Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Film review

Digging deep into a writer's psyche

There's a palpable connection between actor Philip Seymour Hoffman and the late Truman Capote that parallels the bond that Capote found with his criminal subject of In Cold Blood.

By STEVE PERSALL
Published October 27, 2005

[Photo: Sony Pictures Classics]

Philip Seymour Hoffman goes beyond Truman Capote’s familiar mannerisms to bring him to life in Capote.

Truman Capote was a dandy, a spotlight hog and, with his landmark "nonfiction novel" In Cold Blood, the originator of America's pop culture infatuation with infamy.

Capote's 1965 book captured the intersection of humanity's underbelly and Rockwellian lifestyles, telling of two sociopathic drifters brutally murdering a wholesome Kansas family to steal less than $50. The book and Richard Brooks' superb 1967 film adaptation focused on the killers, almost making them sympathetic victims of a society in which they didn't fit.

Now it's the journalist's turn to be analyzed, his motives and practices scrutinized, in Bennett Miller's equally accomplished film, Capote, anchored by Philip Seymour Hoffman in what could be the best male performance of 2005.

What Hoffman does as Capote is astonishing, digging deeper than the familiar mannerisms and mincing voice to reveal a conniving and conveniently compassionate person within. This isn't a profile of courage or integrity; it's an autopsy of opportunism. That Capote cloaked his methods in Southern gentility and seeming weakness doesn't matter. He was a vampire, although his particular life force was ink.

The movie recalls Brooks' starkness in its first minutes when a young girl discovers the grisly crime scene. Then Miller and screenwriter Dan Futterman shift to Manhattan where Capote holds court at a cocktail party, dropping names as easily as downing gin. He's riding high with Breakfast at Tiffany's on bestseller lists. But it's a small article tucked inside the New York Times that becomes his unlikely obsession, reporting the Clutter family murders in otherwise unremarkable Holcomb, Kan.

Initially, he's curious about the effects of such a crime on the community. Maybe it'll make a good New Yorker piece. He travels to Holcomb where his Bergdorf scarves sharply contrast with Sears, Roebuck fashion. In tow is his confidante and researcher, Nelle Harper Lee (Catherine Keener), whose own novel To Kill a Mockingbird hasn't yet been published.

Celebrity opens a few doors, including the home of Kansas Bureau of Investigation agent Alvin Dewey (Chris Cooper), who comes to appreciate Capote's intuition about the killers. When Perry Smith (Clifton Collins Jr.) and Dick Hickock (Mark Pellegrino) are captured in Las Vegas and returned to stand trial, the author's focus - and that of the film - shifts. Capote sees something in Smith that's imperceptible to everyone else, a shared past of negligent parenting, and the elements of a great book.

"It's as if we grew up in the same house," Capote tells Lee. "One day he walked out the back door and I walked out the front."

There's also an unspoken attraction between the men. Capote was homosexual - in a brilliant scene he dances around that to draw information from an interview subject - and Smith accepts his attention. Yet there are times when Capote leads him on to keep the book progressing. Capote gets too close for journalistic comfort, finding the defendants better attorneys and feeding baby food to Smith to coax him off his hunger strike. Then he'll withdraw or lie just as easily to preserve his project and relationship with author Jack Dunphy (Bruce Greenwood), who recognizes his lover's distraction.

There lies the power of Miller's film, a quiet conflict of personal and professional desires. Capote can't finish his book unless Smith and Hickock are executed. But they won't cooperate with him unless he gives the appearance of helping their case. He won't even tell them the book's title, knowing how incriminating it sounds.

The pressure to write and do wrong takes its toll on Capote, making the booze go down easier and his rationalizations harder to accept.

The first time watching Capote, it's easy to be mesmerized by Hoffman's uncanny channeling of the late author. A second viewing makes the supporting performances - Collins and Keener deserve Oscar nominations - and Miller and Futterman's steady grasp of this complex story more noticeable. They have complete confidence in the material, and in the audience's willingness to follow along. We owe them that much for delivering such an intelligent, gripping work of art.

-- Steve Persall can be reached at 727 893-8365 or persall@sptimes.com His blog is at www.sptimes.com/blogs/film

Grade: A

Director: Bennett Miller

Cast: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Clifton Collins Jr., Chris Cooper, Bob Balaban, Bruce Greenwood, Mark Pellegrino

Screenplay: Dan Futterman, based on the book by Gerald Clarke

Rating: R; profanity, brief violent images, mild sexual references

Running time: 110 min.

[Last modified October 26, 2005, 10:10:04]