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Customer Reviews of Capote

A magnificent film with amazing performances of great nuance and power
I can only provide you with my personal reactions and interpretations of this film. The intentions of the authors, director, and actors are unknown to me, but what I saw on the screen affected me quite powerfully. For me, this quiet intenisty is exactly what I most like in film. One of the things an author must do is see. To write truthfully an author cannot blink or look away or distract by making sensational effects. Think of the scene of Capote alone in the funeral parlor with the closed coffins containing the bodies of the family. Does the author look inside or does his respect and sense of decorum keep the lids closed. There is not a simple answer or act for anyone of sensitivity. <
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>This movie is much like that. The pictures it shows us are clean, spare, and give us time to look at and into what is going on. In this movie, facial expressions matter a great deal. A movement of an eyebrow, a flicker of an emotion that escapes and is then suppressed communicates so much. Am I reading meaning into the performances? Maybe. But the movie gives me the opportunity to see and, well, luxuriate in thought about what is happening inside these people. <
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>Of course, the movie is about Capote and he is on the screen nearly constantly. Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance is so intelligent, so powerfully imaginative, and communicates so continually that I can almost not understand how he accomplished it. Capote is an immensely complex character. We see his public bravado and understand its balance with his private insecurities. However, there is not a simple relationship between the two. One isn't the cause of the other. <
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>Capote is completely able to tell a truth with a lie and then to lie with telling the truth. We see him genuinely ache for the killer Perry Smith while still manipulating him to get what he wants. When Capote gets a real and serious lawyer for the killers he may allow himself to feel that he is doing it out of compassion for these men and the fellowship he feels for Smith because of their shared childhood abandonment. Yet, Capote also knows that he needs to keep them alive long enough to extract their stories and get at the truth so he can write his book. <
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>For me, the most amazing scenes in the film are Capote's private exchanges with Smith (and great credit has to be given to Clifton Collins, Jr for his contributions to these scenes). Capote uses genuine emotion to charismatically pull in Smith. At other times, he creates a negative emotional pressure that almost forces the emotion within Smith to come out and fill it. Another time Capote will user superiority and near contempt to manipulate the needy child in Smith. Yet, in the end, Capote is caught in his own trap. Capote has to finish his book and for him to do that they murderers need to die. Yet, Capote's getting them lawyers started them down the path of appeal after appeal and stay after stay. Finally, Capote has to withdraw any more assistance for Hickock and Smith. Yet, in abandoning them his own conscience burns and all but destroys him. When you see his life after "In Cold Blood" one could make the argument that it did him in. <
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>Of course, Hoffman's fabulous performance could not exist without other great artists to perform with. The entire cast of this movie is just wonderful. Catherine Keener as Harper Lee is perfect as Capote's friend who knows him for what he really is and loves him anyway, but not to the point of self-deception. Bob Balaban is wonderful and knowing as, William Shawn, the legendary editor of the New Yorker. He also knows how to manage and manipulate Capote, but is also drawn into this final miserable web of the execution. Bruce Greenwood's sensitive portrayal of Capote's closest love, Jack Dunphy, allows us to see that as self-involved and capable of hurting others as Capote was, at the extremes he did need another and that was Dunphy. Chris Cooper and Amy Ryan add so much as the Kansas detective and his wife who are both taken in by Capote's charisma and fame while the detective retrains some distance and skepticism of Capote's ultimate motivation. <
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>The rest of the cast is also wonderful and I praise this movie without reservation. <
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>The "R" rating comes from some profane language (not a lot) and a brief scene of brutality and blood when the murders are finally recounted.

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Cold souls
Capote takes us to the dark side of the American story in more ways than one. It's a tale about how narcissism can poison relationships and twist values. It deals with the causes and consecuences of terrible murders and it also questions the pursuit of fame and success. <
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>Born in 1924 in Alabama, Truman Capote wanted fame and success more than most. He has been described as the most perfect writer of his generation. Extravagant and eccentric, Capote was fascinated for public attention long before the concept of celebrity was part of the American culture. <
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>On Nov. 16, 1959, Capote noticed an article in a newspaper about a Kansas family who were killed. Immediately, he spoke with the editor of The New Yorker, wondering if he would be interested in an article about the murders. <
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>At first, Capote thought the story would be about how the small community was dealing with the tragedy. That was until Perry Smith and Richard Hickock, were arrested and charged with the crime. As Capote gets to know them, he's consumed by a story that would make him rich and famous, and eventually destroy him. His non-fiction novel, In Cold Blood, became a best seller, but Capote was emotionally devastated by the experience and it's been said that it haunted him to his death. <
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>Capote chronicles the unlikely friendship between writer and murderer. Capote and Smith shared a sense of defiance and loneliness, but as the film progresses, the relationship grows one-sided, and Hoffman's attitude toward Smith morphs to exploitative and manipulative. <
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>The film questions the tricky ethics of journalists and how Capote the writer was eventually overthrown by Capote the celebrity. That last Capote is the one who lingered in the public imagination, and Hoffman does a superb job at revealing the lonely as well as the extroverted public persona. What an extraordinary and brilliant performance. It will give you chills. <
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>You know you have seen a good movie when you walk out of the theater and can't stop thinking about it. For me, Capote was exactly that. It disturbed me, moved me and with blind eyes I'd recommend it to anyone. What a marvelous piece of cinema.

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An outstanding film!
This was one great film. I was riveted from first to last. I read the book so long ago and had read some of Capote's life. I thought Hoffman really nailed him dead on. He made him very complex....warts and all. <
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>Highly and wholeheartedly reccommend this one!