Xixax Film Forum

September date set for SPC-UA's 'Capote'

Sony Pictures Classics has set a Sept. 30 release date for United Artists' "Capote," starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener and Chris Cooper. The film, directed by Bennett Miller centers on Capote's research into the Kansas murder case that he wrote about in "In Cold Blood," and it has been in a race to reach the screen with a similar Warner Independent Pictures/Killer Films' project, currently untitled, directed by Douglas McGrath and starring British actor Toby Jones as Capote. That film is currently slated for 2006 release.

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Very happy to see Hoffman as the lead in another film. This looks great.

Trailer here. (http://www.sonypictures.com/classics/syndication/trailers/capote/Capote_trl_300.mov)

Release Date: September 30th, 2005 (NY/LA).

Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Chris Cooper, Clifton Collins Jr., Mark Pellegrino
 
Directed by: Bennett Miller (The Cruise)

Produced by: Dan Futterman, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Caroline Baron  

Premise: On November 15, 1959, the brutal murder of a family in a small Kansas town sent shockwaves through the nation and captured the attention of one of the most distinctive minds of our time. One-of-a-kind author Truman Capote was sent to Kansas to pen an article about the crimes for The New Yorker magazine. He ended up writing one of the most celebrated books of the century. Capote follows Truman Capote (Hoffman) on his odyssey to create the landmark bestseller "In Cold Blood." With signature style and mordant wit - and his friend Harper Lee (Keener) in tow - Capote attempts to charm the locals and work his way into the story behind the murders. He's soon shocked, however, to find himself forming a friendship with one of the killers, Perry Smith (Collins). As the book nears completion and execution day approaches, Capote finds himself torn in directions he never anticipated and is forever changed by his experiences.

this could very well lead to an academy nod for hoffman

Quote from: MacGuffindirected by Douglas McGrath

imdb has bennett miller listed as director

Quote from: cowboykurtisimdb has bennett miller listed as director

So do I.

Quote from: MacGuffina similar Warner Independent Pictures/Killer Films' project, currently untitled, directed by Douglas McGrath and starring British actor Toby Jones as Capote. That film is currently slated for 2006 release.

i'm excited for this.

I saw a work in progress cut of this earlier this summer.  the director and some producers were viewing a roughcut all day at the theater that I work at.

'Capote' set to propel Hoffman to big leagues

That Philip Seymour Hoffman is a great actor is not in dispute. It is no surprise that he nails the title role of "Capote," easily carrying the movie.

"Bergdorf Goodman," he shrugs, as a Kansas murder investigator (Chris Cooper) looks askance at his flawlessly draped cashmere scarf. Moments like that are sure to put Hoffman in play for a best actor Oscar.

In "Capote," which was the smash discovery at the Telluride Film Festival during the Labor Day weekend and likely will find more approval at the Toronto International Film Festival this coming week, Hoffman inhabits Truman Capote, an Alabaman-turned-effete New Yorker.

The 35-year-old writer is on assignment in bleak Holcomb, Kan., to learn everything he can about the grisly Clutter family murders. He's accompanied by his childhood friend, open-faced researcher Nelle Harper Lee (Catherine Keener), who would publish 1960's Pulitzer Prize-winning "To Kill a Mockingbird" the next year. Over five years, Capote intermittently reports on the accused killers, Perry Smith (Clifton Collins Jr.) and Dick Hickock (Mark Pellegrino), who wind up on death row. He tries to help them at first, but as the years dribble on, he guiltily wants them to die so that he can finish his masterwork, 1966's "In Cold Blood."

Over the course of the movie, Capote's simpering mannerisms can be off-putting, but looking deeper into the man also is rewarding. "Capote" takes the time to peel away the author's outer layers and give us a glimpse at the murky depths within.

One might expect it would require an experienced filmmaker to pull off such a feat. So just who are screenwriter Dan Futterman and director Bennett Miller? Both are 38, friends since middle school in Mamaroneck, N.Y. "Capote" is Futterman's first produced screenplay. He's better known as an actor: He played Robin Williams' straight son in "The Birdcage" starred in the little-seen Sundance flick "Urbania" and guest-starred on "Judging Amy," "Will & Grace" and "Sex and the City."

Futterman first showed his old pal Miller an outline and then kicked out a long screenplay. He had been fascinated by the relationship of journalist and subject ever since he read Janet Malcolm's "The Journalist and the Murderer."

"There's something inherently dishonest in the transaction," he says. "Both people agree to it. Although Truman's relationship with Perry Smith is genuinely caring, his interest is also mercenary. You get the purity of emotion corrupted by ambition. He wanted something that changed his life. It's a cautionary tale."

Miller had always wanted to be a filmmaker, but after years of kicking around the New York production scene, he was on the verge of giving up. As a last gasp, he threw everything he had into a one-man digital documentary, "The Cruise." The sumptuous black-and-white film, shot on mini-DV, was a love affair between Manhattan and double-decker tour guide Timothy "Speed" Levitch, an eloquent eccentric who also was in love with Miller's camera. When the documentary scored with audiences in 1998 at the Berlin and Los Angeles Independent film festivals, Artisan Entertainment picked it up. (The DVD comes out in January.)

"I took an unflinching but compassionate look at a struggling human person," Miller said, sitting at a sunny Telluride cafe earlier this week. Which helps to explain why Miller was drawn to Futterman's "Capote." As Miller was giving him notes, Futterman coaxed him into "attaching" himself to the project and seeing what would happen. "Both films are portraits of real outsiders who both have really odd voices," Miller says. "Both have a hypersensitive approach to scrutinizing their subject. So people can identify with them."

"The Cruise" had pushed Miller into a new zone: He landed an agent and became a hot commercial director. But Miller had never made a Hollywood feature. Many film prospects came his way, but "I passed and passed," he says.

Futterman's "Capote" script awakened "something inside me that had been searching and waiting," Miller says. "I was crouched and poised and ready to grab it. I was fascinated by this very public person with immensely private ambition. It's about wanting something so badly that it disturbs your reason; the notion that the people in this world who get everything they want invariably are the most miserable. I'm interested in what people hide and don't present. Inside, he's something that no one understands."

Since his brief stint studying theater at New York University, Miller had stayed friendly with the one actor that he and Futterman wanted to play their lead: Hoffman. "When we talked about getting the script to Phil," Futterman recalls, "we thought we'd better get the rights to something. I had reread 'In Cold Blood.' I realized that I had also relied on Gerald Clarke's (1998) biography; two chapters deal with this part of (Capote's) life. This was the turning point, when he achieves everything he ever wanted, and it was the beginning of his end." Futterman contacted Clarke and pitched him his script "in excruciating detail" at his Southampton, N.Y., home. Clarke granted him the option.

As soon as Hoffman read the screenplay, he called Miller back. He liked it. The three men sat down to hammer out the details of what they were going to try to do. Miller says that Futterman's original script survives fairly intact. Futterman still feels the pain of much that was left on the cutting-room floor.

Backed by indie producer Infinity ("Saved") and United Artists, the movie went forward, filming in Manitoba and finishing just before UA was sold to Sony as part of Sony's acquisition of UA parent, MGM. With a little extra editing time, the filmmakers were able to show the polished cut to Sony Pictures Classics, which snapped it up.

Miller describes himself "as less of a storyteller than a voyeur. Every shot is meant to sensitize the viewer. The movie says, 'slow down, listen carefully, pay close attention."'

After 2-1/2 months of rehearsal, Miller shot the film in widescreen to contrast the claustrophobic prison cell with the wide, barren Kansas landscapes. He relied, he says, on Hoffman's ability to reveal the writer's inner decline, to communicate the layers of the character.

The film puts Hoffman under a microscope. "I was drawn to the part because it shows Capote before he became a fool," Hoffman says. "It's a difficult line to walk. He starts the journey not knowing what is going to happen. It's a classic tragedy that has to unfold. I don't think he's aware of it. Something gets sparked and sets his imagination flying. He goes where it takes him. He needs to finish. He knows he will be a huge success. In the fourth and fifth year, he starts to want the two men dead. I didn't crucify him in my mind."

As easy as Hoffman makes his impersonation of Capote look, during filming it was not. "At moments I felt it went well," he admits. "Certain moments feel effortless. A few weeks after we finished shooting, I felt we did well and got excited."

Even the low-key Miller is thrilled with the results. "The movie is like a neutron bomb," he says. "It doesn't make a lot of noise, not a big blast or explosion, but in the end it leaves total destruction. People walk out with that 1,000-yard gaze."

A biography that doesn't flinch at exposing unflattering truths
"Capote" examines the messy relations between an author and his subject. Source: Los Angeles Times

In an age when federal prosecutors focus on who told what journalists when, along comes a movie, "Capote," that examines in unflinching, sparsely rendered detail the love, ego, ambition and betrayal that can go into the messy relations between an author and his subject.

The writer in question, of course, is famed tiny terror Truman Capote, who, in the film, labors to complete his masterwork "In Cold Blood," which details the 1959 murders of a farm family in Holcomb, Kan., by a pair of drifters. He developed a close attachment and identification with one of the killers, Perry Smith. But that didn't stop him from lying repeatedly to Smith or yearning for their execution, say his biographers, so his creation — his story — would have a grand finale.

"It's a tragic story about a guy who wants something so badly he destroys himself and what matters most to him. It's a great, true American tragedy," director Bennett Miller said. "He himself would say later in his life that he never recovered from the experience of writing it. [He said that] had he known what he was going to experience when he went to Kansas, he would have driven right through like a bat out of hell."

Austerely shot in Canada, the movie features a reunion of childhood friends — Miller, actor-turned-screenwriter Dan Futterman, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, who plays Capote. Hoffman lost a significant amount of weight and rehearsed extensively to play the distinctive artist.

"We had the benefit of having Gerald Clarke available to us," Miller said, referring to Capote's biographer, whose work formed the basis of the film. "He provided Phil with audiotapes of Capote that weren't from TV appearances or documentaries. For years and years and years, he interviewed Capote.

"[Capote's] voice was different than you might hear on Johnny Carson. When he relaxed, his register went down a little bit. Throughout production, Phil had his Walkman on during breaks so he could have Capote's voice going through his head."

The Truman show
Capote biopic stars Philip Seymour Hoffman as a writer on the cusp of greatness. Source: Los Angeles Times

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Philip Seymour Hoffman never dreamed of portraying Truman Capote. And he certainly didn't have a secret longing to, say, bring the Broadway hit "Tru" to the big screen. For Hoffman, who came of age during the later, drug-and-alcohol-addled years of the writer's life, Capote was that strange man who occasionally showed up on talk shows, the one who wrote the scary book.

But when Bennett Miller and Dan Futterman, Hoffman's friends since high school, approached him, he couldn't just blow them off. Never mind that "Capote" was the first script Futterman, a fellow actor, had ever written, or that Miller was a director with one documentary, albeit well-received, to his credit. They were his friends, and Hoffman trusted them.

So he read Futterman's screenplay about the writing of "In Cold Blood," and he was impressed. And extremely nervous. Capote, with all his self-acknowledged brilliance and over-the-top affectations, was an actor's nightmare. The voice, the walk, the thing with the hands — one tic too far and you were doing camp. Truman Capote couldn't even play Truman Capote: When the writer appeared in "Murder by Death," playing pretty much himself, the critics savaged him.

Of course that film came at a time when Capote had become more literary oddity than avatar. Even "Tru" portrays the writer as an emotional mess, trying to cope with the social banishment caused by the publication of excerpts from his final, unfinished novel. "Capote," on the other hand, is about a man on his ascent to greatness. The film, which opens in limited release Friday, seems to herald a revived interest in the man's literary contributions. Another version of the same period, "Have You Heard?," is in the works at Warner Independent Pictures.

Still, "Capote" seemed to come out of nowhere. So Hoffman hemmed and Hoffman hawed and said he'd think about it. Seriously. He would.

Miller understood. He had essentially ignored Futterman's project for years — he finally read the script out of complete obligation and frankly was surprised at how compelling he found it.

But he didn't think there was much of a chance with Hoffman; though he and the actor were tight, Hoffman was in the midst of a Broadway production of "Long Day's Journey Into Night" and it was practically killing him, as O'Neill plays tend to do to actors.

Hoffman and his girlfriend had just had a baby. The man had other things on his mind.

But Futterman would not be deterred — he had spent six years working on the script; it had been a big portion of his courtship of Anya Epstein, a television writer who became his wife. He knew Hoffman would be just perfect.

"So Danny wrote me a letter," Hoffman says. "This unbelievably beautiful letter. I'm totally scared of doing this because the chance of failure is very high and obvious, but he writes saying what else did we get into this life for except the chance for him and me and Bennett to make a film we cared about, and what did it matter if no one else liked it. So I called Bennett the next day and said yes.

"I really should find that letter," he adds quietly, staring over the night-dark lawn at the Chateau Marmont, where he is staying while shooting "Mission: Impossible III." "It would be really nice to look at it now."

"Now" is the drawn breath in the days before "Capote" premieres. Well-received at the just-wrapped Toronto International Film Festival, the movie remains, nonetheless, a tough sell. Hoffman's performance will be the biggest draw. The actor disappears into a role that by definition requires him, in each and every scene, to look out of place.

If the thought of seeing someone do a really good Truman Capote might put people in the seats, Hoffman believes what will keep them there is the story, an illumination of the power of hubris, the complexities of friendship and the bargain with the devil many artists make.

"When I started studying him, then became semi-obsessed with him, I saw the parallels," says Hoffman. "In our ages, that we're both artists, in the price that's paid for going after something with complete focus, with blinders on. And the discovery that what you wish for most probably won't bring you happiness."

Three who made it happen

In appearance, the only thing the three friends share is a lack of grooming pretension that Capote would certainly have categorized as scruffiness. They show up for separate interviews in jeans with blown-out knees, faded T-shirts and, in Hoffman's case, an untucked flannel shirt. Between the baseball cap and the glasses, his face is fairly indistinct. Yet even in the candle-flickering dimness of the Chateau's veranda, people recognize him. Perhaps it's the voice or the now-famous slouch.

Dark and wiry, Miller has that carefully laid-back intensity of a man born to live in a city loft, while Futterman is boyishly handsome and instantly vaguely familiar: He played Amy Gray's brother on "Judging Amy" and Will's love interest in several episodes of "Will & Grace," among other things.

"Capote" is as much a story of friendship, its necessity and its treacheries, as it is anything else. Based on the biography by Gerald Clarke, the film chronicles the six years it took to write "In Cold Blood," a book that almost single-handedly created the genre of journalistic literature.

After reading about the murders of four members of the prosperous farm family in a tiny Kansas town, Capote decided to do a piece for the New Yorker on the impact such a horrific thing would have on small-town life. Knowing that he, as a diminutive and openly gay man, would probably have difficulty fitting in, he enlisted the help of his childhood friend, Harper Lee, played in the film by Catherine Keener. Lee's masterpiece, "To Kill a Mockingbird," had not yet been published, but as the daughter of a Southern lawyer, Lee knew something about getting people to talk. With Capote, she conducted the initial interviews that would become the book. Upon arriving in Holcomb, Kan., Capote quickly saw a chance to write a book like no one else had written.

That, even more than the telling of the actual tale, became his goal, and he pursued it with a single-mindedness that became obsession when the two killers were caught and Capote saw in one of them, Perry Smith, a dark mirror image perhaps of himself.

It was not an easy film to sell. Hoffman decided to act as producer through his newly formed production company, which, he says, allowed him to live in almost complete denial that he had agreed to play a role that would, undoubtedly, make him a laughingstock.

"I was very ambivalent," he says now. "I would say to Bennett, well, maybe it will get made, maybe it won't. But in life it seems if you don't close a door, something will be revealed eventually."

That something came in the form of Bill Vince at Infinity Media Inc., who loved the project and happened to have a contact at United Artists. After months of no-thank-yous, the film was funded.

Ambivalence turned to panic and Hoffman began to prepare, reading everything by and about the writer, listening to tapes provided by Clarke and watching "With Love From Truman," a documentary by David and Albert Maysles made just after the publication of "In Cold Blood." "That really helped," he says. "Especially at the end when he starts showing the letters [from Smith], and you can see that he is really damaged, that this has changed him."

Other TV appearances were not so helpful, Hoffman says, because they occurred later in Capote's life, "when he was becoming more and more diseased. I was trying to capture the man at the height of his powers."

It wasn't easy. Not at any point. Truman Capote was the embodiment of artistic hubris. He wasn't just going to write a good book, he was going to write the best, most important book ever.

"That contradiction is the internal drama," says Hoffman. "Because while he was doing it, while he was basically manipulating people to tell him things, he was genuinely interested. But," he adds, "when you're talking to men who have murdered four people, well, that's when it gets scary. And when it comes time for them to die, there is no way you can detach."

The often strange relationship between journalist and subject is what drew Futterman to the story. He saw in the relationship between Capote and Smith a way of getting at the duplicity of intimacy, the friendship that is, and isn't, what it seems.

"In a way it's the ultimate seduction," he says. "Both men need something from the other."

For Miller, the story was a way to examine the dichotomy of personality, which he saw writ large in Capote. "There was a huge difference between the public and private personas," he says. "On one hand, he's this sophisticated socialite; on the other, he's the loneliest person imaginable."

It was this parcel of contradictions, Hoffman says, that made Capote "a nightmare" to play. The voice, the walk, the posture, the way Capote clutched his manuscript to his chest, those were physical things an actor of Hoffman's caliber could figure out. But what propelled the man to make the choices he did, that Hoffman would have to know.

"The guy was exhausting," Hoffman says. "Because every scene was different. He played every angle. He sat there, listening, but all the time thinking of what each person needed to make them open up. So there was never just one way to play each scene."

Meanwhile, on the set, the three friends learned that talking about making a film together was one thing, actually making it was another.

Futterman, who had spent six years being the driving force behind "Capote," had to come to grips with the fact that he was not the director. "Bennett allowed me a lot of input," he says. "But at the end of the day, it was his call. So I would go off and do rewrites while they shot."

During all those pitch meetings, much of the concern had been whether Miller was up to the challenge. His 1998 documentary "The Cruise" had done well at festivals, but he had never directed actors in anything other than a commercial.

"I've been sent tons of scripts," he says, "especially after 'Cruise' came out. But I didn't want to do a film that wasn't important. But once I read the script," he adds, echoing its main character, "I really believed no one could understand it or do it better than me."

Which would have meant pretty much nothing in terms of financing if Hoffman, whose reputation grows stronger with every film he makes, hadn't had utter, and almost odd, confidence that his friend was right.

"I have known Bennett a long time," Hoffman says with a guarded smile. "I know a lot about him and he knows a lot about me, and I never doubted he would make the best film possible."

Yet when asked what was the hardest thing about making "Capote," Miller says immediately: "Working with Phil."

"Phil is just brutal on himself," the director says. "He was unforgiving, challenging, unrelenting. Everything had to be just right."

Hoffman worried about the voice, about how he was standing, about how Capote would react in any given circumstance. Most of the party scenes he ad-libbed in hopes of becoming the man rather than playing him. He would tell Miller he was going to play a scene one way and then, when the camera rolled, play it the opposite way.

"Shooting Phil is a bit like doing a wildlife documentary," Miller says. "Other actors, they hit their marks, they know to find the light. Phil is not interested in finding the light. Phil plays away from the camera."

As Capote is forced to face his own naked ambition and his complicity in the deaths of the murderers, it got very raw. "There were days when Phil would finish and no one could meet his eye," says Miller. "He'd walk off the set and everyone would just move away like a bunch of birds on a beach when you walk through them."

Burned out

Truman Capote is not the most difficult role Philip Seymour Hoffman has done to date. That honor, he says, goes to Jamie Tyrone, the drunken wastrel son in "Long Day's Journey Into Night," for which Hoffman received a Tony nomination in 2003. "When I finished that, I thought, 'Well, I don't think I'll ever do that again.' "

O'Neill?

"No, acting," he says with a laugh. "I was burned out, in a very satisfying way but still.... "

Capote comes a close second. "A film like that takes it out of you. You have to have that thing. You have to find it and keep it and walk it out of the trailer and across the parking lot and it has to last 12 hours. I wondered, at a certain point, if I was fit enough."

Not physically, he explains, but artistically. As he speaks, it becomes even clearer that despite a few demographic parallels, Philip Seymour Hoffman is very different from Truman Capote. The hubris that allowed Capote, with his fey Southern ways, to storm the citadel of New York society, to pry details and secrets from small-town Kansans and murderers, to say he was going to reinvent journalism and then actually do it, is not evident in a man who shifts uncomfortably in his seat when a fan stops by.

"I like to fly below the radar," Hoffman says. "And here is this guy who is completely open, completely bold, who has this very strange sort of machismo.... So I had to find a different entry, a different level to find him."

What he found was the fear and uncertainty that almost always lurk beneath bravado. "He had to announce who he was so there would be no question in anyone's mind, including his," says Hoffman.

"But in the end, it was never enough. He wrote the book, it made him famous and rich and the talk of the town, but still it wasn't enough. He was someone who could not get enough love, who had to be smothered by love from everyone all the time."

But he also found ambition, a certainty of purpose that allowed Capote to manipulate anyone he felt it was necessary to manipulate in order for his book to emerge. Especially Perry Smith, whom he befriended, or baited, depending on who's talking, to whom he offered solace and even legal help while he was trying to get Smith to confess, in exquisite detail, what had happened that night in the Clutter house.

This is what kept the three friends excited during the pitch meetings and the filming and the editing and now the publicity: At the heart of the story lie questions about the nature and worth of art itself. Is it OK to lie to a killer in pursuit of a book that will influence the world? Which forces are necessary to achieve great things and which are simply self-aggrandizement? What cost does such a book wrest from the subjects, from the writer? Is it worth it?

"When I was playing him," Hoffman says, "I had to believe that it was worth it — that he was doing what he was doing for the greater good. But maybe there were two crimes committed in this: the murders and what Capote did."

Although the film's ending makes something of a final judgment on the effect "In Cold Blood" had on its author, it refuses to portray Capote as either angel or devil. Because there is no one answer.

Like Futterman said in his letter, this is why some people, torn between fear and ambition, consign themselves to the artistic life, with all its potential for failure and, perhaps even more dangerous, great success.

Capote chose as the title of his final, unfinished book "Answered Prayers," part of a quote from St. Therese, who said: "More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones."

"It's something worth talking about, isn't it?" says Hoffman. "And what people come away with, what they think of him, will reveal more about them than Capote. Which is really classic Capote," he adds, settling back into the flickering shadows. "Getting people to reveal themselves without knowing it."

I believe that photo is as close to PSH as I'd ever need to get.

that's exactly what the guy who took it was thinking.

i thought this was absolutely wonderful

easily one of the best of the year

was there any mention of breakfast at tiffany's?

yes, it was referenced a few times

That's weird... that song came out like 35 years later.




:oops:

i'm suprised by the lack of discussion re: Capote.

Is there a lack of availability due to its limited release or are people just not interested or have you all seen it and have nothing to say?

just curious about your thoughts...

It's only opening outside of NY and LA today, so I imagine more people (including myself, having missed the press screening last month) will see it starting tonight. I'm excited.

It's very well done. One of the most accurate depictions of artistic ruthlessness I've seen.

SOME SPOILERS








Fascinating film about Capote's obsession with the story of the Clutter murders.  It absolutely consumes him for years of his life.  He's obsessed with the story because it not only is great source material for a book, but also because he feels a deep connection to Perry Smith, who, like Capote, was abandoned by his parents.  Towards the end he desperately wants an ending to the story (the execution of Smith and Hickock), and he declines to find a lawyer for their Supreme Court appeal after finding them a better lawyer earlier.  He sympathizes with Perry (Richard Hickock is not in the film much), and yet, he sensationally titles his book In Cold Blood.  He is both deeply connected to Perry and researching what he knows will become a great and infamous book.

Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance could have easily become an imitation or caricature, given the Truman Capote's high-pitched voice and often flamboyant mannerisms and speech, but he makes him real.  He will be nominated for an Oscar.  

The look of it is standard Super 35 cinematography, with lots of close-ups, but it captures the gloomy mood of the story.

Quote from: RaviSOME SPOILERS


 He will be nominated for an Oscar.  
.

Just saw it tonight, and I second that opinion

spoiler:

He will lose to R. Crowe...

Harper Lee coming up to the drunk, alone Capote at the To Kill a Mockingbird premiere was such a powerful scene.  A well made movie all around, despite the old lady in front of me falling asleep and snoring during the movie.  The material was handled in a nice mature and subjective manner, good subtlety, which was refreshing.  I'm not sure the story is powerful enough for the movie to linger with me, but if it does I won't be upset.

72 teeth, when you say he will lose to R. Crowe, do you mean for Cinderella Man? And if so, are you joking? Russel Crowe was pretty good and all...but Hoffman in this is a goddamned jawdropper and milestone performance. He's beyond hyperbole.

Yeah, i was kidding, but the academy has already given Crowe one undeserved oscar and they have snubbed Hoffman for years, so, maybe it's not that far fetched...

you make a valid point

More people need to see and discuss this movie.  Best of the year from what I've seen.  The plot is pretty familiar territory, but Capote is such an intriguing character the movie works. 

It's hard to feel any emotional connectedness with such loathsome characters, but it's hard not to feel intrigued by them.  This is what fuels the movie.   Philip Seymour Hoffman, in what may be the best of a long list of great performances by him, is not so much a caricature of Capote as much as he is Capote.    There are no redeeming qualities in Truman Capote and certain actions make it hard to sympathize with him, yet we still are fascinated by what makes him tick.   We can accredit this to Hoffman's convincing performance, in what will likely earn him an Oscar nomination. 

3 1/2 stars out of 4. 

This really is a good film and the acknwoledgement already given to Hoffman's performance is very much deserved.  I think this film worked and it was more moving than I first expected.  It is slowly paced but I didn't find it boring (the guy sitting beside me walked out 20 minutes in...I don't know what the hell he was expecting).  Capote avoids many of the "artist biopic" clichés (the "life as greatest hits collection" especially) and just focues on the most defnining event in Capote's life as a writer and human being -- the discovery, research and writing of In Cold Blood.  It was very well shot, surprisingly so.  There is a certain desolation in some of the landscape shots that directly relate to the desolation of the events and the killers -- also to Truman Capote himself. 

SPOILER
One biopic cliché that the film unfortunately gives in to, albeit breifly, is the "You're a genius! You broke the mold!" scene.  The scene where Bob Balaban sits Capote down after reading the first two parts of In Cold Blood and tells him "this is going to change how people write" doesn't quite work for me.  One reason I hate the scene is Capote acts like he doesn't want the praise when it's (finally) given to him.  He has clearly been seeking some kind of acclaim throughout the film, even before he had started writing the book.  I hated the scene in Pollock, I hated the scene in Ray and hated the scene in Capote.  Other than that one scene, the movie does well avoiding these scenes, partially because it doesn't let Capote be the "disaffected artist who doesn't care what people say or think".  We know that he cares; that's part of what makes him intruiging.  The film does not overlook Capote's narcissism...except in this one scene.

I'll join the club and praise Hoffman's performance.  Hoffman alone would be worth watching the movie for.  But you also get a great supporting cast led by Keener playing against type (shes not a bitch!) as Harper Lee.  There's some gorgeous photography, with great close ups, and I loved the shots of the prison that lacked all but a hint of color.  In a weird way this movie stirred the same emotions that I got out of The Pianist.  Must be something about the artistic struggle.

B+

I was reminded a lot of Dead Man Walking during this.

Quote from: life_boy on November 12, 2005, 01:10:03 PM
Capote avoids many of the "artist biopic" clichés (the "life as greatest hits collection" especially) and just focues on the most defnining event in Capote's life as a writer and human being -- the discovery, research and writing of In Cold Blood. 

An excellent point. "Capote" works well mainly because it tackles one key life event, and leaves the audience to find out more about Truman Capote on their own time. It's refreshing to see bio-pics such as this or "The Aviator" that realize you can't be all encompassing, and I hope it continues.

I am irked this never came to my area. Didn't want to have to settle for only seeing it on DVD.

Does Hoffman's voice in this film ever get too distracting?

At first I thought it would.  I remember thinking--is he gonna talk like this the whole movie.  But it doesn't distract you.  This is a testament to Hoffman it really is.  If it were a cariacture of Capote, then it would be annoying, but it is such a good performance it doesn't bother you. 

Hoffman's performance does indeed live up to the hype, but Cliff Curtis is equally good; I hope he gets some recognition as well.

I saw the film once when it first opened, loved it, then read In Cold Blood and then watched it again yesterday and loved it even more. The screenplay is damn near perfect.

i've been wanting to read in cold blood since i've seen the movie but it's checked out at my library. 

You could probably get a beat-up copy of the paperback on amazon.com for 99 cents.

Quote from: Losing the Horse: on November 05, 2005, 03:02:08 PM
Harper Lee coming up to the drunk, alone Capote at the To Kill a Mockingbird premiere was such a powerful scene.

yeah that was one of my favorite scenes. not only is it a revealing glimpse at his feelings about Lee's (and his own) accomplishments, but also, the story of "To Kill a Mockingbird," about a man fighting to prevent the execution of a person wrongfully accused of murder, sharply contrasts Capote's story during that period of time.

Maybe I've got my finger on the wrong pulse of the biopic, but I didn't like this at all (compared to Walk the Line, which I loved). This film painfully bored me. I think Capote is an obnoxious, egotistical snob and I really felt no reason to like him. I love Hoffman, but this just didn't do it for me. I think his performance is consistently what it is (I guess I mean it's good) but I just don't like the man. I do agree with GB, Clifton Collins was the best part of this film for me. I just wanted to get to know him, not through Capote. Capote's shallow and easy to see through. I guess you can't like em all. This movie didn't do it for me. But my two friends agreed.

His name is Clifton Collins Jr. Cliff Curtis is the guy in Three Kings and Blow.

Sony's Capote (street date 3/14, SLP $28.95) will be anamorphic widescreen with Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. Extras include extended behind-the-scenes documentaries, the Truman Capote featurette, audio commentary with Philip Seymour Hoffman and director Bennett Miller, a second commentary with Miller and screenwriter Dan Futterman and more.

These new post-nomination tv spots are ridiculous.  They make it sound like some kind of intense thriller... the music is so incredibly over the top.

Especially with Capote on the phone saying: "You will be stunned!" as the music climaxes.

Quote from: matt35mm on February 03, 2006, 06:21:48 AM
Especially with Capote on the phone saying: "You will be stunned!" as the music climaxes.

The twist is that Capote is actually dead.

Quote from: Gamblour le flambeur on January 02, 2006, 10:29:52 PMI guess you can't like em all. This movie didn't do it for me. But my two friends agreed.

i'm a little confused by the word "But" in that last sentence. i don't think it needs to be there, unless you meant to write "But my two friends disagreed."

does anyone else agree?

You know what's funny to me about Capote? I remember Dan Futterman solely as an actor, and solely from the initriguing but iffy and overall mediocre Urbania, and in his guest spot as "Barry" (the frumpy, newly out guy that Will and Jack have to make over) on Will & Grace. Now he's an Academy Award-winning screenwriter!

I thought Capote was an excellent film that included an excellent PSH performance, not just another excellent performance surrounded by a relatively blah movie (I'm thinking of Monster, specifically).

Quote from: ©brad on February 03, 2006, 11:55:57 AM

Quote from: Gamblour le flambeur on January 02, 2006, 10:29:52 PMI guess you can't like em all. This movie didn't do it for me. But my two friends agreed.

i'm a little confused by the word "But" in that last sentence. i don't think it needs to be there, unless you meant to write "But my two friends disagreed."

does anyone else agree?

I don't, BUT my friends don't

This film was an absolute misfire. A tragedy of misguided storyteliing. The fractured faults gave it no chance to survive in my eyes.

There are two halves to this film. The first is the introduction of Truman Capote, a large figure of such prominent literary personality that the film can roll out personal quips along with historical ones. (his relation to Harper Lee at the time of her famous publication, for example) It is hardly even the true introduction of a character. One need only watch the numerous talk shows he appeared on to find the entertaining personality and enthusiastic man just replicated here on screen. The only way this introduction was able to be made is because the pubic today is so removed from the days of his personality as instantly recognizable that a re-introduction was in order. The second half of the film is the delving to a plot/theme. The only thing wrong with this is that it just the transplantation of a theme from In Cold Blood to movie screen. Those who have not read the book just need to come here.

This film is second hand material. Its main parts are only relevant because of how dislodged we are to the book at hand and the personality that was once recognizable. The one theme the film did have going for it was hardly given enough attention. The relationship of Truman Capote to the inmate he befriends but who he is also using to write the book. There is also an indentification Truman Capote has with him. Capote is too distraught to get close to him. How could Truman Capote identify with him? Why is he too distraught to truly be near him? We walk with Capote through the torment of witnessing these men doomed to die. We also just did that in the book as well. The answers to my questions were given lip service yet they are the questions that could make this film wholly unique in conjecture to the larger identity it replicates on screen.

Yet, the film is beautifully made. Certain images of Kansas in this film stayed with me like images written by Capote did with In Cold Blood. Philip Seymour Hoffmann displaces mimicry and ends up giving his performance of Truman Capote an identity that can be believed in. Clifton Collins Jr, who I liked in Tigerland, is even better here.

Sorry, GT, I dont understand. Are you saying that the film should have been made with the prerequisite of the audience having read the book?

Quote from: ®edlum on February 07, 2006, 08:34:09 AM
Sorry, GT, I dont understand. Are you saying that the film should have been made with the prerequisite of the audience having read the book?

I'm saying it should have been made with the idea to it should have its own identity and not be second hand material to two aspects of Capote's life - his obvious personality and In Cold Blood.

My thoughts on Capote (i.e. the rough draft of my review)...

Like Christ being tempted to turn stones into bread after forty days and forty nights of fasting in the wilderness, we find Truman Capote seized by inspiration by the cold-blooded murder of a wealthy Midwestern family, the raw material of humble stones looking like choice morsels to be transformed at the touch of his pen.

But it would be a mistake to see Truman as a Savior. Rather, he appears in "Capote" as a master of deceit and manipulation, clever enough to get exactly what he needs; pathetic enough to appear the victim in distress. Or is that also a charade? You never know how far Capote is willing to go until he takes that next step.

Dan Futterman's screenplay is as deceptively sharp as its main character. Instead of telling the story of "In Cold Blood" through Capote's eyes, the story is about Capote's writing of the story and how the creation of his book impacted the lives of the people included in its pages. Capote broke every rule of journalistic and writerly ethics in his obsessive search for the perfect nonfiction narrative. Bribing the local townspeople of Holcomb, Kansas; hiring a great defense lawyer for Perry Smith (Clifton Collins, Jr.) and Richard Hickock (Mark Pellegrino), the transients who shotgunned the family in the search for a rumored stash of wealth; befriending Smith to wring every last detail of the night of the crime out of him before the creaky wheels of justice carry Smith to the end of a short rope and long drop. One of the film's earliest scenes tells us everything we need to know about Capote as he relates to a witness from whom he needs information a story of being an outsider as a child, misunderstood by everyone and always wanting to prove them wrong. He gets his information and the audience learns two things: One, that Capote can get people to do whatever he wants and two, that everything is all about him.

Bennett Miller sets the scene for Perry Smith and Truman Capote's entanglement with a deft hand. The visual architecture of the film is angular, almost static and muted. There is a claustrophobia shared by the open plains of Kansas and the jutting skyscrapers of New York. It's a feeling shared by Capote when he meets his most unlikely kindred spirit in Smith. Capote says something like, "It's like we both grew up in the same house. And then one day, he got up and went out the back door and I went out the front." Both men have sensitive souls, poets' souls; both were abandoned by family; both struggle to be taken seriously. By some twist, Capote wound up a critical darling of the East Coast literati while Smith eked by as a drifter. Futterman's script draws a disquieting parallel between Smith's almost inexplicable need to murder the family that fears what he's capable of and Capote's need to see Smith (and Hickock) hang for the sake of a good ending to his book—and, perhaps, because it would silence the screaming in the mirror that Capote sees every time he looks into Smith's eyes.

While Smith's mercenary act leads to his death over a paltry sum, Capote becomes the most famous writer in America. Miller's austere style provides the audience an insulation between it and sensationalism that Capote manipulates into his book, which sort of misses the point. People don't read true crime novels to be shielded from the pulp nonfiction. Only in two scenes does Miller cross the line with Truman: Once in the funeral parlor when Capote looks inside the caskets and once near the end when we see the graphic violence of the murders. In the funeral parlor, we see Capote's reaction and later hear his descriptive passage from "In Cold Blood" of the heads wrapped in gauze. It wasn't necessary to show us, to transgress the privacy of the dead. Similarly, Smith's narration of the awful night in 1959 when he blew the faces off four innocent people didn't need to be shown—but we are. We're shown because that's what Capote would show. It's inconsistent with the perspective established throughout the film, because though Capote is central to the story, we are observing him, not empathizing. If Miller and Futterman's goal was to circumvent the exploitative nature of the "true crime" genre, their success falters only temporarily.

Writers should appreciate "Capote" even more than non-writers, for the psychological complexity and thematic sophistication is only heightened by an uncomfortable self-recognition in Truman's tactics. He crosses lines that we writers only imagine. In tackling nonfiction subjects, how often have I not wished that things could turn out just so for that perfect ending? Or that I could hammer at an interviewee until getting just the answer I need? And why lie about the fact that on some level, even the most altruistic story may be written in some service to the ego?

In this, "Capote" realizes the destructive impulse in creation, the deliberate construction with the raw material of human tragedy. "Capote" deconstructs the creative act to the primal impulse of self-advancement at the expense of others. Driving the film are a trio of doyens, breathing human flesh to the mirror: Hoffman, in the role that will win him the Oscar; Catherine Keener, the compassionate conscience of the film, as Nell Harper Lee (yes, that one); Collins, whose soulful Perry Smith is so much the opposite of Hoffman's feline, obsessive Capote that they cannot help but be shadows of the dual nature of any man who has ever wanted to be more than he is and found himself wanting. The irony is that the convicted murderer is left with more semblance of humanity than the chronicler who has lost himself in search of the greatest American tragedy ever told. He told it, then lived it for the rest of his life.

good review, Matt. I obviously disagree as much as humanely possible but I'm estatic it was an excellent review anyways. Yes folks, I brought this guy to xixax.

Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on February 07, 2006, 11:16:27 AM
good review, Matt. I obviously disagree as much as humanely possible but I'm estatic it was an excellent review anyways. Yes folks, I brought this guy to xixax.

Thank you.  I'm flattered that you think enough of me to take credit for my presence.   :)

I think our main point of disagreement is over the coincidence of the film to the true story.  For me, it wasn't as important that it was based on real events; the movie was about the process and what it tells us about Capote finding his doppleganger (or is it Smith who finds his?)  If taken as a film based on actual events, it certainly falls in line with the typical, rote biopic story arc -- no argument there.  But it's very much focused on how this character fits into the landscape of creation in American art, so I found it fascinating.  Capote's torment at the end was interesting to me because it wasn't just about the men dying -- it was about being forced into letting them die because he had to kill that part of himself.  I think the torment derived more from recognizing himself for what he was rather than what was about to happen to the man he'd befriended (and I use the term loosely).

Collins was fantastic, though, wasn't he?  And with an underwritten role.  Strangely, the last thing I saw him in was Mindhunters (not exactly recommended), and I remember thinking that this guy needs to get better roles in better movies.  Lo and behold, the movie gods answered my prayers.

Quote from: The Gold Trumpet on February 07, 2006, 11:16:27 AM
Yes folks, I brought this guy to xixax.

i KNEW it! i was going to say after reading that, you guys will be fast friends regardless of your tastes.  looks like the 'real world' beat me to it.

Two nice reads on the great PSH

http://www.rochesterinsider.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060203/INSIDER04/602030342

http://www.rochesterinsider.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060203/INSIDER03/602030345

Quote from: RegularKarate on February 03, 2006, 12:08:15 AM
These new post-nomination tv spots are ridiculous.  They make it sound like some kind of intense thriller... the music is so incredibly over the top.

In the same vein, the recent Oscar print ads for Munich use the photo below...

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.milenio.com%2FMediaCenter%2FFotos%2F2006%2FEnero%2F14%2Fhey16E10CE14.jpg&hash=0c5df7a33ae3e2fc20ef3c164597e324082347df)

...making the film look like Ocean's 13.

That actually came to my mind while watching "Munich".

As for "Capote", my town didn't even give it a chance. It played for only one week, at only a 10 PM showing, at only one theater. And yet they put "When a Stranger Calls" on two screens in the same theater. So I went to the 10:00 showing the night it opened and it was packed. Apparently I wasn't the only one that wanted to see it.

PSH was the best thing in the movie by a long shot. The movie itself wasn't bad, but it wasn't quite the knockout I was expecting. I'm really hoping PSH will get best actor. It's about time he gets the respect he deserves.

PSH Deserves Best actor this year, woo, what a performance. my expectations were met and they were put to shame as everything in this movie sparkled greatness.

Anyone know why Paul Thomas Anderson received a Special Thanks in the end credits?

'Immortalist' finds home at Vantage

Paramount Vantage is getting into the Bennett Miller business. The indie unit, along with producer Plan B, will develop Miller's latest project, "The Immortalist." The project, which has yet to be written, is a "character-driven drama set in the emerging world of life extension." Details of the plot are still under wraps, but Miller describes it as "not a science fiction film ... (but) a drama set in the very real world of those pursuing biological immortality." He adds: "It's a pursuit that attracts some extremely brilliant, wealthy and influential people. It also attracts tragic figures. This story follows one such person on his disturbing foray into it."