Capote (1 Viewer)

[Patrick Sun]

Finally saw this film today, and I finally have a Best Actor candidate to get behind in the Oscar races this year. Hoffman is amazing in this role. He simply disappears and it's just Capote on the screen, and he is able to convey the emotions and turmoil he feels and readily wears on his sleeve at the trying times during the "research" phase for "In Cold Blood".

I thought the pacing was pitch-perfect, and this film about how "In Cold Blood" came to be was very interesting and makes for a suitable companion to Capote's book.

I give it 3.5 stars, or a grade of B+.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Hoffman has now been selected as best actor by the L.A. and Boston critics associations and the National Board of Review, making him the obvious favorite for the Oscars.

M.

 

[Craig S]

Yup, big mo is building for Hoffman. It's about time for this superb actor, who is way overdue as far as Oscar goes.

 

[Michael Reuben]

First break in the streak: The New York Film Critics Circle picked Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain.

M.

 

[Jeff_CusBlues]

I want to see this movie. I read the book In Cold Blood and saw the movie in the late 70s when I was in high school. I remember not being able to put the book down. I also used to enjoy Truman Capote on his many appearances on The Tonight Show. Johnny always loved having him on. He was always the life of the couch. I find it very encouraging that Dave enjoyed this movie not knowing anything about the plot or about Capote. I have also enjoyed Philip Hoffman in his other films. Maybe this weekend I will be able to talk my wife into seeing this.

 

[Vickie_M]

That's funny because I read once, can't remember where, that there was speculation among some who thought that Harper Lee wrote large portions if not all of "In Cold Blood" but didn't want to take credit and hurt her childhood friend, so they kept it a secret. "In Cold Blood," despite the title, is such a quiet, introspective, sharply detailed book...you can feel the dusty roads beneath bare feet and smell the harvested fields, and the characers become real just as they do in TKAM. Mrs. Clutter's mental illness is handled especially well, with gentleness and understanding. Could a man write that? Hey, it's a theory. It might not be as sexist as the theory that a woman couldn't write something as wonderful as TKAM, but it's just as plausable.

(not picking on you Eric, just the general theory that Truman wrote TKAM)

What a GREAT performance! Amazing film. I'm especially close to this material (the whole In Cold Blood era) because I grew up on a farm in Kansas, just a couple of miles away from the Kansas State Penetentary at Lansing, where Smith and Hickock met and were later executed. The prison was only a couple of blocks from my Jr. High school.

I was a wee tot when the Clutters were murdered, but In Cold Blood the movie was the first adult movie I saw in the theater (my parents couldn't get a babysitter) and I was fascinated. I then got the book and it became my favorite book as a child and teenager (yes, I was a weird child). To me the movie Capote was like another puzzle piece falling into place, because I didn't know any of that background about how the book came to be written. I just got the book out again and started re-reading it. It's even more haunting and brilliant than I remembered. (a side note, it was funny to open the book and see my childhood name written in a childish scrawl on the inner front page, and the paperback has a blurb "Soon To Be A Major Motion Picture" on the front.)

The book "In Cold Blood," the movie In Cold Blood and the movie Capote form a near-perfect triangle. It's hard to imagine how a tragic, bloody, senseless quadruple murder formed the basis of 3 such remarkable works of art.

Btw, a new restored print of In Cold Blood is now playing at the Music Box in Chicago. I hope I can get to see it before it leaves.

PSH, Best Actor. Absolutely.

 

[Vickie_M]

Speaking of Harper Lee, I loved the running joke about how, before publication of "To Kill A Mockingbird," everybody kept forgetting the name of the book and getting it wrong, saying things like "Killing a bird." Lee was stoic but you could almost see her stifling an eyeroll and sneer everytime someone did that.

Catherine Keener, Best Supporting Actress nominee, please.

I forgot to mention that "To Kill A Mockingbird" was my other favorite book as a child, and yet I didn't know, until I saw Capote, that Lee and Capote were childhood friends. Dill finally made sense!

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Vickie, this is a little accusatory about the actions of those in the literary studies who speculate about the origins of TKAM and also quite harsh on those that have brought up the speculations here. As someone who has read some of the scholarly works on this subject, I have never come across one that states "a woman could not have written something as wonderful as TKAM" or anything even close to being labled "sexist" as a reason for their premise. Most have stated Harper Lee's lack of output other than TKAM is the starting point for speculation, then compare the writing and editorial styles of each. They also go into the timeline of her writing the novel and the relationship during that time between Capote and Lee. Anyone who has read the Bronte sisters, Shelley's "Frankenstein", Mitchell's GWTW, the poetry of Dickinson or any other of the countless female literary giants would be foolish to use gender as a reason for any premise like "Capote helped write/did write TKAM". I can assure you the scholars who have looked into this apparent mystery are familiar with these works and as someone who has read some of the evidence; they are not fools and definitely not sexist.

 

[Citizen87645]

A recent Entertainment Weekly article on Hope Davis had some information about another Capote film. I'd heard nothing about it so looked it up on IMDB. It's called "Infamous" and is scheduled to come out October 2006. I'm sure they want to get some distance from "Capote," but it has some interesting players in it, including Sandra Bullock as Harper Lee, Daniel Craig as Perry Smith, Hope Davis (one of my faves) and Gwyneth Paltrow.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Philip Seymour Hoffman picks up a Golden Globe for best actor in a drama. He's the one I'm still backing for an Oscar as well.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I take the opposite viewpoint in which I think Harper Lee wrote some of "In Cold Blood".






Crawdaddy

 

[Brian.L]

Finally saw this yesterday. My experience was similar to Guo's in that for the first few minutes I found Hoffman's manner of speaking to be extremely distracting and off-putting and then you just sort of forget about it. Luckily I had seen "In Cold Blood" about a month and a half ago, so it was fresh in my mind, which helped me appreciate how much this movie was able to capture the look of the 1967 one. And while I'm not a huge Catherine Keener fan either, but she was in two of my favorite movies of the last year, so she must be doing something right.

 

[Holadem]

Familiarity with In Cold Blood and it's author may be prerequisite for enjoyement of this film. I lack both, so it didn't quite work for me. Hoffman produced an amazing performance of a character I am not really interested in.

--
H

 

[DeeF]

I myself was hugely disappointed with Capote, which seemed overall very lackluster, and trying desperately to breathe some drama into the story by retelling the murder scenes already done definitively in the movie In Cold Blood.

I liked Hoffmann, but I think of it mostly as an acting stunt. It's a good stunt, but I was never involved in the story they were trying to tell (and I've read the bio it came from, and I'm very familiar with Capote's life and works).

I think Hoffmann is deserving of an Oscar for his body of work, but not particularly for this one.

 

[DonRoeber]

Odd. I loved both Capote and Hoffman's performance, and I had only casually heard of In Cold Blood before I saw the film. It's probably my favorite film of 2005.

Oh well, different strokes for different folks.

 

[brentl]

Going into this movie the only thing I'd seen was a couple of trailers, and that was enough forme. I never read any Truman Capote books, and new very little about him, but MY OH MY was PSH AMAZING in the lead role. I never felt he was playing a character, he WAS Truman Capote.

:star: :star: :star: :star: out of :star: :star: :star: :star: :star:

Worthy of an Oscar nod.

Good to see the "ugly" people in hollywood are getting the juicy roles now.

Brent