A triumph of the screen craft.

Rating: 10/10 (4 February 2006)

In the natural world there is the Pacific Salmon that swims back from the sea for miles up rivers and streams, often jumping waterfalls in order to reproduce. We've all seen depictions of this phenomenon on film and just this past summer were awed by MARCH OF THE PENGUINS, essentially the same theme; the death of a flower as it yields its seeds.
In this quietly powerful film we see exactly the same story but on a human scale. Coming of age one of the most talked about writers of the late 1950s was Truman Capote. He was then celebrated as a NEW YORKER short story writer. He became very famous through television appearances but you are likely to remember Blake Edwards' film based on his story, BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S. The Edwards film was good but not really Truman Capote.
CAPOTE the movie is based on a 1988 biography by Gerald Clark. It's a superbly written screenplay in which Capote's character is fleshed out with great nuance and detail as he researches and writes his most famous work, a commanding, seminal "nonfiction novel" that influenced novelists thereafter, IN COLD BLOOD.
If we are to believe this filmic presentation then Truman Capote's six year dedication to the research and writing of this book, his emotional involvement with the killers, who were human after all, especially one, a part American Indian who had brains and whose childhood story paralleled Capote's then the production of this book killed Capote in the long term. He died in 1984 mostly due to liver damage caused by drinking. Although he wrote some 20 additional works after that, none were novels nor attained as much fame as the book.
The film CAPOTE is a triumph of the screen craft. Its subtle intelligence and powerful human emotion is rare in films. Highly recommended, it is not without some violence since it depicts to some extent the killings in Kansas. However if you are a fan of great American films, this one is not to be missed.