‘Capote’

As Anthony Hopkins picks up the 2021 best actor Oscar, Capote emphasises the loss of Philip Seymour Hoffman, the late actor’s tour de force performance that saw him collect the corresponding Oscar in 2006. As the camp, acerbic writer and columnist, Hoffman inhabits Truman Capote as the writer researches what is to become a classic of true crime literature, In Cold Blood.

Learning of the violent murder of a Kansas farming family, Capote determines he will write about the case. But he sees it needs more than simply an in-depth article. Time spent finds him not only a constant visitor to rural Kansas but also develop a close relationship with Perry Smith (Clifton Collins Jnr), one of the killers. As appeal after appeal against the death penalty delays that inevitability, so Capote’s emotional and mental state suffer.

Hoffman is quite simply extraordinary in this dark tale that ultimately derailed a man who was, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, famous for being famous. He never wrote anything of substance after the publication of In Cold Blood.

Nominated for 5 Oscars in 2006 including best film, director (Bennett Miller in his debut feature), supporting actress (Catherine Keener), won 1 (Hoffman).

Rating: 70%

Director: Bennett Miller (Moneyball, Foxcatcher)

Writer: Dan Futterman (Foxcatcher , TV’s American Rust)

Main cast: Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Master, Magnolia), Clifton Collins Jnr (The Mule, Honey Boy), Catherine Keener (Being John Malkovich, Get Out)

‘Infamous’

A superb central performance by Toby Jones among a cast of luminaries provides a strong foundation for the based-on-truth story of writer Truman Capote researching and writing his classic In Cold Blood.

The murder of a family of four at an isolated Kansas farm sends shock waves through the country. Persuading fellow-scribe Harper Lee (Sandra Bullock) to accompany him, the effeminate, high camp New York socialite descends on 1950s rural America determined to write the story – and rewrite the rule book of how a true crime story is written. The arrest of the two suspects and Capote’s access to Perry Smith (Daniel Craig) in particular provides him with the perfect material: the psychological insight. Only Capote gets emotionally too close.

Infamous was sadly eclipsed by Capote with Phillip Seymour Hoffman in the Oscar-winning role and which came out a few months earlier. The latter was more academic, Infamous certainly ‘gayer’, both in terms of Jones’ performance and the central premise of the relationship between the.writer and the prisoner. Capote took years to have the book published – and he never wrote anything of significance again. Director Douglas McGrath implies that the execution of Smith was a major contributory factor.

Rating: 68%

Director: Douglas McGrath (Emma, Nicholas Nickleby)

Writer: Douglas McGrath (Emma, Bullets Over Broadway) – based on the book by George Plimpton

Main cast: Toby Jones (Captain America: The First Avenger, Happy End), Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side, Gravity), Daniel Craig (Skyfall, Knives Out)