"Infamous"
is far superior to the material – plowed already – in last year's Oscar
winning Capote.
Apparently,
the writing of In Cold Blood by Truman Capote is fascinating. Yet, as I already
discussed in my review of Capote, Phillip Seymour Hoffman toned down the famous
man's well-known, well-recognized, well-rehearsed persona. The irritating high-pitched
shrill was "implied" in "Capote." The tiny man's exaggerated
mannerisms were merely suggested. Hoffman played Capote as uptight and prissy.
English
actor Toby Jones does not attempt to turn Capote into a character the audience
can relate to. Jones is fearless in delving into the snobbery that Capote –
born dirt poor – cultivated and cloaked himself in as he climbed the social
ladder. He was everyone's toy pet. He prided himself in being unusual. It became
his signature.
Capote's
high camp caricature began eclipsing his talent as a writer. Until he read a newspaper
article about murder of four members of the Clutter family.
Truman
Capote took his frailty, small frame and cracked, female voice and made himself
into a sensation. He was fawned over by rich and powerful women. He got calls
from the Queen Mother. He knew every Hollywood star. He knew secrets and shared
them indiscriminately.
Yet,
the story of a rural, meaningless killing in Kansas of the Clutter family inspires
Capote. He leaves the tuxedo and New York socialites for farm country. He takes
his childhood friend, the soon-to-be-lionized Harper Lee (Sandra Bullock), to
backwater Holcomb, Kansas. Everyone is shocked by Capote's flamboyant manner.
It takes him some time to bring the common folk around. He throws out names like
Humphrey Bogart and Frank Sinatra. Pretty soon, he's got the townsfolk giving
him all he needs for a book.
When
the two killers, Perry Smith (Daniel Craig) and Dick Hickock (Lee Pace), are captured,
Capote quickly gets Hickock to talk about the murders for a piece of the book's
royalties. But Smith will have nothing to do with helping Capote turn him into
a monster and freak. Smith wants sympathy and understanding. Capote needs Smith's
side of the story and he is forced to actually "seduce" him with kindness.
The
film folds in interviews with the famous people that knew Capote during this time:
author Gore Vidal (Michael Panes), Capote's editor Bennett Cerf (Peter Bogdanovich),
and those couture-wearing ladies Babe Paley (Sigourney Weaver), Princess Marella
Agnelli (Isabella Rossellini), socialite Slim Keith (Hope Davis), and Vogue editor
Diana Vreeland (Juliet Stevenson – doing a superb job channeling another
self-made character). These socialites created the aura around Capote and he repaid
them all by writing an article that revealed their secrets and humiliations. Summarily,
he became a pariah.
But
now I know why he did it. He was finally getting even with his mother for abandoning
him and then committing suicide. The final insult of definitive abandonment. The
over-the-top fey affectations were a punishment meted out to his father. It all
makes sense now.
Capote
senses Smith's vulnerabilities and weaves a relationship that eventually turns
to attraction. And why not? Smith is dangerous, a killer, ultra-violent and masculine.
He fancies himself a man with artistic and intellectual gifts. Capote plays on
this to good effect. When Smith's and Hickock's death sentence gets delayed five
years, Capote turns frustrated. He cannot publish his book until they are dead.
In
Capote Capote was more ruthless towards abandoning Smith after he is done with
him; in Infamous, Capote actually falls in love with Smith and is tormented by
his selfishness. He loves Smith but wants both men to die.
Jones
performance is brilliant. Regrettably, Hoffman nabbed the Oscar. Bullock turns
in a wonderful, muted performance that, if she continues picking roles like this,
will reward her with her own Oscar (since she'll never get it for "The Lake
House" mush). The director, Douglas McGrath, who also wrote the screenplay
(based on the book by George Plimpton), gives a visually stunning picture of rural
Kansas - stark and worn, with folks void of superficiality.
