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| Plot Synopsis Douglas McGrath's Infamous represents the second major biopic about the avant-garde belletrist Truman Capote to be released within a year. It thus tells roughly the same story as Bennett Miller's earlier Capote, recounting the events that belied the writer's six-year authorship of the seminal "nonfiction novel" In Cold Blood. The story opens with Capote (Toby Jones) visiting the site of the 1959 Clutter family homicide, on a Kansas research trip, accompanied by his close friend and colleague, author Harper Lee (Sandra Bullock). As Capote settles into the community, McGrath uses the preponderance of screen time to explore the emotional tapestry of Capote's increasingly risky emotional attachment to one of the two murderers, Perry Edward Smith (Daniel Craig), with whom he senses more than a few common bonds. McGrath weaves a decidedly bittersweet tale, contrasting the optimism and devil-may-care, "conquer all" attitude of Capote in his early years with a seemingly endless string of poor choices in the writer's later years, from addictions to drink and pills, to a failure to maintain healthy output as a writer, to poorly chosen romantic and sexual entanglements. Most significantly, however, McGrath reveals how the relationship with Smith virtually destroyed Capote as an artist and a human being, by inducing him to sell out on all levels to satisfy his lust for accomplishment and notoriety. Reviews Jeffrey M. Anderson Combustible celluloid Apparently it was a mere coincidence that Dan Futterman and Douglas McGrath (Nicholas Nickleby) finished their screenplays about Truman Capote at the same time. And not only at the same time, but telling the exact same narrative, beginning from the point that Capote discovers the newspaper story about the Kansas murders and ending when his masterpiece, the non-fiction novel In Cold Blood, is completed. Of course, Futterman and Bennett Miller's Capote opened last year to great acclaim and successful box office and Philip Seymour Hoffman earned a much-deserved Oscar for his work in the lead role. Now we have McGrath's Infamous, a movie strikingly different in tone and approach while remaining similar in story and ideas. This time a relative unknown, British actor Toby Jones -- nothing less than a dead ringer for Capote -- occupies the lead role. While Hoffman captured the writer's essence, Jones performs a dead-on impersonation. This Capote rather enjoys intriguing and offending his small town subjects -- regaling them with tales of arm-wrestling Bogart -- while Hoffman's Capote merely looked down at them from his intellectual, big city perspective. In that, Infamous is a good deal funnier. When Capote and his co-researcher, Harper Lee (Sandra Bullock) first arrive in Kansas, the long, wide shot of the two New Yorkers standing, rather aghast, atop a bare train platform with nothing else for miles around, is a hoot. Infamous spends more time in New York as well, showing Capote dining and sharing details with his magpie society ladies, played by an amazing array of familiar faces: Hope Davis, Isabella Rosellini, Sigourney Weaver and Juliet Stevenson. Director McGrath ranks their importance and elegance by the type of restaurant in which they appear. (The more down-home Ms. Lee eats sandwiches at a greasy spoon.) Catherine Keener received an Oscar nomination last year for her portrayal of Ms. Lee in Capote, but Bullock more than matches her, finding a quiet, almost sad, intelligent humility. McGrath's major error in judgment comes during the silly "testimonials" spread throughout the picture. Right from the opening minutes familiar actors turn up in front of a curtain, while a subtitle tells us who they're supposed to be. They interrupt and tell us bits of the story that McGrath was apparently unable to show visually. And Daniel Craig, playing the key role of murderer Perry Smith (with some kind of black shoe polish in his hair), doesn't quite achieve the soulfulness of Clifton Collins Jr.'s performance in the same role in Capote. Furthermore, that which Capote beautifully suggested in their scenes together, Infamous takes to the hilt. Both films can and should be valued equally. But Infamous has something that Capote doesn't have: a jaw-dropping opening scene featuring Gwyneth Paltrow (as Peggy Lee) singing her heart out, and pausing for a moment of sorrowful reflection; this devastating pause is enough to impress and even move Jones's Capote, watching from a nearby table. The scene reveals everything we need to know about the entire picture; that for all his brilliance and bluster, Capote is not above being touched by moments of truth. Michael Booth Denver Post Staff Writer Is it possible to produce two similar movies within a year about a thoroughly depressing event- brutal murders in Kansas and the subsequent unraveling of their famous chronicler-and make both films worth seeing? Yes, in an answer so short Truman Capote might never have used it. Last year's deeply disturbing "Capote" was many critics' pick for the best movie of 2005, including my own. And comes now "Infamous," nearly identical in subject, ready and able to win audiences on its own merits. "Infamous" is the Technicolor version of the sepia-toned "Capote." Writer and director Douglas McGrath remains respectful of the awful attack on the Clutter family in 1959. Yet McGrath's telling showcases the incomparable wit of Capote himself, and the shining baubles of society life back in New York. Actor Toby Jones' Capote is more physically flamboyant than Philip Seymour Hoffman's Oscar-winning turn last year, scampering across even the most somber corn field on little cat's paws. The differences amount to this: "Capote" was one of the saddest movies you'll ever see, while "Infamous" is one of the funniest sad movies in recent memory. Like "Capote," "Infamous" begins with an already-celebrated Capote stuck between stories for The New Yorker, stumbling across a news item on the Kansas murders. He leaves immediately for the Midwest, with researcher-friend Harper Lee (Sandra Bullock, this time) in tow. Capote ingratiates himself with the town, and eventually the murderers, writing a "novelization" of the facts that became the bestseller "In Cold Blood." Why profile Capote twice in a year? Pure chance, it turns out. Making the best out of an impossible marketing situation, McGrath loves to tell the story of finishing his script, based on a book by George Plimpton, and calling a studio friend in excitement. Can't wait to send this to you, McGrath says. But I've already got it, the studio exec says, having just read Dan Futterman's script for "Capote." Muddling ahead to shoot a few months after "Capote" wrapped, McGrath chose a few different angles. His most awkward and unsuccessful idea is having Capote's friends break the action with direct interviews into the camera, as if they were in a PBS documentary. The device makes no sense in the storytelling, as all the marvelous bon-mots offered in the interviews - "imagine what a Brussels sprout would sound like, that's what Capote sounded like" - could have been said elsewhere. McGrath also goes for star power, occasionally to the detriment of the mood. Aside from Bullock, Gwyneth Paltrow plays singer Peggy Lee, and Sigourney Weaver plays Capote confidante Babe Paley. Having said that, the stars do terrific turns. McGrath invited controversy by affirming an undocumented physical liaison between Capote and the lead killer, Perry Smith. As Smith, Daniel Craig is the one actor in "Infamous" who noticeably improves on the parallel role in "Capote," bringing a fervor and near-religious charisma that contributes to Capote's subsequent undoing. (That Craig could be playing on-screen as both a bisexual mass murderer and James Bond, in the forthcoming "Casino Royale," is a testament to his ambition and talent.) Just like Capote, Jones knows how to deliver a line, waiting until the room quiets enough to receive his Brussels-sprout voice. When Smith complains about Capote's writing style in earlier books, Capote tells a friend, "Imagine being told your work lacked kindness, by a four-time killer." When Lee, about to publish her debut novel, "To Kill a Mockingbird," encourages Capote to stick to the truth for "In Cold Blood," he waves her off. "It's your book," she relents. "Yes. My seventh," he says. The power of both Capote movies comes from their relentless focus on his deal with the devil, telling Smith anything he needed to hear in exchange for the details that would make "In Cold Blood" a revolutionary writing form. "No one's ever treated me like you have," Smith says. "Is it just to get me to tell you stuff?" "No," Capote responds emphatically, but of course the answer is an undeniable yes. All journalists make the bargain on some level, no matter how small the story; people who don't want to speak are coaxed into it, and a lifetime of guilt is born. "Life is painful," Capote tells another friend. "I suppose I'm able to endure it because I'm able to alchemize it into art." But the alchemy produces the strong side effect of corrosion, and Capote's soul suffered. Now there are two movies that make their own art out of that pain. Awards Film Presented - 2006, BFI London Film Festival Best Supporting Actor (nom) - Daniel Craig 2006, Independent Spirit Award Best British Actor (win) - Toby Jones 2006 London Film Critics Circle Film Presented - 2006 Telluride Film Festival Film Presented - 2006 Toronto International Film Festival Film Presented - 2006 Venice International Film Festival |
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| INFAMOUS 2006 - USA - 88 min. - Feature, Color AKA - Every Word is True [2005] (Working title), Have You Heard? [2005] (Working title) Director - Douglas McGrath |
| Genre / Type - Drama, Biography [feature], Crime Drama Flags - Adult Situations, Violence, Adult Humor, Profanity, Sexual Situations MPAA Rating - R Keywords - writing, flamboyant, gossip, socialite, murder-suspect Themes - Murder Investigations, Social Climbing, Unlikely Friendships, Writer's Life Tones - Wry, Talky, Literate, Intimate, Witty From book - Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career Color type - Technicolor Sound by - Dolby Digital, DTS Digital, SDDS Produced by - Killer Films Release - Oct 13, 2006 (USA - Limited) Released by - Warner Independent Pictures MPAA Reasons - for language, violence and some sexuality DVD Street Date - Feb 13, 2007 Languages - English Subtitles - English, French ,Spanish Screen Format - Color, Widescreen(SM) Sound - Dolby Digital 5.1 Studio - Warner Home Video Cast Toby Jones - Truman Capote Sandra Bullock - Nelle Harper Lee Daniel Craig - Perry Smith Peter Bogdanovich - Bennett Cerf Jeff Daniels - Alvin Dewey Hope Davis - Slim Keith Gwyneth Paltrow - Kitty Dean Isabella Rossellini - Marella Angelli Juliet Stevenson - Diana Vreeland Sigourney Weaver - Babe Paley John Benjamin Hickey - Jack Dunphy Lee Pace - Dick Hickock |
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