review: Somerset Maugham liked to characterize himself as a good writer of the second rank.  Much the same can be said of Truman Capote, with the caveat that he wrote one book of the first rank, his astonishing nonfiction novel IN COLD BLOOD.  This marvelous film tells the story of the writing of that book and reiterates the theory of one of Capote's most prominent biographers that the writing of that book was not merely the culmination of his career, but the cause of his decline as a writer and his descent into alcoholism.  The past few years has seen an explosion of biopics, but by any standard this has to stand as one of the very finest, and perhaps even the best.Whatever other merits this film has-and it has many-first and foremost is the incarnation of Truman Capote in the performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman.  Almost every year going into Oscar season we see at least one performance that so completely overwhelms all of the others it seems inconceivable that that performance will not win the Oscar.  Last year that performance was Imelda Staunton in VERA DRAKE.  This year that performance is Hoffman in CAPOTE.  No performance in 2005 by either a male or female came anywhere near the job that Hoffman did here.  What is astonishing is not merely that Hoffman did such a magnificent job of imitating Capote's voice and mannerisms that he seems to be channeling rather than impersonating him but that within that imitation he delivered a performance of enormous subtlety and emotional range.  In other words, this performance truly is more about acting than about imitation, though the imitation is impeccable, despite the fact that Hoffman is far too tall for the role (but, then, Peter O'Toole was about a foot too tall to play the diminutive T. E. Lawrence in LAWRENCE OF ARABIA).  Hoffman's performance is so dominating and so remarkable that it alone would have been sufficient to guarantee the film's success, but luckily he is far from the only good thing in the film.This film, which has been widely reported as having been shot in slightly more than a month, is remarkable on almost every level.  The period look is impeccable from the dress to the d&eacute;cor of rooms.  Every aspect of the production is first rate, but what really shines is the superb cast, which is populated with a host of great character actors.  Apart from Hoffman no one performer stands out, but that is more a testimony to the overall excellence of the cast than the failure of any actor.  Chris Cooper, Catherine Keener (a great beauty who glams down in this one as Capote's close friend Harper Lee-the odd kid in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD was modeled on Lee's childhood friend Truman--showing that she is going in middle age going to be one of our most versatile actresses), Bruce Greenwood (as Jack Dunphy), Bob Balaban, and Mark Pellegrino all perform marvelously in a very strong cast.  Clifton Collins Jr., an actor I previously knew only from several appearances on the television show ALIAS, was very good in the key role of Perry Smith, one of the two murderers with whom Capote somewhat identified and who he both befriended and exploited in writing his book.The story, of course, revolves around Capote's investigation of the horrific murder of a well liked and important family in a small town in Kansas.  Each of the victims had been bound and shot in the head with a shot gun.  After a police hunt two young men, Perry Smith and Richard Hickcock, were arrested for the crime.  They were tried, found guilty, and sentenced to death.  During the proceedings Capote, who was covering the murders for the New Yorker, befriended Smith, who has a background similar to Capote's own.  The film is superb at showing the complexity of human motivation, how Capote both truly likes Smith and yet exploits him shamelessly while also being repulsed by him.  The cold-blooded manner in which Capote both exhibits tremendous compassion for Smith and lies to him about the state of his book is almost as scary as the murder that Smith commits in flashback.  Smith repeatedly asks Capote about how much he has written and what the title of the book will be and is told that he has made little progress on his untitled work.  In fact, Capote has nearly finished the book, largely waiting to find out whether Smith and Hickcock will succeed on their appeals of their death sentence, and very early on settled on the title.  A mark of how good the movie is comes when how tortured Capote is shown to be by his exploitation of Smith.  At the end his guilt drives him to agree to witness Smith's hanging.  The story from beginning to end is both riveting and horrifying.  I kept thinking of how the title of Capote's great book could be applied to almost every aspect of the entire story.I would highly recommend anyone who has seen this film but has not yet read IN COLD BLOOD to do so as soon as possible.  This truly is one of the most marvelously written books in the past half century.  The prose is as exquisite as any written in English during that period, with the nightmarish, harrowing murders portrayed as coldly and dispassionately as they were committed.  Throughout Capote distances himself from his subject matter and although to any attentive reader it becomes obvious that he has inside knowledge of many of the events in the book, he does not appear in any guise whatsoever.  If one knows nothing about Capote's involvement with Smith and Hickcock, as I did when I first read the book, it is clear that at the very least he conducted extensive interviews with everyone associated with the case.  Knowing how deeply involved Capote actually was makes his utter absence in the book especially eery.  IN COLD BLOOD is one of the finest American books of the past century and this fine film will hopefully be watched in conjunction with it in the future.  I will close by adding that while IN COLD BLOOD was made into a superb film (starring Robert Blake as Perry Smith), I think CAPOTE is an even better film.  I cannot recommend either the book or the movie more highly.
question: Was the story and performance good?
he delivered a performance of enormous subtlety and emotional range