Infamous (Film Review)
Aka the other movie made about how Truman Capote researched for and wrote In Cold Blood and emerged with a classic and an inability to finish another book for the rest of his life. It had the bad luck of being simultaneously produced with and then overshadowed by the movie Capote, for which the late great Philip Seymour Hoffmann got his Oscar. Since then, I've come across a few people telling me that Toby Jones was the better Truman Capote and "Infamous" the better movie, so I finally got around to watching it. Overall verdict: it's good, and having both movies at one's disposal makes for an intriguing compare and contrast on how you can approach the same basic material, but if we're comparing, I do think Capote is the better movie. Obviously imo, your mileage will vary, etc. That said, there are a couple of impressive aspects to Infamous, I'm glad to have watched the movie, and I'll talk both about where it scores and overshoots and my personal reasons of preference below the cut.
First of all, one reason for my preference is the structure of the movie: Infamous has its main story interspersed with fake interview clips from various of Truman Capote's friends (and one enemy, Gore Vidal, and his brief vitriolic assessment made me wish the movie, which has far more New York scenes than Capote, had included a verbal duel between Capote and Vidal as well). Said fake interview clips mainly gave me the impression that the script didn't trust the audience to understand the various relationships based on what we see in the main story, which is a shame because there's certainly enough there to get their nature across - Truman and his society ladies, Truman and Nelle (Harper Lee) as childhood friends, Truman and Perry Smith. (The one exception where the fake interview clips add something is Truman's life partner Jack, who in the main story has only two scenes which don't get across that this was in fact a life long relationship, whereas in Capote, Jack as played by Bruce Greenwood is more present and the "married couple" vibe is certainly there.) Moreover, some of the interview clips do exactly what Capote the movie dared to avoid - they are determined to make us like Truman Capote and use the awful parents (Nelle tells the tale of how his parents abandoned him, and explains to us how this affected him in case we still don't get it) to get the audience to do so.
(For why I was impressed Capote didn't do this, see my original review of the movie, and the post on In Cold Blood and Gerald Clark's Capote biography.)
This occasional tendency on the part of the script to overexplain and not trust the audience to get the point carries into the main story as well; during their first conversation Perry Smith actually says to Capote (in reply to the later's assertion that he never judges his characters): "I'm not a character, I'm a human being." Which is the core of the problem, but I truly think the audience would have understood that from the rest of the story. (Not to mention that it strikes me as somewhat ooc phrase for Perry to use, especially in a first meeting.) Similarly, Truman tells Alvin Dewey about himself "when you are tiny, you have to be tough", which is a far more blunt and less elegant than Capote conveying the same thing in a scene where he, trying to get murder victim Nancy's best friend, a teenage girl, to talk, says: "'Ever since I was a child, people have thought they have me pegged, because of the way I am, the way I talk. And they're always wrong'."
What, in terms of structure, I'm neutral about: the movie generally spending more time in New York and less in Kansas than Capote does. It means you get no real sense of what tragedy-stricken Holcomb is like (aka the thing Truman Capote originally wanted to describe when travelling there); the early Kansas scenes mainly convey the social comedy of Truman the butterfly among the unimpressed (until he starts with the name dropping of movie stars) heartland locals, and once the killers have been found, the Kansas scenes are the Tale of Truman and Perry. Otoh you do get an impression of both what made him such a hit among his "swans", the New York society ladies, and what will doom him with them post movie - he's not just a talker but a great listener and an insatiable gossip, and every promise not to tell anyone else is immediately broken (which is fine when he gossips to other society ladies but will destroy all of his relationships when he puts it in writing for the world to read), plus it directly relates to similar "trust me" assurances he makes to his pair of murderers.
Speaking of whom: Capote's In Cold Blood gives Dick Hickock and Perry Smith roughly the same narrative space, but the way he describes them certainly explains why both Capote and Infamous gave one of them, Dick, only minimal screentime (just enough to get the cheerful amorality across) and chose to focus on the other in his relationship with Truman Capote. Here Infamous makes Truman's central dilemma a slightly different one than Capote. Both movies have him aware that for the book to have a proper ending, Perry will have to die, even while befriending him and getting his confidences. But just what he feels for Perry Smith - other than seeing him as material for a good story, and essentially a muse - is more convoluted in Capote, where there is some attraction, but there's also a degree of identification. (The script works in a real Capote quote in conversation with Nelle about it feeling that they were born in the same house, only Perry went out the back door and he the front door; hard to see that not as a "Perry could have been me in other circumstances".) Infamous, by contrast, streamlines this to Truman being torn between wanting Perry dead (for the book) and wanting Perry. It makes the relationships openly sexual. First there's an amazingly intense scene when Truman talks an upset Perry down by spinning out a Mexico scenario for him to imagine, the actors are standing very close to each other, and without any actual physical touch it's one of the most erotic scenes between two men in a movie that I've seen; then, later on when Perry has found out that Truman lied to him about not having a title yet and how far the book has progressed, and that the title is '"In Cold Blood", he almost rapes him but stops himself and lets him go; and again a few scenes later we get an on screen kiss after a love declaration from Perry.
This works within the movie, though I question another creative decision/invention, to wit, the flashback to the murders of the Clutter family which basically says Perry's true motive for going through with the killings was Dick taunting him about being secretly/repressedly gay. This is not something ever implied in any of the various confessions these two gave, or, for that matter, by Truman Capote either in In Cold Blood or elsewhere; in fact, what makes the Clutter murders so very chilling to read about is that neither Perry nor Dick acted in anger or rage. They wanted the money they thought was in the house, and they didn't want witnesses. So making Perry instead triggered by fears about his sexuality is, again, the kind of easy sympathy buying that both Capote and Capote avoided.
All this being said: while Daniel Craig, who plays Perry Smith in Infamous, black died hair not withstanding, couldn't look less like the tiny (not taller than Truman) half Cherokee Perry if he'd tried, he has an aura of constant danger about him and conveys Perry's mood swings and ability to be wistful one moment and violent the next in a way that Clifton Collins Jr., who plays Perry in Capote, does not (his Perry is too desperate to come across as dangerous). This was immediately pre Casino Royale in Craig's career, and as with his James Bond, the physicality of his performance is stunning. Plus, as I said: the eroticism of the "close your eyes and think of Mexico" scene is intense.
Speaking of acting: sadly, Sandra Bullock while not bad as Nelle Harper Lee isn't nearly as impressive as Catherine Keener. She's okay, but she doesn't have Keener's presence, and with the exception of one argument scene, more below, doesn't provide the same sense of being an equal (as opposed to a sympathetic sidekick). Perhaps it is all said by the fact that Nelle in Infamous gets to provide the audience with Truman's tragic family backstory whereas Nelle in Capote gets the last line of the movie, in reply to Capote's 'I couldn't have done anything to save them', which is ' Maybe not, Truman. But the truth is you didn't want to'.
The leading man: Toby Jones certainly delivers a great performance as Truman Capote, and physically fits far better than Hofmann (though Hofmann had the ability to make you forget his size by sheer power of performance, even in a scene featuring a photo of the real Truman Capote). It's a slightly softer portrait in that while his Truman is also manipulative and set to get his book at all costs, he's enough in love with Perry to not want him dead near the end as much as he needs him to be dead.
The "writing about writing" aspect: present in both films, and the unanswerable question just what creation is worth. Infamous also makes a theme out of the "bringing novelistic techniques to a non-fiction book" approach itself; in the most interesting scene between them, Truman and Nelle argue about this because after having interviewed people and heard some descriptions of Bonnie Clutter (the mother), Truman thinks she was mentally unstable whereas Nelle thinks it really was, as a neighbor put it, just the change, and that Truman just wants it to be mental instability for more drama. (If you know something the movie doesn't as much as hint at, that Harper Lee's own mother was mentally unstable, the scene acquires yet another layer.) Which is a legitimate choice as an author to make about fictional characters, but not if you're supposed to be reporting facts. Cue argument. Later, with Perry, it becomes even more of a theme - I already mentioned the on the nose "I'm not your character, I'm a human being" line, and later on we see Truman slightly changing Perry's phrase about killing Herbert Clutter until it has the definite form, and yet later we see him trying to write Perry's execution before it happens (telling Perry to apologize, but then, when Perry doesn't, still claiming Perry did because it makes for a better ending). Thus, the movie questions not just the worth of creation of art versus human being but the fictionalization of real people - in a movie which of course does that very thing, rearranges and alters (in Infamous, Truman has most of his conversations with both Perry and Dick before the trial is concluded, instead of having them over the years, and then we get an immediate time jump to five years later, briefly before the execution) and adds/interprets the impossible to know (i.e. precise nature of the Truman/Perry relationship).
Lastly: maybe it's a question of having the rights (who does these days, anyway?), but Infamous, with the exception of Perry's phrase about killing Herbert Clutter (as refined by Truman), doesn't use any direct quotes from In Cold Blood, which is regrettable, because both movies hinge on the claim that the book really did become a masterpiece, but Capote by letting Capote read bits of it on screen backs that up because even those few short passages are stunning.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1154721.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
First of all, one reason for my preference is the structure of the movie: Infamous has its main story interspersed with fake interview clips from various of Truman Capote's friends (and one enemy, Gore Vidal, and his brief vitriolic assessment made me wish the movie, which has far more New York scenes than Capote, had included a verbal duel between Capote and Vidal as well). Said fake interview clips mainly gave me the impression that the script didn't trust the audience to understand the various relationships based on what we see in the main story, which is a shame because there's certainly enough there to get their nature across - Truman and his society ladies, Truman and Nelle (Harper Lee) as childhood friends, Truman and Perry Smith. (The one exception where the fake interview clips add something is Truman's life partner Jack, who in the main story has only two scenes which don't get across that this was in fact a life long relationship, whereas in Capote, Jack as played by Bruce Greenwood is more present and the "married couple" vibe is certainly there.) Moreover, some of the interview clips do exactly what Capote the movie dared to avoid - they are determined to make us like Truman Capote and use the awful parents (Nelle tells the tale of how his parents abandoned him, and explains to us how this affected him in case we still don't get it) to get the audience to do so.
(For why I was impressed Capote didn't do this, see my original review of the movie, and the post on In Cold Blood and Gerald Clark's Capote biography.)
This occasional tendency on the part of the script to overexplain and not trust the audience to get the point carries into the main story as well; during their first conversation Perry Smith actually says to Capote (in reply to the later's assertion that he never judges his characters): "I'm not a character, I'm a human being." Which is the core of the problem, but I truly think the audience would have understood that from the rest of the story. (Not to mention that it strikes me as somewhat ooc phrase for Perry to use, especially in a first meeting.) Similarly, Truman tells Alvin Dewey about himself "when you are tiny, you have to be tough", which is a far more blunt and less elegant than Capote conveying the same thing in a scene where he, trying to get murder victim Nancy's best friend, a teenage girl, to talk, says: "'Ever since I was a child, people have thought they have me pegged, because of the way I am, the way I talk. And they're always wrong'."
What, in terms of structure, I'm neutral about: the movie generally spending more time in New York and less in Kansas than Capote does. It means you get no real sense of what tragedy-stricken Holcomb is like (aka the thing Truman Capote originally wanted to describe when travelling there); the early Kansas scenes mainly convey the social comedy of Truman the butterfly among the unimpressed (until he starts with the name dropping of movie stars) heartland locals, and once the killers have been found, the Kansas scenes are the Tale of Truman and Perry. Otoh you do get an impression of both what made him such a hit among his "swans", the New York society ladies, and what will doom him with them post movie - he's not just a talker but a great listener and an insatiable gossip, and every promise not to tell anyone else is immediately broken (which is fine when he gossips to other society ladies but will destroy all of his relationships when he puts it in writing for the world to read), plus it directly relates to similar "trust me" assurances he makes to his pair of murderers.
Speaking of whom: Capote's In Cold Blood gives Dick Hickock and Perry Smith roughly the same narrative space, but the way he describes them certainly explains why both Capote and Infamous gave one of them, Dick, only minimal screentime (just enough to get the cheerful amorality across) and chose to focus on the other in his relationship with Truman Capote. Here Infamous makes Truman's central dilemma a slightly different one than Capote. Both movies have him aware that for the book to have a proper ending, Perry will have to die, even while befriending him and getting his confidences. But just what he feels for Perry Smith - other than seeing him as material for a good story, and essentially a muse - is more convoluted in Capote, where there is some attraction, but there's also a degree of identification. (The script works in a real Capote quote in conversation with Nelle about it feeling that they were born in the same house, only Perry went out the back door and he the front door; hard to see that not as a "Perry could have been me in other circumstances".) Infamous, by contrast, streamlines this to Truman being torn between wanting Perry dead (for the book) and wanting Perry. It makes the relationships openly sexual. First there's an amazingly intense scene when Truman talks an upset Perry down by spinning out a Mexico scenario for him to imagine, the actors are standing very close to each other, and without any actual physical touch it's one of the most erotic scenes between two men in a movie that I've seen; then, later on when Perry has found out that Truman lied to him about not having a title yet and how far the book has progressed, and that the title is '"In Cold Blood", he almost rapes him but stops himself and lets him go; and again a few scenes later we get an on screen kiss after a love declaration from Perry.
This works within the movie, though I question another creative decision/invention, to wit, the flashback to the murders of the Clutter family which basically says Perry's true motive for going through with the killings was Dick taunting him about being secretly/repressedly gay. This is not something ever implied in any of the various confessions these two gave, or, for that matter, by Truman Capote either in In Cold Blood or elsewhere; in fact, what makes the Clutter murders so very chilling to read about is that neither Perry nor Dick acted in anger or rage. They wanted the money they thought was in the house, and they didn't want witnesses. So making Perry instead triggered by fears about his sexuality is, again, the kind of easy sympathy buying that both Capote and Capote avoided.
All this being said: while Daniel Craig, who plays Perry Smith in Infamous, black died hair not withstanding, couldn't look less like the tiny (not taller than Truman) half Cherokee Perry if he'd tried, he has an aura of constant danger about him and conveys Perry's mood swings and ability to be wistful one moment and violent the next in a way that Clifton Collins Jr., who plays Perry in Capote, does not (his Perry is too desperate to come across as dangerous). This was immediately pre Casino Royale in Craig's career, and as with his James Bond, the physicality of his performance is stunning. Plus, as I said: the eroticism of the "close your eyes and think of Mexico" scene is intense.
Speaking of acting: sadly, Sandra Bullock while not bad as Nelle Harper Lee isn't nearly as impressive as Catherine Keener. She's okay, but she doesn't have Keener's presence, and with the exception of one argument scene, more below, doesn't provide the same sense of being an equal (as opposed to a sympathetic sidekick). Perhaps it is all said by the fact that Nelle in Infamous gets to provide the audience with Truman's tragic family backstory whereas Nelle in Capote gets the last line of the movie, in reply to Capote's 'I couldn't have done anything to save them', which is ' Maybe not, Truman. But the truth is you didn't want to'.
The leading man: Toby Jones certainly delivers a great performance as Truman Capote, and physically fits far better than Hofmann (though Hofmann had the ability to make you forget his size by sheer power of performance, even in a scene featuring a photo of the real Truman Capote). It's a slightly softer portrait in that while his Truman is also manipulative and set to get his book at all costs, he's enough in love with Perry to not want him dead near the end as much as he needs him to be dead.
The "writing about writing" aspect: present in both films, and the unanswerable question just what creation is worth. Infamous also makes a theme out of the "bringing novelistic techniques to a non-fiction book" approach itself; in the most interesting scene between them, Truman and Nelle argue about this because after having interviewed people and heard some descriptions of Bonnie Clutter (the mother), Truman thinks she was mentally unstable whereas Nelle thinks it really was, as a neighbor put it, just the change, and that Truman just wants it to be mental instability for more drama. (If you know something the movie doesn't as much as hint at, that Harper Lee's own mother was mentally unstable, the scene acquires yet another layer.) Which is a legitimate choice as an author to make about fictional characters, but not if you're supposed to be reporting facts. Cue argument. Later, with Perry, it becomes even more of a theme - I already mentioned the on the nose "I'm not your character, I'm a human being" line, and later on we see Truman slightly changing Perry's phrase about killing Herbert Clutter until it has the definite form, and yet later we see him trying to write Perry's execution before it happens (telling Perry to apologize, but then, when Perry doesn't, still claiming Perry did because it makes for a better ending). Thus, the movie questions not just the worth of creation of art versus human being but the fictionalization of real people - in a movie which of course does that very thing, rearranges and alters (in Infamous, Truman has most of his conversations with both Perry and Dick before the trial is concluded, instead of having them over the years, and then we get an immediate time jump to five years later, briefly before the execution) and adds/interprets the impossible to know (i.e. precise nature of the Truman/Perry relationship).
Lastly: maybe it's a question of having the rights (who does these days, anyway?), but Infamous, with the exception of Perry's phrase about killing Herbert Clutter (as refined by Truman), doesn't use any direct quotes from In Cold Blood, which is regrettable, because both movies hinge on the claim that the book really did become a masterpiece, but Capote by letting Capote read bits of it on screen backs that up because even those few short passages are stunning.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1154721.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.