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By Archive
from Salem Monthly, Section News
Posted on Tue Nov 01, 2005 at 02:28:31 PM PDT
“Capote” follows author Truman Capote, of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” fame, as he strives to become acquainted with a convicted killer of a family in small-town Kansas.
The talented Phillip Seymour Hoffman is perfectly cast to play the author, and the rest of the cast is equally good.Reading a story of the murder of a family in Kansas, Capote is struck with an idea for his next book. He arrives in Kansas, and when the killers are eventually caught, befriends one of them.
The man confounds Capote’s and our ideas of a murderer. Intelligent and sensitive, he is hardly what we would expect of someone who killed an entire family. Capote sets about discovering all he can about this man and, in the process, finds that they share a very similar childhood. This shakes Capote to his very core — and the audience’s as well. This man is like a mirror image of Capote. The author says at one point, “It’s almost as if we grew up in the same house and he left through the back door, while I left through the front.”
This movie is a fascinating study of the title character. We find out more about Capote than the subject of his book, “In Cold Blood.” We never even get to know the killer completely, because he does not know himself. The performances in this film are emotionally realistic. Hoffman’s portrayal in particular is riveting. He presents a sympathetic yet calloused man not unlike the rest of us. This film does not give much closure. Perhaps this is what makes it so true to life.
Aaron Kelly is a writer in his own right (screenwriter) and therefore relates a bit to Truman Capote. He is also fascinated and at the same time sickened by murder, like most people, probably.
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