Capote- Fourth Of the Big Five
Well, it doesn't look like we will get to see all five of the Academy Award nominated movies this year. We had already seen Brokeback Mountain, Crash, and Good Night... and Good Luck before yesterday. Then my daughter and I added Capote to our resume for the season. Munich will just have to wait for the DVD since we only have a week left and nowhere to see it and no time to see it. Later in the week I will talk about all four we have seen in a post, but, as for today- let's just stick with Capote.

I remember reading the book, In Cold Blood when it first came out *** years ago. (I can't be that old, can I?) It scared me then and it entranced me as a young, college-student reader. I didn't know I was reading a truly ground-breaking book. All I knew was it was one incredible read. It made, as they say, Truman Capote the best writer in America. The story of two really scary, evil men and their murders of a family in Kansas was written as a "non-fiction novel." A genre- or style of writing- that has since been used successfully by many writers. But none like Truman Capote who became obsessed and eventually broken by the immensity of the story and his own private investments in it.

Above all else, Philip Seymour Hoffman is out-of-sight remarkable. As my daughter described it- "He never breaks character for even the slightest moment." He IS Capote even more so than Phoenix is Cash. This is truly a great performance in a year of truly great performances. I am glad I don't have to vote for the best actor. Hoffman, Ledger, and Straithern are truly in the acting stratosphere this year!

But more than that, Capote is about obsession and using people while still getting caught up in them and their lives. Capote's emotional intertwining with killer Perry Smith stands in contrast to his using Smith, lying to him, emotionally manipulating him, in order to get this book which Capote knew would be one of a kind. In the end the sliminess of what Capote did to Smith is as palpable as what Smith and his compatriot did to the innocent family. You hold your breath because of the intensity- but also perhaps to keep from smelling the slime.

Unlike Brokeback Mountain which is about a gay relationship, Capote's sexual orientation is never questioned or at the center of attention. It is an undercurrent of his "relationship" with Perry Smith, but it is not the theme of the movie. (Whether it is in Brokeback Mountain is something I would hold up to questioning.)

Hoffman owns the screen the entire movie. I sat entranced. I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. I didn't want to miss what was happening- and I was under Hoffman/Capote's spell. That was the way it seems that Truman Capote was in real life. The movie succeeds in showing that in all its glory- and pain.

Quite an experience of movie drama at its very best.