Truman had his prayers answered and paid the price

Rating: 9/10 (24 August 2006)

In November 1959, Truman Capote, celebrated writer and literary personality, read about a family who had been slaughtered on their farm in Kansas. He sensed a story and went to witness how the small, conservative town was coping with these brutal killings. The resulting non-fiction novel, In Cold Blood, made Truman Capote one of the most famous writers in the world. He believed that this was the book that he was always meant to write. But though it was his greatest success and the piece of work he was most proud of, it also wrecked his life and heralded his downfall.
The most surprising thing about Capote (the movie) is all the things it is not. It is not a biography of Truman Capote's life, or even an exposition of his extraordinary talent and extraordinary personality. It is also not a detailed investigation into the killers, the murders or the townspeople. Instead, it is the most powerful depiction of a man at his best and his worst.
In researching and writing In Cold Blood, Truman Capote was presented with an irresistible opportunity to gain more prestige, respect and praise than he had received for any of his previous work. And Capote was desperate for praise, going to any lengths to achieve it. It is through his relationships, behaviour, lies and motivations over these five years in his life that the film reveals the most about the man. Much more incisively than a cradle to grave biography could have done.
An entertainer, Truman is shown to be witty, manipulative, preening and posturing, while often completely insensitive and selfish. But it is in the friendship that he fostered with one of the killers, Perry Smith, that Truman is most exposed. Both endured lonely childhoods, were sensitive artists and shameless liars, and both were selfishly dependent on each other. The irony is that in order for Truman to get what he wanted (an end for his book), his friend must die.
The DVD extras include original footage of Truman Capote that demonstrates why Philip Seymour Hoffman deserved that Oscar.