Compost Studios

I’ve never read Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, a compelling work of non-fiction that changed the nature of the genre and of journalism forever. Last night, I watched the movie Capote, which explores how the book that changed American literature also changed its author's life.

Capote is a disturbing film to watch. It follows Capote’s path from the first moment he reads of the mass murder of an entire family in a remote corner of Kansas to the day he witnesses the execution of the killers at the gallows at Lansing, Kansas.

It’s a story of a writer obsessed with a story, so absorbed by it and by its characters that he loses his soul in the process of telling it. The movie doesn’t focus on the horror of the murders, but on Capote’s relationship with Perry Smith, one of the killers. In the beginning, Capote is willing to do anything to get inside the head and the life of the killer, and then once there he is stunned by what he finds and by the realization that he can’t separate this reality from his own.

Capote shows up in Kansas right after the murders with his research assistant and childhood friend Harper Lee in tow. He plans to do a story for The New Yorker on the murder. At this point in his career, he is already a famous writer and Hollywood celebrity who loves holding court in the literary and social scene, being the center of attention at a party, telling the best stories, dropping names, and using his homosexuality for effect.

Stepping into Kansas, he finds an audience that doesn’t immediately succumb to his charms and persona. He must gain people’s trust to gain the information he needs for his story. Sometimes he lets Harper (on the verge of publishing To Kill a Mockingbird) take the lead, other times he worms into the good graces of the wives of the men he needs to access. Later he uses those connections to glean inside information. Initially he is fascinated by how the killings affect the town.

The more he pursues the subject, the more the story burrows deeper and deeper into his imagination. By the time the suspects are arrested in Las Vegas and brought back to Kansas, he knows he won’t be writing a mere article, he’ll be writing a book. When he locks eyes with Perry Smith and speaks to him for the first time in his jail cell, he begins a journey that will end with both men witnessing the other’s deaths--one will die figuratively while the other will be executed.

In the beginning Capote’s interest in getting to know Perry is entirely self-serving. He has a journalist’s passion for getting a scoop and doesn’t hesitate to curry favor and trust with the hardened killer to get what he needs. It’s uncomfortable to witness the self-centered acts of kindness Capote uses to establish a connection with Perry, to see him masquerade as a friend when really he’s only feeding his own appetite for exclusive information and for fame.

There’s a growing sense he’s crossed a line morally and ethically as he compromises truth to get to the truth of the story. But just as the viewer begins to squirm under Capote’s false pretenses, Capote’s motivations shift. His interest in the prisoner becomes more genuine, their connection more real and substantial. As Perry opens up, we see that he is using Capote every bit as much as Capote is using him, and each is falling under the other’s spell.

What makes the film riveting is that the balance of power and friendship is constantly shifting between the two men, the nature of their relationship twisting and turning like a hanged man dangling at the end of a rope. They grapple with all that divides and unites their psyches and their lives. They’re torn between wanting to help each other and wanting to resist the other’s influence. They are both master manipulators pulling each other’s strings while trying to escape the snare of complex emotions that is generated through their exchanges.

At one point Capote’s life long friend, Harper Lee, questions the intensity of the relationship and asks Capote if he has fallen in love with Perry.

He replies, “It’s as if he and I were raised in the same house, and one day he went out the back door, and I went out the front door.”

The film is compelling, the acting stunning, the journey dark as Capote is consumed by his own talent, his fiery imagination, and the demons Perry unleashes in his soul. A haunting movie in every sense of the word.

October 30, 2006