The cult of the "writer"

Rating: 5/10 (19 March 2017)

'In Cold Blood', Truman Capote's most famous book, was a thinly fictionalised account of some real life murders; which he befriended the killers to write. 'Capote' tells the story of the book's gestation. At its dramatic core is the tension between Capote the professional, to whom his subjects are just material, and Capote the human being; to be a writer, of course, he needs to function on both levels. But nonetheless, the film presents him as someone so fundamentally self-centred that it's hard to see why we should care about his ethical unease - there's little doubt that ultimately he's going to resolve it in his own favour anyway. Philip Seymour Hoffman is very good in the title role but there really doesn't seem to be too much purpose to this movie, except to genuflect in reverence of the "artist".