Infamous [2006] Douglas McGrath

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Infamous (2006)


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0420609/

Infamous is a 2006 American drama film, based on the 1997 book by George Plimpton, Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career.

It covers the period from the late 1950s through the mid-1960s, during which Truman Capote researched and wrote his bestseller In Cold Blood, a subject covered a year earlier in the film Capote. Capote is played by Toby Jones. The same role in the previous film version earned an Academy Award for actor Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Toby Jones as Truman Capote
Sandra Bullock as Harper Lee
Lee Pace as Richard Hickock
Daniel Craig as Perry Smith
Jeff Daniels as Alvin Dewey
Peter Bogdanovich as Bennett Cerf
Hope Davis as Slim Keith
Isabella Rossellini as Marella Agnelli
Juliet Stevenson as Diana Vreeland
Sigourney Weaver as Babe Paley
Michael Panes as Gore Vidal
John Benjamin Hickey as Jack Dunphy
Gwyneth Paltrow as Kitty Dean

The film's original title alternated between Have You Heard? and Every Word Is True.

The singer portrayed by Gwyneth Paltrow originally was intended to be Peggy Lee. The situation of an audience being held spellbound by a performer falling silent in the middle of a song was based on a real-life nightclub performance by Barbara Cook.

Infamous premiered at the August 2006 Venice Film Festival. It differs from the earlier Capote in that it occasionally breaks away from the Kansas setting to allow Capote's Manhattan society friends and professional acquaintances to comment on and express opinions about him to an unseen interlocutor during mock interviews. It also is more explicit about the romantic feelings Capote and Perry Smith shared.

Infamous illustrates how Capote becomes caught in his own trap. In order for his book to achieve the balance that will make it unique, Smith's viewpoint has to be represented. To get that, Capote must give the convict what Lee describes as "what he wants" - a kindred spirit. For this to happen, Capote must bare his soul. He achieves what he desires, but at a price. He comes to care for Smith to the point where they both wonder if they are doomed soul mates. In the end, Capote becomes conflicted - for his book to have the "proper" ending, the man he loves must die by the hangman's noose.

To interrupt the linear chronology, director Douglas McGrath inserts "talking head" interviews with Capote's contemporaries. It's not clear when these supposed interviews are intended to take place, although it's after Capote's death. The segments provide useful background information while contributing a quasi-documentary feel. It's almost like watching a History Channel biography, where conversations with real people are interspersed with re-creations of scenes from the subject's life.

Since Capote and Infamous were both in production at the same time, it's unfair to label either as the work of a copycat. Superficially, they are so similar, it's almost eerie (and a testament to how fascinating this era of Capote's life is to current filmmakers). It's the differences in approach that makes both movies worth watching on their own terms. Capote is the more intellectual of the two films; Infamous is the more emotional. They exist to complement, not eclipse, one another.