Kirstiecat | Blog

9/10

I have to start this review off by clarifying that I have never actually read Truman Capote’s novels. My mother has told me a couple of times that In Cold Blood would scare the crap out of me (she’s probably right; Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” and Flannery O’ Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” both kept me up for some sleepless nights worrying and those were only short stories.)

So with that in mind, I have to say that I thought Capote was an excellent film exploring both the nature of man and why humans do unthinkably horrifying things. The acting was stellar, especially between Catherine Keener (who plays Truman’s friend Harper Lee) and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Hoffman in particular is probably imo one of this generation’s top underrated actors whose extraordinary talent has thus far has gone relatively unnoticed (as the other five people who saw Love Liza can very well attest). Hopefully, things will change for him now as this film seems to be getting a larger audience. I must admit I’m partial to Hoffman a bit as well as he is from a suburb of the town that I grew up in (Rochester, NY). Clifton Collins Jr. as Perry Smith, one of the two murderers in the famous case in which two men break into a home in rural Kansas after hearing of wealth hidden within and murder a family of four, also shows exceptional depth with acting this part. Both Collins and Hoffman should get some Oscar recognition imo but I won’t hold my breath seeing as how the Oscars have stopped actually meaning anything.

Back to the film…I found the film’s depiction of Capote to be one in which they insist he had a greater depth than most people would presume upon glancing at him, that he struggled with his past, but that his actions were most often self serving. His favorite topic was himself or the topics that might directly benefit him and his writing. And, although he does feel some connection with Perry Smith, overall even this is a possible guise to get what he wants which is, of course, the perfect story.

There are some great quotes from this film that really hit me starkly…there is a part in which Capote talks about how he relates to Perry because they had somewhat similar upbringings but that Perry went out the back door and he went out the front. One must really grapple with the idea of what leads men to make good choices and what leads men to make the wrong ones. Why is it that Perry doesn’t choose to pursue his art instead of pursuing a life of crime, for example.

more with spoilers

I kept feeling that one might view this film much differently depending on your individual stance on the death penalty. I’ve always been against the death penalty, even for really heinous crimes such as this. Making a statement that murder is wrong by committing another murder doesn’t make much sense to me regardless of whether the murder is being committed by civilians or government officials.

So these two murderers who admit to the crime waive their rights because of the poor advice of their lawyer. The court sentences them to death and Capote convinces them he is their friend because he is going to get them a new lawyer and a fair trial. The case has the potential to go to the Kansas Supreme Court and they may get a stay of execution and a new trial. But at this point, Capote just wants to be able to finish and publish his novel. He’s gotten all of the info. he needs from them, mostly Perry, and no longer needs them. He talks about a connection he has with Perry because of the similarities in upbringings and, at one point during a prison visitation, actually cries. Yet, I seriously had to wonder: is he crying because he’s on the way to a great story and the topic of himself and his own childhood really interests him or is he truly crying because he does in fact feel a heartfelt connection.

In the end, people who are against the death penalty might look at Capote more harshly as they see him lie about having done all that he could to secure them a new lawyer and joining the men by request for their hanging after basically being told he must by Harper Lee (Keener). People who are not opposed to murderers being put to death will see this more sympathetically and feel that it is what these men deserved anyways. Either way, every human should be guaranteed to have the right to a fair trials and Capote misleads the men to think he will help them get this.

Although the film does give some insight into the question of why the men committed these murders in a harrowing scene in which Perry recalls the murder of the Kansas family, it still doesn’t really answer this question that psychologists have been trying to understand for many many years. Think of all the research done arguing nature vs. nurture, nature and nurture etc. The problem is, in that moment, it’s almost as if it’s not really completely clear to Perry why he did it either. It doesn’t make sense to treat another life as meaningless, really. And yet, this is exactly what Perry does.

In this case, I also thought of the race issue, though, and I wondered if that may have been at play. For example, in 1959 you have more overt discrimination and Perry is half Cherokee. There is actually a statement that the prison official makes that he does Perry a “favor” by counting him as a white man in the prison. Couple this with the fact that Perry says that before he commits the murders, he keeps looking at the father tied up and the father looks at him like he expects him to kill him. He says he feels ashamed even as he slits the father’s throat. Could it be that by treating minorities as if they are automatically immoral and less valuable as people that we underscore the value of all human life?

Now, I’m all for people taking responsibility for their own actions so I want to make that clear. But I also feel racism is appalling and that if you take away a person’s chances of succeeding with discrimination, that person is alot less likely to be able to make it in a successful career than a white man like Truman.

The one thing that was more refreshing is that there seemed to be no cover up of Truman’s love with another man or scandals. Perhaps, people did know and talk about it but the film didn’t make an issue of it in the same way. I received the impression that people looked at Truman’s odd behavior and voice, his drinking and his love affair with Jack Dunphy and went, “Well, that’s our Truman.” He was accepted more or less as the way he was because of his writing. Perhaps if society had been less judgemental on Perry, things may have worked out differently for him. One cannot really say either way but I would have liked for the film to possibly explore this idea a touch more without diverting too much from the focus on Capote.

The other quote that really stood out for me in the film is one in which Capote explains how there has been a bloody clash between the conservative quiet life some Americans choose and this counter life of violence. Again, although I do believe in people taking responsibility for their actions (as well as a just legal system and trial for everyone), I think as a society it is important to examine why some choose one way of life over the other. Until we can examine particularly acts of random violence fully on both an individual and a societal level, we will continue to fail in preventing them. Thus far, I’m not sure if we’ve really made so much progress in this area.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 23rd, 2005 at 3:02 pm and is filed under films. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.