There is much in this foreshortened biopic of Truman Capote, covering the five years or so in which he investigated the Clutter killings in Kansas, to arouse envy as well as dread in the breast of any writer.

Capote’s progress to the forefront of American literary achievement seems at first remarkably painless. Commissioned by no less than the editor of the New York Times he gains the co-operation of the local sheriff because ‘his wife is a reader’, and not only is he allowed access to secret documents and photos, but arranges prison visits with one of the newly-arrested killers. We also have a hint of the determination that is necessary for the task - has already gone so far as to raise the coffins lids in church, an incident he uses to great effect in the book, as we learn from a later reading in front of an audience, but is even able to buy the prison governor’s co-operation with the newspaper’s money.

In a fascinating recreation of period and events, the film crams in a somtimes bewildering range of scenes, from the snowy expanses of wintry Kansas to glitterati-packed New York parties where the mannered and waspish Capote holds centre stage, with his strange high-pitched lisping delivery, quivering nostrils and fancy hand-gestures.

In fact writer-biopic fans get two for one. A sharp corrective to the monstrous persona of the vain and driven Capote, whose multi-layered acting always teeters on the edge of homophobia, is Harper Lee, in a self-effacing performance by Catherine Keener. She accompanies Capote on his trip to Kansas to try to contact the killers, appearing later in the film with wise and kindly counsel, whether advising him to be nice to his long-suffering friend (‘Sometimes I think Jack is the nicest thing about you) or to be present at the execution of a man to whom he owes his book. Chris Cooper as the sheriff is also entirely watchable, expressing a lifetime of world-weary experience in one sardonic glance from his pouchy eyes, as are several other understated but rock-steady actors, particularly Clifton Collins Jnr. as Perry Smith, whom Capote befriends under the guise of helping him to get an appeal lawyer. Ironically, Perry the perpetrator of the horrific murders grows in humanity as the dragging out of the appeal process drives Capote to the point where we deplore his growing mania to complete the book, only possible by the abandonment of Perry to a certain death sentence.

Philip Hoffman’s performance was apparently the result of many years of study and well deserves the Oscar. The film will hopefully encourage a reading of two books: ‘In Cold Blood’ to savour the result of Capote’s labours, and ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, for the portrayal of the young heroine's next-door eccentric Dill, based on Truman Capote himself as a young boy. The descent into alcoholism and writers’ block that bedevilled Capote’s remaining years, we are left to conclude, was the well-deserved cost of the writer’s exploitation of his human material.

Hey Sheila

There you are you see - I enjoyed the film, if that's quite the right word for it - and your review for which it is.

Ideas gestating about this one but not sure they can gell without reading the book. Oddly I feel I understood the killers at the end of the film better than I did Capote. And yet....hence the gestation.

Anyway - at last I'm brief this time.

regards

Z

When I used to teach A-Level Literature a new category was introduced - non-fiction prose, and the exam board put 'In Cold Blood' on the syllabus. So I came to read a book that I wouldn't otherwise have thought to. The colleague I shared the class with got to teach it in the end, so I have only superficial knowledge. As I remmeber it was a bit like reading a very extended tabloid newspaper report and, but quite compelling. Perhaps this the time to read it again, but I never seem to get time to read books these days - I've been reading Paul Auster's New York Trilogy, which I like very much, for about three months now. The library people say I can renew six times.

I didn't get to see 'Walk the Line' after all - a treat deferred, as I'm a great fan of Country and Western music.

Sheila