message in the movies By Rev. Bruce Batchelor Glader

          

Capote  Rated R
Directed by Ang Lee. Directed by Bennett Miller. Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener.


Photo © Copyright Sony Pictures Classics

Hoffman’s brilliant award-winning portrayal of author Truman
Capote is receiving much-deserved recognition, but if that performance existed apart from context, it would hardly matter.  The good news is that Capote has context to spare.  It depicts about six years in the author’s life, when he was researching and then writing “In Cold Blood”, a non-fiction novel that has attained classic stature.  Truman is originally assigned by The New Yorker to report on how the brutal murder of the Cutters, a Kansas farm family has affected small-town Middle America.  He travels to Holcomb, Kansas with his childhood friend Harper Lee (Keener) (who has just finished writing To Kill a Mockingbird, a classic in its own right), who is able to connect with people is a way that is difficult for the flamboyant and needy Capote.  The murders seem to be quickly solved and two men are arrested, but the motive for the senseless killings is elusive.  Truman begins to explore the backgrounds of the family members and the killers and creates a work of haunting beauty.  He especially relates to Perry Smith (one of the killers) and begins an ongoing relationship with him that he will use for the book and later betray.  Capote is a film about creativity and celebrity, and also about the ways in which people will use one another for both noble and selfish purposes.  The publication and success of “In Cold Blood” granted its author fame and fortune, but may have also led him to the darkest places of his own past from which he could never ever escape.  The film is beautifully shot and the script is intelligent and often witty.  Highly recommended, along with Richard Brooks’ 1967 film of “In Cold Blood” which is another work of art in itself.

Pitchfork Rating: Three halos. (Literature is created and lives fall apart simultaneously, in a thoughtful meditation on the creative process.)    Two pitchforks. Brief but upsetting depictions of shotgun murders; some rough language.)

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