Movies watched

I seem to be watching a fair number of films lately.

The Thief Lord:

I loved the book, and liked the film. Although it's rarely possible for a film to give you characters as fully fleshed out as a book does, this film was at least quite faithful to the book. And those gorgeous scenes of Venice! They wer worth the price of the rental all on their own.

Good night, and Good Luck:

Good film, bordering on great (the great film about McCarthy is Point of Order: a Documentary of the Army-McCarthy Hearings) but not quite getting there. Not nuanced enough, I think, too black-and-white. An excellent film visually; I loved the fact that it was filmed in black-and-white, and the costume design was on the money.

Capote:

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Hoffman nails Capote, and so does the screenplay (by Dan Futterman). Capote was so odd -- a fine writer, a curious and observing writer, but with something inside that led him to use people and to damage himself. That becomes so clear in this film. He made friends with the folks of Holcomb, and with Perry Smith, as he wrote In Cold Blood and created a whole new style of writing. You can see that he enjoys being with these people, so different from New York and Costa Brava, and that he cared for Perry on a level beyond that of writer/subject. He had real empathy with him, a real understanding of his background and childhood, in some ways similar to Capote's own. They shared "outsider" status. (The film suggests that Capote fell in love with Perry, and juxtaposes his "desertion" of his lover, Jack Dunphy, to spend months in Kansas with his "desertion" of Perry before his execution. I think this is a bit facile.)

But Capote made his way "inside" through his writing, and so his relationship with Perry was colored by his need to "know the end". He continually lies to Perry about the progress of the book, and about the title (which he knows will hurt Perry). He finds a lawyer to handle Perry and Richard's state appeals, but will not help when their case is in the U.S. Supreme Court, and this seems to be in part because the longer the case is unresolved, the longer it will take him to finish his book. He cannot finish it until Perry's execution.

This is not to say that this dilemma did not affect Capote. In fact, it may be true that it destroyed him. To know that you desire the death of a beloved object in order to attain another beloved object, to wonder if you didn't do everything you could to prevent that death because of another desire, has got to be devastating. In the end, Capote never finished another book. He began Answered Prayers, and in doing so committed social suicide, because you can't use, and tell lies to, the wealthy and powerful of this world as you can to poor drifters on Death Row.

I think Capote's is one of the saddest lives I know.

Movies watched

I seem to be watching a fair number of films lately.

The Thief Lord:

I loved the book, and liked the film. Although it's rarely possible for a film to give you characters as fully fleshed out as a book does, this film was at least quite faithful to the book. And those gorgeous scenes of Venice! They wer worth the price of the rental all on their own.

Good night, and Good Luck:

Good film, bordering on great (the great film about McCarthy is Point of Order: a Documentary of the Army-McCarthy Hearings) but not quite getting there. Not nuanced enough, I think, too black-and-white. An excellent film visually; I loved the fact that it was filmed in black-and-white, and the costume design was on the money.

Capote:

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Hoffman nails Capote, and so does the screenplay (by Dan Futterman). Capote was so odd -- a fine writer, a curious and observing writer, but with something inside that led him to use people and to damage himself. That becomes so clear in this film. He made friends with the folks of Holcomb, and with Perry Smith, as he wrote In Cold Blood and created a whole new style of writing. You can see that he enjoys being with these people, so different from New York and Costa Brava, and that he cared for Perry on a level beyond that of writer/subject. He had real empathy with him, a real understanding of his background and childhood, in some ways similar to Capote's own. They shared "outsider" status. (The film suggests that Capote fell in love with Perry, and juxtaposes his "desertion" of his lover, Jack Dunphy, to spend months in Kansas with his "desertion" of Perry before his execution. I think this is a bit facile.)

But Capote made his way "inside" through his writing, and so his relationship with Perry was colored by his need to "know the end". He continually lies to Perry about the progress of the book, and about the title (which he knows will hurt Perry). He finds a lawyer to handle Perry and Richard's state appeals, but will not help when their case is in the U.S. Supreme Court, and this seems to be in part because the longer the case is unresolved, the longer it will take him to finish his book. He cannot finish it until Perry's execution.

This is not to say that this dilemma did not affect Capote. In fact, it may be true that it destroyed him. To know that you desire the death of a beloved object in order to attain another beloved object, to wonder if you didn't do everything you could to prevent that death because of another desire, has got to be devastating. In the end, Capote never finished another book. He began Answered Prayers, and in doing so committed social suicide, because you can't use, and tell lies to, the wealthy and powerful of this world as you can to poor drifters on Death Row.

I think Capote's is one of the saddest lives I know.