By Armond White

Infamous

Directed by Douglas McGrath

It is rare for a new movie to correct conventional wisdom, but Infamous—the new biopic about writer Truman Capote—does just that. Director/screenwriter Douglas McGrath observes a literary celebrity’s life with fidelity to history and with genuine compassion. This sane, generous, very entertaining perspective also sets the movie universe back on course. And if there is any justice in that universe, Infamous will eclipse last year’s obnoxious Philip Seymour Hoffman vehicle. 

McGrath’s approach to Capote’s ironic rise and fall following the 1965 publication of In Cold Blood begins with a scrupulous consideration of New York’s post-WWII literary elite; the world that Capote, a diminutive gay, Southern-bred dilettante and artist, crashed and conquered. Respect for that achievement vies with McGrath’s disciplined social sense. From the opening scene, McGrath undercuts upper class glamour with emotional truth: Capote (played by Toby Jones) and socialite Babe Paley (Sigourney Weaver) enter a Manhattan cabaret where their soigné lifestyle is temporarily jarred by the barely controlled pathos of a lounge singer faking a too-cool rendition of “What Is This Thing Called Love?” This theme announcement would seem blatant if that was all McGrath was interested in; but as his 2002 Nicholas Nickleby showed, he’s a deft, morally conscious filmmaker and instantaneously catches us up in both the allure that dazzles Capote and the utter soul-satisfaction that eluded him.

Infamous is about much more than the price of fame, yet it’s hard to recall another movie that understood the price of fame so wittily. McGrath isn’t stymied by the moral issue of Capote’s exploition of the 1959 Clutter family murder in Kansas; he automatically accepts the world of expropriation and privilege and the prerogatives of wealth and talent—even satirizing its eccentricities. As the famous personages parade by and Capote himself drops legendary names to win attention and favor, McGrath reveals that this clique, with its martini manners, is not exempt from anxiety or compromise. The coterie’s familiarity with feigned love and affected friendships are what moved Capote beyond idle curiosity to pursue a gruesome newspaper item about murder in the Midwest. It’s his natural tendency to become intellectually and emotionally invested in the Kansas tragedy. Capote seduces the killers, Perry Smith and Dick Hickok, using the same platonic wiles practiced on Fifth Avenue matrons; and experiences asimilar—perhaps deeper—commiseration.

Capote’s gadabout behavior lends insouciance to the film’s first half but McGrath’s intentions are not flighty. He has the nonjudgmental wit to understand the humanity at the core of Capote’s blithe behavior. Among the rich female confidantes Capote calls his “swans”—Paley, Slim Keith, Diana Vreeland, Marella Agnelli—little Capote suggests a precocious child aiming to impress the guests at an adult’s dinner party. In spite of the comical visual contrast, their relationships are symbiotic. They share wryness; enjoying each other’s company helps exceed their gender-based limits as social arbiters and spouses. Capote, as gay male friend, is both surrogate husband and alter ego. Even Capote’s companionship with Jack Dunphy (John Benjamin Hickey) is handled intelligently; McGrath uses Dunphy’s more masculine demeanor as a presentiment of Perry Smith’s male magnetism. (Daniel Craig gives Smith’s troubled virility a coiled, “tradey,” sensitivity.)

The difference between Infamous and last year’s Capote is the difference between feeling and sophistication. Hoffman and his writer, director team Dan Futterman and Bennett Miller took pride in loathing Capote (a subtle, culturally accepted homophobia). They built their bad-art, Oscar-nominated reputations on Capote’s dead body while sneering that Capote had built his literary reputation on the deaths of Smith, Hickok and the Clutter family. It was an arrogant indie attempt at seeming superior to an artist of an earlier era. (There are Hitler biopics more compassionate than Capote.) This contempt gave itself away in the film’s pseudo-sophisticated literary exposé. But condemnation of Capote’s careerism actually reflected Hoffman’s own gloating egotism, his look-at-me stunt performance. 

Toby Jones’ impish impersonation captures Capote’s scamp quality, yet grows into a magnanimous, empathetic portrait. (He wonders if the Kansans who mistake him for a woman are just being mean.) Uncanny is the word. McGrath spotlights Capote’s rapport with others—Sandra Bullock, as best friend Harper Lee, conveys an innate loyalty preferable to the always snarky Catherine Keener; Jeff Daniels as Kansas cop Alvin Dewey masterfully shifts from distaste to distanced admiration. And the tall great ladies (played by Weaver, Hope Davis, Juliet Stevenson and Isabella Rossellini) are appropriately iconic. They’re like sequoias decked in haute couture. This awed conviviality makes Infamous a deep, dark look at bonhomie and yet, one of the film’s high points has everybody dancing the Twist. 

McGrath isn’t merely nostalgic; Infamous works double-time as a cultural and personal analysis. McGrath uses fame and the past to stylize the mechanics of ambition and sexuality. From glowing, red-walled Manhattan drawing rooms to the numinous jail-cell flashbacks—this is a thorough deconstruction of post-War Wasp Americana. Capote’s symbiosis with Perry’s pathetic childhood and racked maturity are credible without being made suspect. This Capote is defined by the search for his own humanity (and Perry’s), not by Hoffman’s brazen opportunism. 

Producer Christine Vachon’s penchant for structuralist tropes and political entitlement (Swoon, Boys Don’t Cry, Velvet Goldmine) often led to detestable distortions of history. But McGrath’s humanism, directorial verve and intelligent interpretation of In Cold Blood, redeems her academism. Infamous is the finest movie to come from her Killer Films outfit. Vachon showed courage in persevering with this Capote project in the face of last year’s vast public con job. Hoffman’s film wanted audiences to pat themselves on the back for appreciating its obviousness and snideness. Save the applause for McGrath and Vachon. Their biopic may or may not be “truth,” but it has the believable ache—and uplift—of good art.