Capote (2006)
Fri, Mar. 10th, 2006 05:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterI haven't read In Cold Blood, and I really don't know much about Truman Capote at all.
I didn't expect to adore the movie; my co-workers and I occasionally go out to catch a movie, and I think everyone just wanted to go and didn't focus too much on what we were going to see.
But it just had me thinking about the sometimes narrow line between fiction and non-fiction and the role of the writer. I always used to be amused by the fact that everyone in Avonlea was horrified by writers (who knew what they would be taking from your life!), and of course, LM Montgomery is gentle about it. Only here, with Capote, the writer really is a horrifying figure (in the movie! I am not generalizing to all writers).
He does feel something for the killer, I've no doubt of that. But there's so much self-interest in there, so much contradiction. He wants and needs them to die so he can finish his book, even though he likes Perry. He wants to respect Perry's boundaries and not ask about the murder, but he needs it for his book. He lies about the title and how it reflects on the killers. It's so unclear how much is friendship and how much is self-interest; the movie rightly never tries to answer. People are hypocrites, Capote is a hypocrite, but he's also human, and he does hurt.
But Perry is hurt more, and Capote knows that as well.
Of course, even outside of the questionable ethics about using people's lives as fodder for non-fiction, particularly within the realm of friendship, there's the disturbing fact that Capote (and the movie audience) is much closer to the killer than to those killed. He seems to know Perry inside-out, though even that is cast into doubt in the end, but the family is relegated to flashback and still bodies splashed with blood.
I don't really have any conclusions or arguments, but am just thinking over it.
I didn't expect to adore the movie; my co-workers and I occasionally go out to catch a movie, and I think everyone just wanted to go and didn't focus too much on what we were going to see.
But it just had me thinking about the sometimes narrow line between fiction and non-fiction and the role of the writer. I always used to be amused by the fact that everyone in Avonlea was horrified by writers (who knew what they would be taking from your life!), and of course, LM Montgomery is gentle about it. Only here, with Capote, the writer really is a horrifying figure (in the movie! I am not generalizing to all writers).
He does feel something for the killer, I've no doubt of that. But there's so much self-interest in there, so much contradiction. He wants and needs them to die so he can finish his book, even though he likes Perry. He wants to respect Perry's boundaries and not ask about the murder, but he needs it for his book. He lies about the title and how it reflects on the killers. It's so unclear how much is friendship and how much is self-interest; the movie rightly never tries to answer. People are hypocrites, Capote is a hypocrite, but he's also human, and he does hurt.
But Perry is hurt more, and Capote knows that as well.
Of course, even outside of the questionable ethics about using people's lives as fodder for non-fiction, particularly within the realm of friendship, there's the disturbing fact that Capote (and the movie audience) is much closer to the killer than to those killed. He seems to know Perry inside-out, though even that is cast into doubt in the end, but the family is relegated to flashback and still bodies splashed with blood.
I don't really have any conclusions or arguments, but am just thinking over it.
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Mon, Mar. 13th, 2006 03:14 am (UTC)I'm glad that there is equal weight for the Clutters in the book; the small bit that we get to hear from the book in the film is utterly stunning prose. I love that they have that there because it complicates everything even further. He's doing such disturbing things, and yet... he is making beautiful prose out of it, and probably a very, very good book.