Sunday, February 19, 2006
a truman capote moment
There is something I really enjoyed about watching the film Capote: One sits in a theater and watches a fictionilized account of the writing of a book. The book is a new type of writing -- a true fiction or non-fiction novel. So we have a movie that contains actors portraying real people in the creation of a fictionalization of a real event.
In the film Capote pays a bell boy, portrayed by an actor, on a train to tell him how great a writer he is in front of his research assistant, Harper Lee. At Lee's party celebrating the publication of her book, To Kill A Mockingbird, Capote mopes around and mutters to himself about Lee's more beloved and maybe better book,"I don't see what the big deal is".
On talk shows the actress who portrays Lee, Catherine Keener, has said that because she was unable to meet the reclusive Harper Lee to prepare for the role, she had to make up what she thought she would be like. She than goes on to say that after the release of the film Lee spoke to her to tell her how accurately she was portrayed in the film.
In another weird little tango between fact and fiction, real life killer Robert Blake plays the roll of the murderer in the original film adaptation of In Cold Blood.
My memories of Capote, the real Capote, was as a funny little man on gameshows and talkshows during the seventies. Was he on Matchgame? One of the criticisms about Hoffman's performance was that Capote was just so darn easy to imitate. I say he should win something. I completely forgot that I was watching Hoffman.
UPDATE: Hoffman was just on Letterman. He said he is tired of doing the voice. To fulfill a drunken college vow he will deliver his acceptance speech in "bark talking". Now I have to watch the Oscars.
In the film Capote pays a bell boy, portrayed by an actor, on a train to tell him how great a writer he is in front of his research assistant, Harper Lee. At Lee's party celebrating the publication of her book, To Kill A Mockingbird, Capote mopes around and mutters to himself about Lee's more beloved and maybe better book,"I don't see what the big deal is".
On talk shows the actress who portrays Lee, Catherine Keener, has said that because she was unable to meet the reclusive Harper Lee to prepare for the role, she had to make up what she thought she would be like. She than goes on to say that after the release of the film Lee spoke to her to tell her how accurately she was portrayed in the film.
In another weird little tango between fact and fiction, real life killer Robert Blake plays the roll of the murderer in the original film adaptation of In Cold Blood.
My memories of Capote, the real Capote, was as a funny little man on gameshows and talkshows during the seventies. Was he on Matchgame? One of the criticisms about Hoffman's performance was that Capote was just so darn easy to imitate. I say he should win something. I completely forgot that I was watching Hoffman.
UPDATE: Hoffman was just on Letterman. He said he is tired of doing the voice. To fulfill a drunken college vow he will deliver his acceptance speech in "bark talking". Now I have to watch the Oscars.
