With the Oscars only a month away, the last of the 2005 candidates are finally trickling out of the theaters to make room for next year’s hopefuls.
With only a few notable exceptions, most of the nominees this year had much quieter releases than the traditional blockbusting selections, and several of the films involved had a limited release only.
While Johnson City remains painfully negligent regarding its movie choices on any given weekend, it did manage to present several surprisingly artistic pieces this year. A couple of this year’s nominees for Best Picture are still in theaters, one of which is the semi-biographic snapshot of its titular character, Capote.
Truman Capote, one of the more sensational figures of the beat era in the 1960’s, produced three complete novels as well as many articles, short stories, memoirs, and other assorted writings before his death in 1984.
His final novel, In Cold Blood, discussed the murder of a Kansas family in 1959 by way of various interviews with townspeople and especially Capote’s own personal conversations with the killers themselves. It is based on Capote’s experience of writing In Cold Blood that Capote focuses.
Directed by the largely inexperienced Bennett Miller, Capote carries with it the unique aura of an art film, patiently communicating the characters’ conditions visually on the screen. Miller’s nontraditional approach, however, works well in Capote.
So much of the vital information in the film is non-verbal that the movie’s general style has no choice but to do the same. Capote, unlike too many popular movies today, expects its viewers to participate in the journey – observing, listening and drawing their own conclusions.
What is most interesting about Capote, however, is what the film tries to do with the character of Truman Capote himself. Phillip Seymour Hoffman (Along Came Polly, Cold Mountain) has been nominated for Best Actor for his immersing portrayal of the eccentric, flamboyant, and famously brilliant Truman Capote.
In the film, we see a man who is divided against himself in every facet – public, private and interpersonal.
In social situations he is witty, confident and nonchalant, and yet in his more personal relationships he seems to focus in, exposing his emotional vulnerabilities and his private plans for himself.
When in the company of the killers, however, Capote shows an entirely different side – one of a self-serving man using deceptive sensitivity and commiserative tactics to draw out information essential to the completion of his book.
His lies are blatantly visible to the audience, and yet there are those occasional moments when Capote furrows his brow in just the right lighting or sheds a single well-timed tear that we wonder – perhaps he does care about these people.
In real life Truman Capote was a controversial and monumental figure. Living as an openly gay man in the 1960s was no easy task, and Capote made no effort to lighten his burden with conservatism. He often told stories about supposedly knowing certain celebrities or reportedly having affairs with well-known heterosexual men.
He nevertheless remains a respected literary figure, and several of his works made it to cinema during his lifetime, including The Glass House. and Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
Capote is a quality production of artistic cinema, and yet it still leaves the audience with questions about the character of Truman Capote.
Extremely ironic is the fact that the essence of the title character remains so elusive after nearly two hours of explication.
Nonetheless, Capote succeeds in not frustrating its audience by its indirectness but rather gently illustrating the polarized dynamics that must coexist in all individuals in order to produce humanity. Truman Capote was an arrogant, dishonest and extravagant character.
He was also unequivocally human.
Capote, which is rated a mild R for some brief language and violent images, is currently playing at Carmike Cinemas.
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