Ever since I was a child, folks have thought they had me pegged, because of the way I am, the way I talk. And they’re always wrong.

Truman Capote had a difficult childhood, abandoned first by his father and later by his mother and growing up with his aunt in a suffocating South. Feelings of rejection accompanied him all his life. Sounds a bit like Johnny Cash? Maybe. Capote also had a strange way of talking and he was homosexual. So how come to find him at the center of attention of the upper New York artistic society, confident, shining, admired by everyone? It is because Capote learned quickly that in order to survive and to become someone you have to create a self for yourself, a persona to project and underneath it to bury all your insecurities. That is why, when Truman Capote stood in front of a jam-packed New York Hall to read extracts from his, then unfinished, book ‘In Cold Blood’ and said ‘Hello, I am Truman Capote’, what the audience could see was a confident, mesmerizing person who put everyone under his spell with the power of his writing. When I saw that scene, the echo of Johnny Cash’s first performance was in my head, not because of their contrast but instead, because of their similarity. Because, we, viewers, were allowed to see what the audience of this hall could not see in Capote. The well buried but not extinguished insecurity of him, the old demons that Capote controlled. How do we see that? Through Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s eyes, via his one quick move of stabilizing his glasses before starting to read. Oh, the power of the amazing actors to cast us under their spell! The film, to the director’s praise, does not turn Capote into a saint. It indeed reveal a cynic, egocentric and self-absorbed creature who did not hesitate even to accelerate the death of the two murderers in order to be able to finish his book. But it is due to Phillip Seymour Hoffman that you are left to wonder until the very end about the motives and the real feelings of Capote towards Perry Smith. No easy answers. People are neither monsters nor angels in this film. Capote knew with the certainty of his literary genius that ‘In Cold Blood’ would be the book that would establish him as the pioneer among his cotemporaries. He also suspected that this book would initiate a new period for literature and he proved right; non-fictional literature became a rising new genre adopted by more and more writers. Too difficult to resist this destiny, especially for a person like him, who craved for perfection and recognition.  Taking advantage of a human being’s feelings and history didn’t seem a big sacrifice to him but this was his mistake. When he realized that Perry Smith had broken his well built wall and entered his soul, it was late. He had to watch him die and when the hanged body swung in front of his eyes, it was also the persona of Capote that swung with it. But without this persona, Truman could not be what he was. No more finished books, as if he was trying to make up for the finished one. It was when Capote was forced to face the fact that apart from not being honest with the others, he was never honest with himself. Nell Harper Lee-with the quiet force of Catherine Kinear’s performance- was the one to carry this bitter message to him.
-I couldn’t have done anything to save them.
-Maybe not, Truman. But the truth is, you didn’t want to.