Capote (2005)

Directed by: Bennett Miller | 99 minutes | drama, biography, crime | Actors: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Clifton Collins Jr., Chris Cooper, Bruce Greenwood, Bob Balaban, Mark Pellegrino, Allie Mickelson, Marshall Bell, Araby Lockhart, Robert Huculak, RD Reid

Philip Seymour Hoffman goes all out in this role and really takes on the role of Truman Capote, the American journalist and author, in all walks of life. By 1959, Capote is already a popular guest on the New York culture circuit. His attention is drawn to a gruesome murder in a rural Kansas town. Four members of a family have been brutally murdered. He proposes to the newspaper The New Yorker to write an article about it. Capote is a very striking gay man for that time, with queer behaviour, a feminine voice and his appearance in the rural town initially leads to little cooperation. Harper Lee, a good friend of Capote’s and herself a writer, makes the first useful contacts as an understanding and completely different operating woman. Her intermediary function is soon no longer necessary. Capote has even been heard of in the rural town of Holcomb. The realization soon dawns that he wants to report seriously about the case. When the culprits are arrested, Capote really gets a kick out of it. He wants to write a non-fiction novel about the facts. It is therefore important that he gets to know all the facts about the case and the backgrounds of the perpetrators.

Capote is a complex personality and at first looks like a vain and snooty journalist. However, through his efforts, more and more facets of his personality emerge. He wins the sympathy of the people by his relentless pursuit of the facts. His own character traits are partly shaped by having been confronted with prejudices and accusations for years. Yet his character also has a very different side, he is vain and extremely ambitious. After many conversations with Perry Smith, one of the two murderers he has become friends with, he is faced with a difficult choice. Will he continue to help Perry find a good lawyer for his defense, in the vain hope of getting him out of jail? Or should he get all the information out of Percy as quickly as possible and hope that the two are convicted as soon as possible, after which his book has an end with (again) facts and can be published. His publisher, after reading a preliminary unfinished version, predicts a huge success and strongly urges rapid publication.

However, the book is only finished after six years and his In Cold Blood becomes an unprecedented success. Its success and its consequences profoundly influenced his life. He eventually succumbed to alcohol addiction. The film is limited to a sketch of the years 1959-1965. Although it is not a biography of Capote, we get a beautiful picture of him. Hoffman has completely taken on the role of Capote and plays the stars of heaven.

The film is made in a sometimes somewhat slow and extremely sober film style and has beautiful camerawork. Not only Hoffman, but also Keener and Collins Jr, (in the role of Perry as one of the criminals) play very strong and extremely believable. Not a film for the masses, but extremely suitable for lovers of the better mainstream film and the art house circuit. A must see!