Capote

How do you make a biopic about a man who is respected in professional circles but is a somewhat unlikable character? That is not the same as a biopic on a villainous character such as Adolph Hitler or Stalin, where the person is universally considered a monster; Truman Capote is a highly acclaimed author and is very well received in literary circles. He’s also a very complicated and flawed individual that any picture about him would need to be honest about, yet to do so could rub some the wrong way, especially those who worship at the altar of his literature. 

I was blissfully unaware of what the 2005 film Capote was about. I knew it starred Philip Seymour Hoffman as Truman Capote and that he won an Academy Award for this portrayal. But what the film was about was news to me. I guess I supposed it would be a drama about his life, the kind of true-life story that the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences eats up every year. So when I started watching this one this morning, I was caught off guard by the opening scene in which a young woman comes across the murdered bodies of a family on a Kansas farm. This was not what I was expecting, and it set a tone for the picture that held me intrigued for the next two hours. 

For those who do not know this, Capote is the story of the writing of In Cold Blood, Capote’s true crime novel about the Clutter family murders. After reading the New York Times article on the murders, Truman is riveted by the story and calls the magazine editor, William Shawn (Bob Balaban), and tells him he plans to document the tragedy. He travels to Holcomb, Kansas, along with his childhood friend Nelle Harper Lee (Catherine Keener), who will act as his go-between and facilitator. They meet with some resistance from lead detective Alvin Dewey (Chris Cooper), but he eventually warms to them thanks to the influence of his wife, who is a fan of Capote’s writing and is enthralled by his stories of Hollywood. 

Capote is allowed access to police reports, photos of the victims, and, eventually, the murder suspects who are captured while he is having dinner with the Deweys. After some time visiting with the accused, Perry Smith (Clifton Collins Jr.) and Richard Hickock (Mark Pellegrino), Capote calls William Shawn and informs him that what was originally going to be an article for the magazine is now going to be a full book. Smith’s and Hickock’s trial soon results in a guilty conviction, bringing with it the death penalty. Capote makes some under-the-table arraignments with the warden to gain more access to the two men, especially Smith, whom he has begun to form an attachment to. This leads to frustrations though when Smith is reluctant to talk about the murders.

This film is more of an examination into Truman Capote as a person than it is the story of the Clutter family murders. Anyone wanting more of that story can seek out the number of films and mini-series that were made about the subject in the years since those horrific events occurred. This film is called Capote because it is about the man himself during this time in his life. We start out with him attending a party for his friend Nelle Harper Lee, who has just published the acclaimed To Kill a Mockingbird, and despite his jovial nature, you can tell that he is jealous of her success. He is a man who seeks recognition, and it bothers him when others take the attention away from him. On the train to Kansas, he bribes an employee into pretending to be a huge fan of his. This effort is for naught because Harper Lee sees through the obvious and calls him out for it. 

A pitfall that many biopics fall into is trying to over-explain the focal character, to analyze who they are from birth to the end of their life rather than remain focused on a specific event or time period. We saw this in Richard Attenborough’s Chaplin in 1992, and it rarely works from a narrative standpoint. Director Bennett Miller, who is working from the 1988 Gerald Clarke novel of the same name, has wisely chosen not to go that route. We get very little of Capote’s backstory in this film. And what little there is has been peppered in to move the plot along. We learn that he was bullied as a child for the way he spoke and for his sexuality, but we only learn this when he tells a young girl this story to try and relate to her so he can get more information out of her. It’s a delicious bit of manipulation, but it also gives us some insight into his character. 

We also gain insight just from watching his interactions with others. He lays on the charm when he wants something from someone. When he has it, he retreats into himself, often for long periods of time. He disappears from Kansas for over a year while he is writing, refusing to meet, or even communicate, with Smith despite many attempts by Smith to get in touch with him during this time. This is during the writing of the book, and he goes off to Spain to distance himself from nearly everyone. Later, when Smith and Hickock lose their final appeal and are going to be executed, he doesn’t want to go see him on death row. 

The star of the show is, of course, Philip Seymour Hoffman, who simply embodies Truman Capote. This is the kind of character that could easily come across as a parody of the late author. With his distinctive voice and mannerisms, it could feel like something from a Saturday Night Live sketch more than a serious biopic. Yet, despite the over-the-top character—which, to be fair, is exactly how Truman Capote really was—we are never laughing at Capote. He was a character of his own writing, and that comes across perfectly in Hoffman’s interpretation of him. He has that lilting voice and the mannerisms of a stereotypical homosexual man, yet he is not stereotypical at all, and it only comes out comical when Capote is trying to play that up to effect. Hoffman took this larger-than-life character and made him human. But he also didn’t shy away from showing that Capote could be a diva, too, and also was quite often a bit of a bastard. We are not meant to like him all that much, but at the same time, we understand him and can go on this ride. It’s a difficult balance that Bennett Miller and Hoffman have to maintain. 

This is the kind of film that can define an actor’s career. We already knew that Philip Seymour Hoffman was an amazing actor. Capote cemented it for us, though with a complete transformation into a historical figure that we all knew from the many parodies of the man, including his own on-screen character in Murder by Death. Hoffman would be rewarded for this with an Academy Award win for Best Leading Actor at the 2006 Academy Awards. 

But a film is more than just the leading actor. Some great performances appear in otherwise forgettable films. Capote tells an interesting story about an author’s methods and how his mind works. The murders themselves are not as much the focus as is the way Capote works to get material to transcribe and rework into his writings. On paper, this looks like it would be a good film for a classroom environment but not for entertainment, but that is not the case. This is an all-around well-made film that is entertaining as well as enlightening. There is a lot here to hold interest as well as to give us some insight into a man who was larger than life.

Capote is one of those films that is surprising in nearly every way. I knew I was getting into an actor’s tour de force thanks to the Oscar win for Hoffman. What I didn’t know was that the rest of the film would be as good as it is. It outshines the movie that beat it for Best Picture that year, Crash, but was also overshadowed by the presumed winner, Brokeback Mountain, which broke barriers in other ways. It’s a great film overall and deserves more recognition than it ultimately has received in the last twenty years. 

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Picture: Caroline Baron, Michael Ohoven, and William Vince

Best Director: Bennett Miller

Best Actor in a Leading Role: Philip Seymour Hoffman (won)

Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Catherine Keener

Best Adapted Screenplay: Dan Futterman

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Release Date: September 30, 2005

Running Time: 114 Minutes

Rated R

Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Clifton Collins Jr., Bruce Greenwood, Mark Pellegrino, Amy Ryan, and Chris Cooper

Directed by: Bennett Miller