[Frederica-l] NRO: Infamous

[Frederica at aol.com]

here's a review of the new movie about Truman Capote, which opens today. If 
you'd rather read it on my website, the URL is 
http://www.frederica.com/writings/infamous.html

***
 
When David Cathcart completed his screenplay about Truman Capote, he phoned 
Bingham Ray, the head of United Artists, and offered to send it over. Ray 
responded, "It's on my desk." This surprised Cathcart, since he thought the work 
hadn't yet left his own desk. Ray insisted, "I'm looking at it right now. 
'Capote' by Dan..."
 
In the awkward pause that followed, an unlikely coincidence became apparent: 
two gifted screenwriters had separately hit on the idea of telling the story 
of Truman Capote and the writing of his 1965 book, "In Cold Blood." Cathcart 
held his project back, and Dan Futterman's screenplay, directed by Bennett 
Miller, went on to draw well-deserved applause last year. Philip Seymour Hoffman's 
terrific portrayal of the title role in "Capote" won him a 2006 Oscar for Best 
Actor. 
 
Despite the similarities, "Infamous" is quite a different movie. "Capote" was 
tough on Capote's flaws: his self-absorption, his unending vanity, his 
flippancy, his capacity to wound. In one of many memorable scenes, Capote complains 
that delays in the execution of the two killers are holding back publication 
of his masterpiece. This comes as a shock, because we've seen him ingratiate 
himself with Perry Smith, the more confused and vulnerable criminal, gradually 
persuading him to open up. Perry really believes Capote is a friend, but in 
reality, the author is chafing for him to die. 
 
"Capote" kept such punches coming. People who prefer "Infamous" will say that 
it is funnier (that's true) as well as warmer, but to my mind it misses its 
goal, and the warmth comes across as gushing affection. In addition to writing 
the screenplay, Cathcart also directed, and under his hand characters turn 
into big fat caricatures. They're often engaging (particularly Juliet Stevenson 
as Diana Vreeland), but so cartoonishly mannered that they have little 
credibility. 
 
The contrast between high-society Manhattan and humble Holcomb, Kansas is 
played hard for laughs, providing absurdities such as the sight of Capote 
searching the town's grocery store in vain for any cheese besides Velveeta. But folks 
living in the Breadbasket of America forty years ago did not subsist on 
processed foods. My friend who runs a terrific bookstore 
[http://www.eighthdaybooks.com/]  in Wichita (yes, they can read out there) writes that very little 
research turned up a dairy plant not far from Holcomb that, in 1942, was producing 
7,000 pounds of cheese *a day.* And the film even shows us lots of farms, and 
tells us that the murdered family's father was a rancher. It's reasonable for 
a director to ask an audience to suspend disbelief, but don't make the job so 
tough. 
 
Compared to last year's film, this one gives a simplified, novelized version 
of the story. The surprise is that it's a romance novel. Here the complex 
tensions between Capote (Toby Jones) and Perry (Daniel Craig) has been sorted out 
into a coy and poignant boy-meets-boy story. 
 
Throughout the early part of the film Capote is depicted as witty and 
winning, a success in every situation, and also big of heart. He has a surprising 
ability at arm-wrestling, but while at Christmas dinner at the home of detective 
Dewey (Jeff Daniels), he thoughtfully allows their son to beat him. When he 
subsequently wins a bout with Dewey, he explains that "When you're tiny" you 
have to be strong because "the world is not kind to little things." 
 
If this were a Harlequin Romance, Capote would be the saucy, bright-eyed 
princess who's always mocking her straitlaced suitors and exasperating her proper 
parents. And Perry is the lowly-born stablehand, or rather, the son of a 
failed rodeo-riding couple. In flashback he's a wide-eyed boy, watching his drunken 
mom roll out into the front yard waving a bottle and get socked in the jaw by 
his dad. (This brief scene is a perfect miniature of the stagey, melodramatic 
style pervading "Infamous".) Little Perry was heartbroken when his dad 
abandoned him (when the boy spots his dad in the distance on a rare visit, he 
murmurs repeatedly, "Please be real"), but the relationship got a fresh start when, 
as an adult, he was invited to join him in running a bar. Perry threw himself 
into the project, decorating the place with his paintings and crooning to a 
guitar every night. Dad, however, blamed the lack of business on Perry, and 
called him "a sissy" - words that we see provoke a near-homicidal rage. 
 
Well, you're starting to get the picture. Tormented, brooding, muscular Perry 
has a secret that he can't quite face. During a visit from Capote, Perry is 
mocked by the prisoner in the next cell. Capote leads Perry to a corner saying 
quietly, "This can be our little treehouse. Trust me. Close your eyes. Imagine 
the most beautiful place you know." As strong, sad Perry stands in the wan 
light, Capote stands very near, whispering, "Feel the breeze, the sensual breeze 
from heaven. Just let go, relax every muscle." And with that, Capote 
*breathes* on him. 
 
If this story represents the hopes and hungers that undergird gay romance, 
it's touching to see how strongly they resemble those in the pink paperbacks 
that women write and read. The object of desire is big and strong, but his eyes 
are troubled. He's lonely, misunderstood; he needs tenderness. Under the 
radiant warmth of a ministering angel's light, he opens like a flower. Soon the 
rescuer is receiving hesitant but deeply heartfelt pledges. The big guy, to his 
surprise, has fallen in everlasting love, and for the first time in his life 
feels truly alive.
 
So it happens that in "Infamous" the cell conversation soon turns to "It's so 
hard, thinking there's someone for you, and after years of waiting you meet 
him, and you can't have him," and "We really connected, didn't we?," and 
"You're the only person I feel real with." What comes next, of course, is a kiss - 
one that is intensely felt, but hardly lurid. 
 
If this film is any indication, it looks like women and gay men both want the 
same thing from the men they desire: tender emotional connection. But, 
unfortunately, what straight men want is Angelina Jolie holding a gun. 
 
So "Infamous" has heart, but little subtlety. The moment mentioned in 
"Capote" above, where the author reflects on how delaying the executions blocks 
release of his book, is reframed. Now Capote says, "To get an ending for the book 
means an ending for..." and trails off in tears. He attends the execution but 
can't bear to watch, and stumbles out into the night in tears, where 
(inevitably) a thunderstorm is raging. 
 
Capote's friend, author Harper Lee (a nicely understated Sandra Bullock), 
sums things up: "There were three deaths on the gallows that day." Capote was 
never able to complete a book after that, she says, because the pressure of 
expectation is too great in America. "It's not a country like France, where charm 
or something light or effervescent can survive." 
 
But this is not the reason Capote failed to produce after "In Cold Blood." 
Frustratingly enough, Cathcart knows that, and knows what story he set out to 
tell. In a "Note" distributed to the press, Cathcart writes that Capote's life 
story shifts "from light to dark, from comic to tragic." He explains that the 
author's early success was followed by "later years of bitterness, a failure to 
produce the work he promised, a break with friends, reckless and ill-chosen 
love affairs, and a debilitating taste for drink and pills that only hastened 
his decline." 
 
That's accurate, and we got a glimpse of the tragic process in last year's 
"Capote." But it's not in "Infamous." I wish it had been; that could have been a 
pretty good movie. 

********
Frederica Mathewes-Green
www.frederica.com
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