Two elements in Capote draw my attention: Philip Seymour Hoffman’s extraordinary portrayal and the film's interpretation of the man who wrote In Cold Blood. Even more interesting is the examination of the ethics of artistic creation—what obligation does the writer have to his subject matter—to the creation of art, to himself?
Hoffman’s acting (I am sorry to repeat what so many others have said) is extraordinary. I remember Capote on television from the 60s until his death in 1984. He frequently appeared on talk shows (Johnny Carson, Dick Cavett) and was a sharp-tongued wag and pundit. It wasn’t so much what he had to say as how he said it—the very distinctive manner of his speech, the public fascination with a man who was obviously homosexual at a time when that category was barely acknowledged. By the time I started paying attention to Capote (around the time of In Cold Blood) he had already become an established public figure who was incidentally a writer. Hoffman fully inhabits the Capote persona. His portrayal is so convincing and transparent that you hardly stop to consider that you’re not watching the real thing. Hoffman’s success in this role contributes directly to how the film interprets Capote’s involvement with the writing of his most famous book.
The film is based on Gerald Clarke’s biography Capote, which advances the notion (widely held) that Capote took advantage of the two murderers, promising them help and a new lawyer and rescue from the threat of execution, insinuating himself into the affections of one of the murderers in particular, repeatedly lying about the state of the book, its title, and so on. At the end, the movie argues, Capote became more interested in finishing the book, which he could do only if the story he was telling had come to an end, and it could end only when the murderers had been executed. Capote witnessed the executions. Harper Lee accused Capote of wanting the murderers to die.
I do not know enough about Capote and his writing of In Cold Blood to judge this thesis. I have to grant it some credence, but I wonder whether there is another side to the story, another dimension. It’s clear that Capote became enamored of the media and his own celebrity. But is it necessarily true that the writing of In Cold Blood corrupted him, or that he allowed himself to be corrupted, that he was so in love with writing, with the possibility of fame (especially after his friend Harper Lee’s success with To Kill A Mockingbird, both novel and film), with the project itself, that the killers simply became pawns that he manipulated as he struggled towards his goal? The film effectively argues its thesis by showing how Capote was obsessed with his book and what it might mean for him, that he perhaps was even unaware (or chose to be unaware) of how he was manipulating the killers. At the end he realizes the extent of his errors, and he grieves over what he has done, he feels guilt, though consistently in the film when he feels emotion it is directed towards himself, his own suffering, rather than that of anyone else. The shock of witnessing the executions thus becomes his excuse for failure as a writer in later life.
Even before the issue of corruption raises its head, it is clear that Capote sees in the murdered farm family a story to be told. He pursues it with passion. He tells the town sheriff that he wants to tell the story, that he doesn’t care whether the killers are ever caught--he just wants to tell the story. Thus from the start the issue of justice and the issue of art become tangled. Is it more important that art is created and the novel gets written, or that justice is served and the murderers are executed? As his work on the book progresses and he begins to gain the trust of the murderers, especially Perry, the question becomes more vexing. Capote is on the verge of producing a great book, a new kind of writing, something that may change the face of American literature. This will mean fame and fortune for Capote. But at what cost? Indifference to the deaths of four family members in
