muk at the movies

My first movie review! My little heart is going pitty pat!
To see another, more inclusive review of the same movie by a man who knows his film, go here http://www.wyndhamtriffid.blogspot.com/

The yummy biker and I rented out "Capote' since we were intrigued by the notion of someone attempting to portray such an off the wall personality, and we have liked the work of Phillip Hoffman in the past. The contrast between the role he plays in 'Patch Adams" with the one he played in 'Boogie Nights' is a good example of why. They're both types, but not played as stereotypes.

This is exactly how he handles the character of Truman Capote. That had to be like trying to cross Niagra falls on a tightrope.

I have a living memory of Truman Capote. As a kid, I was fascinated by him and made it a point to catch him on all the interview shows. He was bizarre. (And well into pills and booze by this time, so compound the bizarre factor by four.) You just can't imagine how a personality like his looked to the average person in the 1960's. And yet how interesting he was to listen to; and how much you ended up liking the man! And that despite a truckload of traits which are still considered very real drawbacks in a media personality. He was male, but NOT manly. He was not handsome. Poor man, I don't think he had a handsome day in his life; he was even a funny looking kid. He was short. He was round. He had tiny foetal baby features set in a squashed, weak-chinned head, and he was swanny as hell. And that voice. Fingernails on a blackboard, a whining child with a bad cold, a whinny, a bleat....those only come close. Back in 1969 they were unforgiveable sins. And yet there he was. And you liked him.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman plays him to perfection. Simply perfection. The voice. the turn of phrase. Stoned, sober, everything in between. He has every nuance down perfectly, right down to the odd breathing noises that Capote used to punctuate his conversation. The walk. The puckered forehead. Sitting and standing. The languid wave of the hand that hesitates in midair, and then wanders up to scratch the head...I have never seen an acting job quite like this. There is not once false note.

It is all the more remarkable yet for its having been held in restraint. Capote in person was a much more vivid character even in his subdued moments. Hoffman plays him at about 3/4 brightness. It's an acting job you can almost measure in inches, yet it flows and it rings absolutely true. This movie could very easily have ended up as the 'Look at Truman' show. That is what Capote's life was, after all, yet that point's made very clear by the movie as a whole, not just by Hoffmans portrayal.

The entire movie is done in subdued tones in order to point up whats at play here: the mirroring of a deeply flawed charactor in an unexpected surface, and the reaction to that image. They do it well.

In fact, where there are flaws, the error was on the side of restraint. The connecting scenes are almost like watching paint dry. A lot of the lead in tone is interminable. And why some scenes didn't end up on the floor of the cutting room eludes me. They seem to have been retained just to make the movie seem arty. Capote answering a phone. Capote lying on a bed while another man walks past with a box. Capote standing by a desk. And then there are those Kansas cornfield shots, as Wyndham points out in justifiable exasperation. Hell yes, already, it's Kansas; we get it. Alienation. Emptiness. Americas bleak heart. Fine.

The film also suffers from an excess of tinkly single note piano playing to remind us that this is a drama, dammit...the aural version of the cornfield shot. Whenever we cut away to a scene in New York we are suddenly assaulted by loud jazz and conversation, and again, I get it. We're in civilization now.

That's all I can come up with to complain about concerning the movie itself. Worth watching. A good erudite college date movie with espresso and conversation afterward kinda movie.

My only other complaint is that I do have a living memory of Truman Capote, because that knowlege rather got in the way of my enjoyment of the picture on it's own merits. If someone who doesn't, say, oh, NOSHIT SHERLOCK, were to watch this film and then give it a critique, I think that would be awesome. Consider yourself tagged, my darling.