"What's the Title of Your Book?"

Rating: 6/10 (30 October 2005)

Please note: although I've checked the "spoiler" box, there really isn't one in this post. For this film details an important series of events in American cultural history on several different levels that, frankly, should be common knowledge to anyone old enough to go see it. Those who have a strong interest to see "Capote" are already familiar with its story. Those only partially familiar yet wish to see it (not surprising, given the loud (justified) raves for P.S. Hoffman's performance) would do well to do some preliminary study, about the real-life Clutter killings if not about Capote himself. If you're interested in seeing the film but have never heard of either Truman Capote or the story (or the book TC wrote), do yourself a favor and rent Richard Brooks' 1967 adaptation of "In Cold Blood." Robert Blake's performance (as Perry Smith) in that film is every bit as good as Hoffman's in this one, and you'll get a much better understanding as to why Smith and Hickock did what they did, which, ultimately, is what "Capote" is really about.
Having said that, I'm torn about recommending "Capote": yes, Hoffman is excellent in capturing Capote the enigma and deserves to be on next year's Best Actor Oscar short list; yes, it captures the relationship between TC and Harper Lee, as well as the painfully-shy Lee herself (I wonder what the real HL thinks of Catherine Keener's performance); yes, it does a good job capturing the deep connection between Perry and Truman, and I even liked how the filmmakers seemed to have gone out of their way to dignify the Clutters as murder victims almost as much as they do their killers, something the film of "ICB" doesn't do.
Yet in making sure everyone involved is portrayed with an appropriate level of dignity and sensitivity, all the blood and the feeling has been drained out of it. This is why "Capote" generates more questions than the film can possibly answer: What was it that moved TC to pursue the Clutter story so immediately from the very moment he read about it in the newspaper, considering the light years rural Kansas was from his own Manhattan world of holding court at cocktail parties and being the general center of attention? Couldn't the filmmakers have addressed more fully how the success of "ICB" ended TC's career, not even to show how the book's release forever altered the publishing and literary worlds and made him a cause célèbre for years, which made his downfall so breathtaking and tragic?
With the exception of Perry himself, how was it that no one in his orbit -- Lee, Jack Dumphy, even William Shawn, to an extent -- never confronted or call out TC on how shamefully exploitative he was in squeezing the murder story out of Perry for the sake of his own career and ego? And most importantly (one reason I wanted to see it), how did a flamboyant,self-centered, lisping man-child queen not only manage to get the story with the full cooperation of everyone he approached -- including, begrudgingly,the lead investigator in the case! -- yet was not once "gay-bashed," verbally or physically, by anyone he encountered in Holcomb or elsewhere in Kansas, no less a bastion of church-sanctioned homophobia in 1959 than it is today? (TC was wise to bring along Harper Lee, but a beard posing as a research assistant could have only done so much.)
All of these things could have been portrayed very well. The problem with "Capote" is the script: the filmmakers' dedication to stay within the boundaries of "ICB"'s creation and composition deprives the movie of having a lasting impact. Why did they continue to portray TC to the very end with sympathy to the point of reverence, and limit detailing his comeuppance to a handful of pristine notes at the end of the picture? Truman Capote was a true genius, brilliant and beguiling; he was also a despicable, manipulative, narcissistic lush. "ICB" made TC; it killed him, too. If the makers of "Ray" were brave enough to show their subject warts and all, the makers of "Capote" could have easily done the same. Sometimes when you keep the kid gloves on, you do more harm than good. The real talent lies in knowing when to take them off.