Review: 'Capote' delivers powerhouse performances

That it changed the author's life - he never completed another book and died of alcohol and drug abuse in the mid 1980s - is without question. He became consumed with the story and with Perry Smith, one of the two habitual criminals who killed the Clutter family in the small town of Holcomb, Kan. Four dead. Less than $50 in loot.

Gerald Clarke wrote “Capote” the book, and first-time feature director Bennett Miller, using a script by actor Dan Futterman, delivers a film of intense power and great depth.

Philip Seymour Hoffman who - in films such as “Love, Liza,” “Boogie Nights” and “Magnolia” - has never turned in a single frame of false acting, finds the role of a lifetime as Truman Capote. Hoffman doesn't simply imitate Capote or try to interpret him, he manages to become the author. He is uncanny.

As “Capote” opens, the author is already well-established, having written the novel and then the screenplay for “Breakfast at Tiffany's,” as well as “The Grass Harp” and “Other Voices, Other Rooms.” He was the toast of the Manhattan literati and had turned his talents towards journalistic endeavors, writing for magazines such as “The New Yorker.”

He came across a news item in “The New York Times” about the murder of a family in Kansas and immediately called his editor to say he wanted to do a story on the crime.

Keep in mind that this was 1959, and Kansas was as far removed from Manhattan as it was from Dorothy's Land of Oz. When Capote and friend/research assistant Nelle Harper Lee - on the verge of publishing her own masterpiece “To Kill a Mockingbird” - show up in Holcomb, one really expects to hear the phrase, “You ain't from around here, are ya?” This is not to disparage Kansas or it's populace in any way. Capote was an odd duck wherever he went. But this was about as far out of water as this duck ever landed.

Capote and Lee manage to ingratiate themselves with the local authorities and set about investigating what Capote believes will be a magazine article, or possibly a series of magazine articles.

When Richard Hickock and Perry Smith are arrested, charged, tried and convicted of the killings, the author realizes this story has the makings of a great book.

In the end, it is printed in its entirety in “The New Yorker” before being released as a book. The magazine's editor, William Shawn, thinks it's not only a great work but “will change how people write.” He was correct.

Capote is taken with Perry Smith, seemingly the more gentle of the two murderers. Besides the underlying sexual attraction there is another bond. He tells Ms. Lee that, “It's like Perry and I grew up in the same house, and one day he stood up and went out the back door and I went out the front.”

The details of Capote's painful childhood are touched upon briefly and give insight into his character. While he befriends Smith - he keeps his distance a bit from Hickock - and hires a lawyer to help the pair with an appeal, the viewer is painfully aware that Capote is craving finality (in the form of execution of the sentences) so he can finish his book.

Capote - and Hoffman as Capote - is a complex character who elicits little sympathy. But one can't help be in awe of such a talented, self-aware and tortured soul.

Hoffman iss joined by a highly talented cast of supporting actors: Catherine Keener (as Harper Lee), Chris Cooper (as Alvin Dewey) and Clifton Collins Jr. (as Perry Smith). The film is a powerhouse.

Jim Wunderle owns Wunderle Sound Services and is a Springfield free-lance writer and musician.