There is, in Capote, a wonderful moment (among countless others) that captures the defeat concealed in triumph. Capote (played with such vibrancy by Hoffman that you quickly forget the effeminate mannerisms and lisping speech, and see and hear only the man himself) is onstage, reading passages from his yet-unpublished nonfiction novel In Cold Blood, about the murder of a Kansas family in the fall of 1959. He begins at the beginning -- "The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat fields of western Kansas, a lonesome area that the other Kansans call 'out there'" -- and after he is finished, the black-tie crowd, assembled by New Yorker editor and Capote confidant-cheerleader William Shawn (Bob Balaban), leaps to its feet. Capote backs away from the podium and begins to weep. Is he proud of his achievement, which he has insisted will revolutionize journalism and literature, or ashamed of having accomplished it by manipulating, using, and ultimately betraying killers Dick Hickock and Perry Smith?
That's the question ultimately asked by screenwriter Dan Futterman and director Bennett Miller, both first-timers at the feature-film game. Theirs isn't just a story about how Capote wrote his masterpiece, but about the toll it took on him; this was, after all, a book about which even Capote said, "Before I began it, I was a stable person, comparatively speaking. Afterward, something happened to me . . . Horrible!" Writer and director examine that trajectory, following the successful, beloved life of the party as he destroys himself writing about two killers -- one, Hickock (Mark Pellegrino), a grubby small-timer; the other, Smith (Clifton Collins Jr.), a man who fancied himself considerate and literate, not all that different from Capote. (Capote would see himself reflected through Smith, of whom he says in the film, "It's as if Perry and I grew up in the same house, and he went out the back door while I went out the front.")
By focusing on the four-year period during which Capote, with his childhood friend Nelle Harper Lee (Catherine Keener, as earthy here as dirt on a boot heel), researched and wrote In Cold Blood, Futterman and Miller capture the sea change that took place in Capote. He begins the movie as a small man who seems somehow a foot taller in appearance, a giddy name-dropper ("I had lunch with Jimmy Baldwin") for whom alcohol is a social lubricant. He's arrogant too, to the point of offending the people he needs most for his tale: When Capote first goes to Kansas, he insults Kansas Bureau of Investigations agent Alvin Dewey (Chris Cooper) by demanding his time, right now, adding that for his story, he doesn't even care who killed the well-off Clutter family.
But as the story unfolds, as Hickock and Smith are captured, tried, and imprisoned, Capote begins to unravel; their story becomes too much his story, and he begins to lose himself in the telling of what was meant to be a tidy little tale. By the end, Capote's an outright alcoholic, praying for the deaths of his two new friends -- if only so he can finish his goddamned book. He begins to alienate his friends and loved ones, especially patient partner Jack Dunphy (Bruce Greenwood); he's in too deep and, finally, unable to extricate himself. By the movie's end, the little man seems to disappear altogether -- to fold into himself, exhausted and more than a little ashamed. Hoffman's is among the year's finest performances, precisely because it doesn't feel like one at all.
Miller and Futterman were wise to keep the focus tight, clean, precise. To have gone too far back (to, say, the publication of Breakfast at Tiffany's) or too far forward would mute their story's impact. It's this moment, when a man goes too far and loses his way, that matters most. Go figure, then: How often does one see a masterpiece about a masterpiece?
