Capote

Based on the book by Gerald Clarke, Capote begins in November 1959 as Truman Capote, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, reads an article on the back page of the New York Times. Capote, the author of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, reads of the murders of four members of a well-known farm family, the Clutters, in a small town in Kansas. The story catches Capote’s interest and seems to present itself as an opportunity, he believes, to test out a theory he has developed. His theory – non-fiction can, when crafted by the right writer, be as compelling as fiction.

Capote wants to find out what sort of impact the murders have had on the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, where the murders were committed and poses the question as the subject of his newest article. He convinces The New Yorker magazine to give him the assignment, stating that it doesn’t matter whether or not the murderers are caught when you focus your story on the impact.

With the assignment from The New Yorker, Capote sets off for Kansas. Accompanying him on his trip is his childhood friend Harper Lee, played by Catherine Keener. A friend from his early Alabama years, Harper will, within a few months of their Kansas trip, win a Pulitzer Prize and national fame for her book To Kill a Mockingbird.

Capote, with a childlike, soft voice, effeminate mannerisms, and unique fashion sense, initially provoked some hostility in the areas in and surrounding Kansas, but soon wins the trust of the locals. One of those “locals” is the Kansas Bureau of Investication agent leading the hunt to find the Clutters’ killers, Alvin Dewey, played by Chris Cooper.

When the killers, Perry Smith (Clifton Collins Jr.) and Dick Hickock (Mark Pellegrino), are caught in Las Vegas, they are returned to Kansas, tried, convicted, and sentenced to die. Capote visits the murderers in jail out of interest. As he speaks with them and learns more about them, he realizes that his magazine article has grown into a book.

Capote names his book In Cold Blood, but, as he further gets to know the inmates, particularly Perry Smith, he ends up having feelings of compassion for them. Although Capote has a desire to help the prisoners, he also feels that his book needs the finality that an execution would bring. Capote believes that this book could rank with the greatest in modern literature and although he is a writer of towering ambition, he questions whether or not he can finish the great book that he believes destiny has given him.