Capote (2005)

In brief: See this one on the big screen. Not only is it really good (the only new film we've seen that competes with 3 Iron), it's shot very nicely and benefits from being on film.

Kate:

It is hard to say exactly what I liked so much about this film. But I think that most of it boils down to Phillip Seymour Hoffman, who plays Truman Capote. I honestly didn't know anything about Capote before seeing this film (afterwards, I learned that he was the author of Breakfast at Tiffany's, a book that I have never read), but Hoffman's character was so engaging that I really don't care whether or not it was accurate. Perhaps the greatest of Hoffman's achievements is the delicate way in which he presents Capote's transformation (or lack thereof) throughout the film.

As the film progresses, our opinions about Capote slowly shift. At the start, he comes off as pleasantly eccentric and charismatic, albeit somewhat self-obsessed. We might even think him compassionate--he offers very personal stories to put the people he interviews more at ease and offers to find a better lawyer for the two men accused of murdering a Nebraska family. But as the story rolls along, our opinions of the man gradually shift. In the end, we see him as what he is--not charismatic, but glib, uttterly self-absorbed, and, above all, manipulative in the extreme.

But what makes this amazing story-telling (and perhaps what makes this film so good) is that Capote doesn't really change. You can look back at the beginning of the movie and see that all of those character traits--the ones that you though were new--were actually always there. You are left in the same position as Capote's friend, Harper Lee (played by Catherine Keener) who becomes disillusioned with Capote after the circumstances serve to highlight the things that were there all along. In other words, the director manages to change our perceptions of Capote, without actually changing Capote himself.

The same thing happens, in a less dramatic way, to the accused murderer, and our shift in perspective takes a few sharp turns along the way. As we learn more about the two of them, we first see them as just another pair of criminals, then as individuals with something to offer the world, then as savages, and finally some nuanced combination of the above. The last perspective is clearly the most accurate, and it is the one we are left with.

This shift in perceptions takes two things: an extraordinary level of acting talent, and an extraordinary directing talent. Apparently, this film benefited from both. Hoffman's treatment of Capote is so fantastically good that you forget that there is an actor there at all. Clifton Collins Jr, who plays Perry, was also very convincing--though it is difficult to compare him with Hoffman. The director's work was equally good. The pacing was spot-on, the cinematography and editing was great (I honestly had a hard time remembering if it was shot in black and white or color) and the story was wonderfully end-loaded. When the climax of the film finally arrives, you realize that while it was highly anticipated--and terribly violent--it was not really all that important. In treating the climax so delicately, the director seems to be emphasizing that the story is not what is important, but rather the characters.


Ross:

Though Kate and I both really like this film, I think we disagree about some very basic things. The film is, to speak in very general terms, a study of how Capote was broken. It's true that this is a subtle process. If I were feeling adventurous, I'd say that the point of the film is that understanding things (say our personal failings) doesn't always enable us to change them.

While watching this movie I was reminded of an essay that I read awhile back. I don't remember it very well -- I think it was by Christopher Hitchens, but I can't find it now -- about the moral imagination. The idea was that one of the things that made novels useful (and not mental cheesecake) was that they could make moral problems that we hadn't encountered immediate, real, and maybe teach us something in the process. The director is very sympathetic to Capote, at least in the beginning, and that makes some of his later decisions much more painful.

Of course, the director does everything else right. The cleanliness that suffuses the film and numerous displays of restraint on the part of the director mark this as a really mature film. But this is not what distinguishes this film from all the other technically "correct," clever films that play at the Michigan. And I think that's all I have to say about that.