Capote

by Bennett Miller (Director)

DVD, 2006

Call number

DVD-DRAMA 32

Collection

DVD

Publication

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (2006)

Description

In 1959, Truman Capote was a popular writer for The New Yorker. He learns about the horrific and senseless murder of a family of four in Halcomb, Kansas. Inspired by the story, Capote and his partner, Harper Lee, travel to the town to do research for an article. However, as Capote digs deeper into the story, he is inspired to expand the project into what would be his greatest work, "In Cold Blood." He arranges extensive interviews with the prisoners, especially with Perry Smith. However, his feelings of compassion for Perry conflicts with his need for closure for his book which only an execution can provide. That conflict and the mixed motives for both interviewer and subject make for a troubling experience that would produce an literary account that would redefine modern non-fiction.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member pdxwoman

This is the best made movie I have watched in years. The screenplay, cinematography, directing, acting, costumes -- everything about this movie was top drawer. I also loved Crash (which won the Academy Award for best pic and screenplay that year) and I'm telling you, Capote blows Crash out of the

water -- it should have won both those Oscars. Philip Seymour Hoffman won for best actor, a well-deserved award for a fantastic actor whose talent is usually overlooked by the general public (although widely recognized in the industry).

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LibraryThing member LisaMaria_C

The film was nominated for almost all the "big" Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay--and Philip Seymour Hoffman won for the title role. It's the behind the scenes story of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, the story of the killing

of a family in Kansas in 1959. Capote called it a "non-fiction novel" and pretty much kicked off the whole "creative non-fiction" genre mixing fiction and fact--a genre I myself feel very ambivalent about. I've read that book, and the writing is impressive--but Capote did create scenes, not just report them. This film doesn't really examine that, it's more about the way Capote (and his friend Harper Lee of To Kill a Mockingbird fame) manipulated people to get their stories--although the film does suggest Capote paid a price for that. It certainly doesn't make for a pretty picture of the man, but it certainly makes for a rather involving film, especially given Hoffman's performance is first class. If I don't rate it higher, it's simply that this is not the kind of film I foresee watching again.

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LibraryThing member comfypants

Truman Capote researches and writes In Cold Blood.

Try as they might to force a dilemma onto him, Capote is just not half as interesting as the people he wrote about. And, sure, a lot of those people are in this movie, but they only really come across when the dialog is taken straight out of

Capote's novel. I'm not clear about the ethics of using Capote's dialog in his own biopic (without crediting him). Capote is clearly presented as an unreliable source. And yet the strongest parts of the film are taken straight from his book, without any hints to the audience of what their source is. Strange. I guess I had a lot of bad things to say about it, but really, it's a perfectly all right movie. Very nice to look at. And Philip Seymour Hoffman is awesome.

Concept: D
Story: B
Characters: C
Dialog: B
Pacing: C
Cinematography: A
Special effects/design: A
Acting: A
Music: D

Enjoyment: C plus

GPA: 2.6/4

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