last night i saw capote, because neither simon nor our friend jennie wanted to see brokeback mountain (don’t ask). i enjoyed the movie while it was going, though i was a bit weary during the last third. but simon and jennie talked me out of liking it in about 15 minutes of conversation after the movie’s end. here is our collective thought on capote:
philip seymour hoffman is a great actor who handles his first major (or first, period) lead role with great aplomb and artistry. he is actually magnificent. i guess the director knew hoffman was his best asset, because every other shot is a close-up of his smooth, babyish, pink face. i actually find him quite fetching, so i didn’t mind. but after a while you start feeling that hoffman is carrying the whole movie, that without him there would be no movie, and by the end you realize that it is true!
the reason why there is no movie is that there is no theme (and, please, don’t you even think about telling me that a biopic doesn’t need a theme!). this movie tries to cover a number of Big Themes, among them:
a) the potentially exploitative nature of art (especially documentary art)
b) the inevitable bonding of an artist with his subject, however distasteful the subject
c) death penalty (or, even serial murderers are human beings)
d) the artist’s responsibility to his subject as himself, and not just as the subject of his work
e) male bonding
f) The Criminal Mind
g) The Creative Ego
h) class in america
i’m going to stop here, but you get the idea. there is little capote doesn’t cover. so everything gets covered very quickly and very sketchily.
more on hoffman: his diction, his body language, his laughters: very nuanced and very effective. he’s a pleasure to watch.
catherine keener: don’t get me started on secondary female figures who support-and-understand their male counterparts (see pollock for an equally infuriating depiction of male-female artist relation).
bennett miller: he’s directed only two movies. the first a documentary he himself filmed.
HAS ANYONE SEEN THIS MOVIE? cuz, you know, i have papers to grade too!
I have seen this movie and think it may be one of the best of the year, so I’ve been trying to figure out how to respond to your post. I think the themes you list are all very integral to this portrait of an artist as vampire, yet I didn’t feel short-changed as your post seems to argue. Yes, Hoffman’s performance is peerless, but I think the performance is so good because the script is compact and the issues/themes explored are done so with intelligence and psychological depth. The film looked great and there are so many strong scenes and performances. Catherine Keener does support her friend during the first half but by the end of the film, her Harper Lee has been transformed into something greater than Capote (vocationally and personally). The sequence surrounding the opening of the film adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird was particularly stirring. Her character actually grew or matured and by the end she was nobody’s bodyguard. I don’t know . . . I think this was probably the most compelling film I’ve seen all year.
Gio, this is a gender thing. It is blog policy not to respond to primary posts from female bloggers. We are all discussing ‘Capote’ on the shadow site that Arnab set up for male bloggers. Sorry.
Truth: I haven’t seen it. My firm policy is not to see any movie between December 1st and January 1st, and again between May 20th and September 1st, that has a bodycount of less than 50, or a budget of less than $120 million.
gio’s a woman!
Hallelujah! Should that be a question mark?
Actually, Jeff is a woman, too, but you probably figured that out from “his” posts.
Tee hee. I haven’t seen Capote; I am a huge fan of the book, so I’m interested…but your critique makes me nervous, as it resembles things I’ve heard elsewhere. Then again, Jeff’s earlier brief praise–and his passion for the film–makes me interested. I will probably fret publicly while privately adhering to Chris’ golden rules about body count and budgets.
i have this problem whereby i detest everyone and everything associated with magnolia (including people like john and mike who like it overmuch). this association aside, while i recognize that seymour hoffman is a good actor i really can never shake the impression that i am seeing “good acting” whenever he’s on a screen (this does not include his attempt at being funny in along came polly, another in my series of films watched in planes). the only film in which i’ve liked him was the talented mr. ripley but probably only because that was before magnolia. and so the thought of 100 minutes (or whatever) of seymour hoffman is not alluring.
gio is a woman. but she is also italian.
I take just like a woman, yes, I do…
I make love just like a woman, yes, I do…
And I ache just like a woman
…But I break just like a little girl.
sorry, Gio, I haven’t seen a movie since 1984.
now, how intelligent is it to have so many comments dedicated to my gender? gee, you guys are soooo pathetic! thank you michael for being, at least, humorous, and, arnab, one day i’m gonna fucking cut you (is swearing allowed on this site? well, fuck it).
jeff, i’m sure that, now you know i am FEMALE, you will understand why i got so hysterical about keener and all that feminist crap. i feel bad (this is very feminine too, of course) for having rained on your parade. and yet, at the very same time, i feel proud for being the one who maybe, just maybe, planted the seed of doubt in your (male?) mind…
you are right that keener eventually comes into her own. but why did she have to be so… caring, you know, at the end? you can argue she was caring towards harry smith, really, but why should it have been her business? she was taking care of men, their friendship, their bond… she was taking responsibility for her friend truman… know what i’m saying? i’m sure you do.
is it true that In Cold Blood started the genre of the “true novel,” or whatever it’s called?
anyway, jeff, i feel that, at the end of the day, it comes down to what moves one, you know. hence:
are you writing a novel you feel is very very important, that will, in fact, revolutionize the literary world?
are you incredibly witty?
are you gay?
Only on Oscar night
I think ICB restarted the genre of the true novel; Norman Mailer (talk about hysterical) ranted about the book’s generic flaws until he wrote one of his own.
I apologize, Gio, for exploiting the gender thing, just to take swipes at Jeff. But any port in a storm, is what my grandfather always says. I never know what that bastard is talking about, but I find aphorisms a handy way to get out of a conversation.
we watched this tonight. reading the comments here i am beginning to suspect that jeff and i may have very different tastes in film. i thought this was boring. dull. the opposite of provocative. and i didn’t even think the major performances were any good. i guess seymour hoffman got the oscar for doing the voice for 110 minutes and keener got nominated for looking sour and only flashing that trademark broken-glass in vinegar smile once. chris cooper was solid as always and some of the long shots of kansas landscape were beautiful, but that’s about it.
following gio, i have to ask why we couldn’t instead get a biopic about either harper lee or james baldwin (heard of/from in a snarky aside at the beginning of the film). they both seem more interesting than the capote seen here.
Watched Infamous last night (at least most of it). It’s fey and frothy, more gossipy than the darker, perhaps more daring Capote (no mystery as to how the dirty deed was accomplished here; this narrative is far more interested in other dirty deeds). The film begins on a very strange note which, if one is willing to pay close attention, makes some sense late in the dramatic action, but it is hard to be invested in much on display. The script’s attempt to make visual George Plimpton’s oral history of Capote and his coterie is awkwardly handled, the art direction and costumes deflect attention from the plot and characters. The whole thing plays like a fabulous coctail party, but I think that’s its greatest flaw. Still, the performances are quite good. Daniel Craig seems miscast but he gives it his all; Toby Jones seems a little too close to the real thing but he too gives his performance some nice layers. Sandra Bullock is great; she really digs in without making us think she’s working too hard. But it is Juliet Stephenson’s take on Diana Vreeland that makes this film worth some of your time. Stephenson is electric, and though she’s only on screen for a handful of scenes she steals the film and makes you wish her character had derailed the entire damn thing. I would have followed her anywhere.