In 2005, three films with gay themes were for the first time in contention for major film awards. Brokeback Mountain nearly swept the Academy Awards. Actress Felicity Huffman was nominated for an Academy Award for the starring role in Transamerica. Seymour Hoffman won Best Actor at the Academy Awards for his portrayal of the title role in the biopic Capote. Now comes Infamous, directed by Douglas McGrath, which is a second biopic of Truman Capote, the novelist of Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1958) and In Cold Blood (1966). Comparisons between the two latter films are inevitable, especially since they cover the same period in Capote’s life--from his fascination with a brief article buried in a back page of a New York newspaper about a murder on November 15, 1959, of a family of four persons in the small farming community of Holcomb, Kansas, and his subsequent trip to the town in order to write an essay for The New Yorker about the impact of the grisly murder on a small town. The film begins with insightful comments about Capote (played by Toby Jones) from a variety of his friends and acquaintances, a who’s who of the New York literary circle whose identities are captioned (but played by actors and actresses), and a poignant vocal by Peggy Lee (played by Gwyneth Paltrow) of Cole Porter’s What Is This Thing Called Love, which is intended to raise a question that might have better been placed at the end of the tragedy. As the story progresses, his repartee with his admirers may mark the first time in cinematic history that witty gay humor has engaged straight audiences in a mainstream film, though of course the more catty version of gay humor appears in Boys in the Band (1970) and the vulgar version is in such movies as La Cage aux Folles (1978). Infamous appears to be a much deeper biography than Capote in several respects. Although Seymour Hoffman was somewhat swishy, Jones’s portrayal is of a man who trumpets his effeminacy. Indeed, his squeaky voice and outlandish apparel are clearly the main reasons why Holcomb residents and its sheriff Alvin Dewey (played by Jeff Daniels) will have nothing to do with him at first. Nevertheless, he persists, accompanied by Nelle Harper Warren (played by Sandra Bullock), who admits that her novel To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) was based in part on fellow Alabaman Capote (Indeed, the aunt who brought up Capote, the Fruitcake Lady who performed on Jay Leno's Tonight Show," was the basis for the character of the neighbor lady in Mockingbird). When the sheriff’s spouse Marie (played by Bethlyn Gerard) learns at a foodstore that Capote and Nelle will be Christmasing in his hotel, she invites the duo to celebrate with the family on Christmas day. Capote’s stories, many fictional, about his interactions with various movie stars so fascinates the family that word spreads, and soon he has dinner invitations from all over town so that he can collect the local color that he needs for his magazine article, which is rapidly developing into a book. Just as Capote is about to leave town, the two culprits are arrested in Las Vegas, brought back to Holcomb, and Capote is able to interview both in their prison cells. Whereas killer Dick Hickock (played by Lee Pace) has a loose mouth about the murder, macho Perry Smith (played by Daniel Craig, the future James Bond) refuses to talk. Baffled, Capote returns to New York, where he is advised to use his wits in order to find out what will pry open the closed mouth. His effort to send two of his novels, however, prompts Perry to comment that Capote’s writing “lacks kindness,” an insight that stuns the author, who indeed has been gently sneering at his characters. What the author discovers on his return to the prison is that Perry opens up when Capote tells of his family misfortunes, which resemble those of Perry. Thereafter, Capote learns that Perry has been seeking respect all his life, and soon the two are truly in love, especially after Perry kisses Capote passionately. Perry’s description of the crime then confirms the account that he forbade his partner to rape the women and that Hickock taunted him for wanting to have sex with the farmer’s hunky son (played by Austin Chittim). When Capote witnesses the hanging of Hickock in a barn, the film makes the point that he was still alive some thirty minutes after the platform was removed, dying a slow and painful death. Then Perry is escorted to the gallows and blindfolded, whereupon Capote bolts out of the barn, unable to observe the ritual. Later, Capote receives a box containing possessions that Perry willed to him, including a guitar and a tape recording of a love song for him. Infamous thereby explains why Capote had writer’s cramp thereafter and evidently died of a broken heart. The film is based on George Plimpton’s Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career (1997). Infamous makes the point that hanging is a barbaric practice, and that Perry was a social misfit due to a dysfunctional family, but avoids the Capote theme that the decision to sentence both men to death may have been a miscarriage of justice that Capote might have avoided by financing a better defense lawyer. In short, the two biopics complement each other. MH
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