Capote - 7

To paraphrase a friend, "This is a film about a man writing a book, it is good film considering it is about a man writing a book, but it is still a film about a man writing a book." The performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman is very well done, he becomes Truman Capote. But this film is more than just good acting and merely a story about writing a book. It is the internal struggle of Capote to understand the complexity of being human. Early on he is able to separate himself from the subject of his writing, but as he discovers more and comes closer to understanding what has happened, he becomes more and more confused about what he should do. He went from NYC to Holcomb, Kansas to understand the massacre of a family in 1959. He soon became close with the two men who committed the crime and his novel is their story. Capote was a friend of Nelle Harper Lee (played well by Catherine Keener), the author of To Kill A Mockingbird, she helped with research for the novel. I saw the film with almost no information about the events, after seeing the film it has intrigued me to read Capote. It makes sense that Gerald Clarke was interested in telling the story of his interesting life.