The life of some minds...

Rating: 10/10 (20 February 2006)

Two very engaging and very compelling things are centerpieces for works that people keep coming back to again and again: psychopaths and artists. Especially when both are slightly insane or egotistic, the analysis of brains abnormal and uncomprehended are fascinating and wondrous motifs that re-occur in literature and media again and again.
This movie has both, a very contradictory and egotistic mind, Truman Capote's, matched with the alarmingly sweet and charismatic mind of a psychopath, Perry Smith, who Truman falls in love with and interviews for research to write his best-selling and important work, In Cold Blood.
The result is very affecting. Hoffman's zealous and defined portrayal of Capote is matched by the outstanding performance of Clifton Collin's Jr., the lonely and slightly terrifying face of a killer who is human and humanized.
The real drama comes from Capote's terrifyingly manipulative mind. For someone who didn't know much about Capote before I entered the theatre, Hoffman's performance was simply shocking. The commercials and advertising and posters and the like would have you imagine that Capote was a very strong artistic trope, like other biopics that show brilliant artists and their troubles. However, a couple of things should be noted... first, this is not a biopic. Second, Capote's flamboyantly homosexual and confrontationally controversial mannerisms both set the man himself apart from the type of character we like to see from artists, and also set Hoffman's performance apart from basically anything we've ever seen before.
A side-result is a very discomforting and contradictory look. Capote lies, manipulates, cheats... and yet the presentation of these events help us concern ourselves with his character so much that we can't help but want every part of his innermost desires to actualize. We have a man who kills, but he's also lonely and afraid and willing to cling on to anybody who will give him attention. We empathize with characters we'd normally shun, yet simultaneously feel uncomfortable being so close to them, thus wanting to know more about them so that we can come to terms with who they are.
And at the end, when we see the denouement of what is both a perverse and a relatable relationship, the movie centers in on Smith's heavy breathing as he awaits his doom and the audience breaths heavily along with him, feeling all hope begin to fade from the screen as the deranged Capote watches on. Now tell me that isn't great, great film-making.
--PolarisDiB