THE CAPOTE TAPES offers a peek into the enigmatic writer
Directed by Ebs Burnough
Running time: 1 hour 38 minutes
Opens in select theaters September 10
by Miguel Alejandro Marquez, Staff Writer
Writers Note: Before I begin this review, I must commit a sin that I’ve committed in my past reviews. I am going to talk about my views on Truman Capote. I will give my subjective take on the man before my review on the material. May the cinematic Gods have mercy on my soul.
Truman Capote was an enigma. To put it very bluntly, Truman Capote was the very definition of a maverick. He was a gay man, a drunk, and a literary icon. An individual who not only broke the social mold, but also explored literature in ways not done by his predecessors. A man who made the first ever “non-fictional novel”, and plastered his own “provocative” photo on the back of Other Rooms, Other Voices.
He was the gay man’s Earnest Hemingway, and didn’t hold back with his material. He was intelligent, unique, and overall, a riot that shocked the New York scene. There will never be a man like him, and that’s a shame.
End of this humble critic’s confession.
There is a saying by Saint Teresa of Avila: “More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.” Nothing can be truer in this life. The life of Truman Capote, and his subsequent work, reflects this observation. This movie tries to tell what prayers were answered in Capote’s life, and what was left unanswered.
The film is a deep exploration of the life of Truman Capote, and the demons that filled his work. We first begin the film from his humble yet tragic origins to his rise to success, and later, his eventual dismissal of the elite by his book Answered Prayers. Answered Prayers was an uncompleted tell-all book of the New York upper-class and what drives them to do what they do.
As advertised, the film is a viewpoint of the book Answered Prayers, but isn’t entirely surrounded by the book’s origin. For the first two-thirds of the film, we get a deep dive into the reasoning behind why Capote wrote the book, but not over the content of the book itself. This isn’t the fault of the filmmakers, the book is only three chapters long. But fault does rise in the part of the film’s marketing. The film’s trailer was more concerned with this aspect of Capote’s story, rather than being marketed as a documentary of his rise to fame and his fall into alcoholism.
The film’s pacing is jarring at times, as we go from dark subject matter, to the routine, light-hearted experiences of people who lived and worked with Capote. This may be a nit-pick, but still something worthy of being pointed out. These points are not to paint The Capote Tapes in a negative light. The film is wonderful and captivating in its exploration of a complex man, it’s just that the film needed stronger footing when it comes to balancing tone and material. We go from the tragic world of Capote, back to the ditzy world of New York.
A scene that is of note, that grabbed this critic’s attention, is when Capote entered a New York bar. Men stared at Capote, gaping at him and his femininity. The way the documentary lingers on the photo of Capote is marvelous. It draws both a distinction of Capote’s lifestyle, to those who were a part of New York’s working class, as well as an analysis of the LGBT scene of New York. It also draws out what it meant to be a gay man during that time full of subjugation and judgement. It defines a majority of what we see of Capote in this movie and what his work meant for the 20th century. Without this scene, this distinction, this film, and our views on Capote’s works, would be diminished.
This is a great companion piece to the 2005 Bennett Miller film Capote starring and its portrayal of the literary icon and some of the aspects that might have been overlooked by subsequent films. Just replace the cold-heartedness of the gallows of Capote with the levity of New York’s upper-class, as shown in Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The Capote Tapes is a great analysis of Truman Capote and his work. Ebs Burroughs crafted an excellent film that portrays Capote as a man of intellect and as a disheartened artist drawn into the world of debauchery and madness.