Capote

SPOILER ALERT! The plot of the movie will be discussed.

One of my favorite lines from a movie comes from this 2005 film directed by Bennett Miller. It not only illuminates the connection between the two main characters but also points to the duality in what author Truman Capote saw existing in America. In the quote, Capote (Philip Seymour Hoffman in an Oscar-winning performance) responds to his life-long friend, author Harper Lee (Catherine Keener), about his feelings for convicted killer Perry Smith (Clifton Collins, Jr.). He says, “It’s as if Perry and I grew up in the same house. And one day he stood up and went out the back door, while I went out the front.” Although Capote steered away from the criminal possibilities inherent in that house that Smith could not escape, Capote retained the potential for perdition.

Capote originally was just going to do a New Yorker piece about the effect on the townspeople following the killing of the Clutter family in Holcomb Kansas by two men. But when he sees Perry, his focus centers on the criminal himself, and the quote above shows how he sees similarities between the himself and Perry. He says he wanted to write about the horrific murders because, “two worlds exist in this country: the quiet conservative life, and the life of those two men - the underbelly, the criminally violent. Those two worlds converged that bloody night.” But there is a convergence of these two worlds within both Perry and Capote, too. On the surface, Perry appears vulnerable (he has painful legs), almost sensitive with a quiet voice, and a victim. He uses words like “effectuate,” “mendacious,” and “exacerbate,” in an attempt to show that he is an intellectual. But these words sound pretentious and forced in the contexts of his situation. His history does not allow him to gain social acceptance. Perry is part Cherokee, so at that time, he is an outsider. His mother was an alcoholic. One of his sisters and a brother committed suicide. Capote, an acclaimed writer who associates with celebrities and dresses fashionably, has his underside. He confesses that his mother wandered around with him as a child, chasing men. She locked him in a hotel room in their travels. His mother eventually abandoned him, and later killed herself. His aunts in Alabama raised him, and that is where he met Lee. He, too, is an outsider, because of his short stature, high-pitched voice, and the fact that he is gay. 

These traumatic histories behind their facades create dark undersides in these two people and engender deadly behaviors. When Capote first meets Perry, he is in a holding cell. The criminal asks for aspirin for his legs. As the author hands him the pain killer, he says if Capote came too close, he could kill him. Perry’s other sister later tells Capote not to be taken in by Perry’s surface sensitivity and hurt looks. She says he would as easily kill someone as shake hands with him. When Perry finally tells Capote about the night of the killings, his duality is evident when he describes his actions. He says that he stopped his partner, Dick Hickock (Mark Pellegrino) from raping the Clutter daughter. He also says that he tried to make Mr. Clutter more comfortable, and even though Hickock said there should be no witnesses, Perry hoped that they could just leave the family tied up. But, he says that he saw in Mr. Clutter’s eyes that fear was there. Maybe out of not wanting to feel diminished by this upstanding family, he played out what was to him his destined role. He reveals his conflicting personality when he says, “I thought that Mr. Clutter was a very nice gentleman. I thought so right up to the moment that I cut his throat.” Capote, while looking at photos of the victims, saw that there was a pillow placed under the boy’s head, and the young girl was tucked in while in her bed, as if there was a gentleness existing in the midst of the terror. But, Perry then went through the house and shot the rest of the family, almost in anger that he could never be part of the legitimate world, and wished to obliterate these members of a society that judged him unworthy.

Capote, too, has an egotistical, self-serving, manipulative, and in the end, destructive personality. He says in a story about writer James Baldwin that one should just be honest. He says to Lee that he doesn’t lie. But, he is constantly deceitful. He bribes a train porter to say how great a writer he is. He acts like he cares about the people of Holcomb, but is only there for his book, whose prime purpose is to garner him more fame. He is able to ingratiate himself with the Holcomb residents, changing his clothes to fit in, bringing gifts and flattering those who can help him in his research. He uses his celebrity to get close to the investigator of the case, Alvin Dewey (Chris Cooper) through the man’s wife, who likes his writing. Lee and Capote’s lover, Jack Dunphy (Bruce Greenwood) are the moral chorus in the film, calling Capote on his lies. She realizes that he bribed the porter. When he says that there wasn’t anything he could have done to save the convicts, Lee says, “Maybe not. But the fact is, you didn’t want to.” She knows that their executions supplied a dramatic ending for his book, which he wanted finished so he could gain literary success. Capote didn’t want the two to die before he could get his information to write his book. So, he pretends to care about the killers’ defense to gain favor with Perry by finding him a good lawyer. After he tells Jack that he wants to find the two inmates the lawyer, his insightful companion responds by saying, “You’re finding yourself a lawyer.”

The person Capote is most untruthful with is Perry. He acts like his friend, feeding him baby food when Perry is starving himself in jail. Of course, Capote doesn’t want him to die before he can get the story from him about the night of the murders. He says to Perry he doesn’t have a title for the book, when he already told Dewey it will be “In Cold Blood,” (a title which can refer to capital punishment as well as the acts of the killers) because he wants to continue to have Perry think that he is writing the story to champion the convict’s cause. When Perry asks if he can read what he has written, Capote again lies because he doesn’t want Perry to know its content. He tells him that he hasn’t written hardly anything, even though at that point it is two-thirds finished. He tries to get Perry to open up about the night of the killings by acting like Perry will be forging a reconciliation with his sister. He brings family photos and says that his sister misses him – another lie. When he wants the closure needed to end his book by way of the executions of the criminals, he stays away from Perry, and doesn’t provide any legal help in their appeal, writing to Perry that he couldn’t find another lawyer. At an earlier point when Capote visits him, Perry says that Hickock is not to be trusted. But, it is the man right in front of him that he should realize is untrustworthy.

Those that lie usually do so for selfish reasons. And this film depicts Capote of having a self-centered nature. He loves holding court for all his admirers. When he does a reading he wants to know why he hasn’t heard praise from someone, and wants to be assured that Tennessee Williams liked what he wrote. He says he wants to return the Clutter son to the realm of humanity through his writing, which sounds praiseworthy, but it also shows that he sees himself as being God-like, capable of resurrection. He brags about having a 94% recall of spoken conversation, which Lee mocks at one point because of the times he brings this boast up. When she asks him if he liked the movie version of her book, To Kill a Mockingbird, he says out loud to himself “I don’t see what all the fuss is about,” which shows how he can’t even be happy for his friend, who helped him research his book, but who is now a literary competitor. He is so wrapped up in himself he forgets that Lee is visiting him and Jack in Spain right after she has become famous, and he neglects Jack, who is supposed to be the love of his life, and doesn't even realize that Jack has finished his novel. His selfishness eclipses the misery of others. He at first says to Dewey that he doesn’t care about who they arrest for the murders, to which Dewey replies, “I care.” When he relates to Jack about seeing the bodies of the victims, he emphasizes only how it will always affect him. As the two on death row wait for their deaths, Capote says how he is being “tortured,” waiting for their deaths so he can finish his book.

But, there is that other civilized, human part of Capote that made him walk out that front door. The shame he feels for what he has done makes him break down in tears when he visits the two at the time of the execution, after Perry humiliated him by forgiving the writer for being out of touch for so long. When Perry's body drops from the gallows, Capote's body jerks, too, as if he feels that underbelly part that he shared with Perry was being punished. There is a sequence earlier in the movie where Capote brought in a photographer to take stills of the convicts. One of the pictures is of Perry on the left and Capote on the right, (symbolic of their back and front door paths?). Miller’s shot emphasizes the connection between these two seemingly different people. That empathy with Perry and the experiences of his literary journey took an enormous toll on Capote’s conscience, and he never finished another book. The epigram that was to appear at the beginning of his unfinished work was, “More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.” That sounds very much like saying be careful what you wish for, you may get it. In Cold Blood brought its author enormous fame and critical acceptance. Just as he hoped, it changed how people write, and it still does. But, Truman Capote paid his sins and his success by dying of complications of alcoholism in 1984.

The next movie is Lawrence of Arabia.

I Want to Live!

SPOILER ALERT! The plot of the movie will be discussed.

This 1958 film based on journalist Edward S. Montgomery’s coverage of prostitute-crook Barbara Graham’s life is probably one of the earliest feminist and anti-capital punishment movies.

Susan Hayward, in an Oscar winning role, portrays Graham. The acting may seem a little over-the-top to us now, but she does convincingly convey the toughness of this woman who can be seen as both a criminal and a victim. The opening scenes establish the world in which she inhabits, which is one where the acceptable rules of society are broken. It is one that flows far from the mainstream. There is a wild party taking place where there is excessive drinking of alcohol. A band plays jazz (definitely the alternative sound of the time), and the musicians share a joint. The camera angles are skewed, emphasizing the out-of-the ordinary lifestyles of those present. Barbara is first seen rising up from a bed in a slip, followed by the form of a man with whom she has slept for money. We see the family picture of her client. She goes out of her way to protect the man from being convicted of the Mann Act, which prosecuted men who took women across state lines for sexual purposes. Barbara says she paid for the room they used to lessen his involvement. Right from the start we see how she helps men get away with crimes.

The image of the bongo drums being played at the party are replaced by a judge’s gavel as Barbara is convicted of prostitution. She later is maneuvered into providing an alibi for some crooked male friends, and is convicted of perjury. She then falls in with some male criminals, and helps them fleece victims using her seductive abilities. She also drives their getaway car after robberies. There is a scene where one of the crooks is building a house of playing cards. It is symbolic of Barbara’s life, which comes tumbling down on her.

She tries to “get out” by getting married and having a child. But, her attempt to join the straight world is thwarted by her continued wrong choices involving men. She weds a junkie who drains her financially and emotionally. Another image of her failed attempt at living the normal life is depicted when we see her baby playing with poker chips. Desperately in need of cash, she leaves her child with the husband’s mother and joins up with the thieves again. When a woman associated with Barbara’s mob is killed by one of its members, the cops come to arrest the crooks. One of the gang members says she sold them out, and he beats Barbara before they are all arrested. More physical brutality at the hands of men is revealed when Barbara is examined in jail and cigarette burns are found on her body. The other convicts pin the murder on Barbara. Her cellmate, another woman looking for help from men, cuts a deal and frames Barbara by recommending a guy who will provide an alibi for a price. He turns out to be an undercover cop. Even her lawyer turns on her at this point, asking to be excused as her attorney. Her husband’s drugged state of mind prevents him from being an alibi at the time of the killing.

Although she has been railroaded, Barbara doesn’t help her situation because she is insulting and uncooperative to everybody. But her attitude shows her unwillingness to accept the unjust situation she is in. Even though she is labeled a “party girl” and considered a slut, she embraces her sexuality when she refuses to wear the prison pajamas, and wants to feel sexy in her black slip. She strips down and says she would rather be naked than wear the drab sleepwear. Her dual nature of being tough and wanting to have a family is emphasized by her wanting to keep her daughter’s stuffed toy, which happens to be a tiger, showing the sweet and dangerous sides of Barbara.

A few men are on her side. There is a psychiatrist who says she is not violent. He also points out that she is left-handed and the killing was most likely done by someone who led with the right hand. The police also refused to allow Barbara to take a lie detector test, which would have helped her defense. The journalist, Montgomery (Simon Oakland), on whose writings the film is based, changed from one who exploited Barbara’s story, to becoming one of her supporters. When someone questions whether she may have been framed by the male convicts for the murder, a prison worker says, “What was she doing shacking up with them in the first place.” That statement shows the sexist discrimination involved in Barbara’s conviction. It’s as if she was condemned because of her sexual activity rather than for convincingly being found to have committed murder.

There are two women who present mirror images of how Barbara’s life could have gone. Her party friend, Peg (Virginia Vincent) left the fast lane world and married and had kids. She becomes part of the community. But, it is still the husband who calls the shots, giving her permission to see her old pal in prison. The other woman works at the prison, and her other-side-of-the-coin existence is stressed because her name is Barbara, too. Even she says, paradoxically, that the only way to live with men is being separated or divorced from them.

Besides the story arguing against the death penalty by showing an innocent person executed, the film presents the agonizing process the inmate must endure as she is led numerous times to the gas chamber only to get last minute reprieves, with no true hope of a commutation of the death sentence. The process of preparing the chamber for the dropping of the cyanide into buckets of sulfuric acid is presented in chilling detail, making the activity feel like a premeditated act of killing. The San Quentin Captain tells Barbara, “When you hear the pellets drop, count to ten. Take a deep breath. It’s easier that way.” Her damning response to this executioner is, “How would you know?” The cyanide is shaped in the form of eggs, ironically showing that the objects which appear to represent the beginnings of life are, in the hands of an unjust system, tools to end it.

The next movie is North by Northwest.