Monday Movie Review: Infamous

Infamous (2006) 10/10
Truman Capote (Toby Jones), accompanied by Harper Lee (Sandra Bullock) travels to Kansas to write about the murder of the Clutter family.

Pity the makers of Infamous, who got caught in one of those weird filmmaking coincidences from which they could not escape. Like Valmont and Dangerous Liaisons, two films on the same subject matter were in production at virtually the same time, one won the awards, and the other was obscured. In the case of Dangerous Liaisons, I think the superior film won the accolades, but in the case of Infamous vs. Capote, I am not at all convinced.

What is extraordinarily admirable about Capote is its thoughtfulness and focus. It stares straight at Truman Capote without blinking, and that shows us quite a lot. Infamous takes a different approach. It is much more cinematic. It is full of movement and people, costumes and "moments." It shows Capote in his true milieu, New York "society," and it populates that milieu magnificently, with Diana Vreeland (Juliet Stevenson), with Babe Paley (Sigourney Weaver), with Slim Keith (Hope Davis), and many more. It shows Capote outside that milieu, stuck in Kansas, alienated and alienating. And it shows him becoming lost in the world of murderer Perry Smith (Daniel Craig); lost, absorbed, and falling in love.

Infamous has a broad focus, instead of meditating on the nature of truth, it shows us the swirling mess of life that Truman Capote distills into a personal version of truth. It shows him editing "verbatim quotes," shows him lying to friends, to Perry Smith, and to himself. Am I lowbrow to find it more interesting when it's more visual? When people move around more, when scenes change more? Am I crass to enjoy seeing how Capote struggles to adapt to Kansas? Is it cheesy to enjoy seeing the magnificent Daniel Craig grab and terrify Capote?

For me, this less meditative, more in-your-face film let me know something of the people involved, in addition to the ideas. I found it immensely enjoyable. It remains a thoughtful work, although the thinking is perhaps of a different sort. I found Capote to be a movie about narcissism and the "fourth wall" of truth, whereas Infamous seems to be more about the shifting way we decide what is really true, and how we use truth and falsehood in relationship. Truman Capote swears secrecy to Babe Paley when she divulges a confidence, and then tells Slim Keith the whole story. Of course it's because they love Babe and care about what's happening to her. Of course. And we've all been there, on one or both sides of that, and experienced the shifting ways in which betrayal can be seen as loyalty. Now juxtapose that commonplace scene with Capote swearing his loyalty and honesty to Perry Smith. It's the same "small" two-faced fib, except that Perry is going to die, based in part on Capote's truthfulness.

(Neither movie, by the way, is forthright in showing that Truman Capote financed Smith's appeals when he needed more time for interviews, and withdrew financing when he needed the book to be done. As much as both movies endeavor to show the shifting nature of Capote's honesty, this is just a bit too much, a bit too bare, for either movie to lay it out on the table.)

Infamous is going to end up being the forgotten movie about Truman Capote and In Cold Blood, and that's a shame. It really is quite dazzling.

(This is really, truly a cross-post. Honest. I wouldn't lie to you.)