but equally circumvents placing the 'creative process' into some stereotypical niche. The film is less of a biopic than an exploration of a mind, and the commonality between the mind of Capote and that of the convicted criminal he is writing about. On another level, it is about moral dilemmas of journalistic research and, on yet another, the psychology of the killer.
While glancing through a newspaper looking for ideas for a short story or article, Capote happens upon a report of a good, decent family in Kansas that have been cold-bloodedly murdered. He gains access to police reports and eventually the murderers as they are apprehended. One of them, Perry Smith, is literate and intelligent. Moreover he had a difficult childhood. Whereas Capote was fairly well-to-do, Smith had fell in with a bad crowd  he was from the 'dark underbelly' of America  people that respectable folk knew little of and cared even less. Capote spots details the police miss  why was a pillow placed under the head of the victim before being shot? Capote realises there is enough information for a major novel. He works Perry for details, examines the corpses, studies police photographs, and even achieves a delay in the sentence while he finishes researching. We start to see his methods and his remarkable mind. One of his party tricks is to demonstrate that he has "94% recall of any conversation", observing and recalling the minutest detail. He studies people, he sees their motivations, he asks himself why, and often he automatically knows by logical inference. He does all this in a professional capacity as an author, accurately researching, but on the way it gives him immense power, of which he is also aware and doesn't hesitate to use.
When Capote receives a standing ovation for a preview reading of his book we see him barely able to contain his emotion  he wants to be acknowledged  needs to be acknowledged  and it is a driving force that is also an overriding obsession: he will write the book of the decade, it will be a literary masterpiece (modesty is not something that troubles him), but he also needs to write it to feel wanted. It mirrors the need felt by Perry in a diary entry where has written an acceptance speech 'just in case' anyone ever recognised and thanked him for something.
Capote uncovers a beautiful human side to Perry, one that is at direct odds with the murderer mentality. We can see 'there but for fortune' (or if nurtured) Perry might have become a writer or artist. Should such information have been used to commute the sentence? Was the murder really 'in cold blood'? How such contradictions exist and their implications are realised too late.
But Capote is especially susceptible to his own discipline, as he has ignored his own need for friendship. Even at the greatest triumphs of fellow authors who support him, he is oblivious to their success, unable to join in their celebrations, just getting drunk and wallowing in his own self-torture because the stars of his book have not been executed. Why fuss about the trivial achievements of others? (including some not-so-trivial successes, such as To Kill a Mockingbird). Capote's self-obsession and fixation with writing the novel of the decade is total. In ignoring his need for friendship, Capote is at the mercy of the fact that he professionally wants, or wanted, someone who was close to him executed. He has missed out on the joy of giving that is at the core of friendship  genius is not enough.
Philip Seymour Hoffman as Truman Capote has pulled off a triumph of acting that goes beyond a simple life story. He has brought the genius and the misery of Capote to the screen in a way that is more transparent than one could hope for in the depiction of such a multifaceted and unusual person. Catherine Keener, as the ever-supportive Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird), is a superb balancing act. Her character is the opposite of Capote, empathetic, warm, and endlessly forgiving of his faults. Keener does an admirable job  and as self-effacing a one as her character might.
Like 'The Hours', Capote comes across as a labour of love and one eminently worth the trouble and several viewings. But the lessons we can take from it are less about the greatness of Capote and more about his shortcomings. As he was later to recall (in the midst of the terminal decline that set in after the novel was published) more tears are shed over answered than unanswered prayers.