**Warning: Do not read this entry if you have not seen Capote and plan on doing so**


Last night I saw the film Capote at the Carolina Theatre in Durham. Capote follows Truman's personal life and writing from the time he learns of the Clutter murders* to the execution of the perpetrators. Near the beginning of the film, Truman makes a seemingly sincere effort to befriend one of the killers, Perry Smith, by visiting him frequently and finding both of the men new lawyers. As the appeal process lengthens and Truman begins to receive laud for his unpublished nonfiction novel describing the murders, In Cold Blood, he slowly abandons Perry and becomes impatient for the process to end. Throughout this transition and even after the execution, Capote lies to Perry, his lifetime friend Harper Lee, and himself, trying to hold the contradiction of befriending a man whose demise he sees as necessary for the novel's success. His deceptions are so natural I wondered whether he understood his motivations or even whether he knew he was lying at all. Unfortunately, even though it was fantastic, this film continued the tradition of me leaving the Carolina feeling crappy. Luckily for me there was a Monty Python Marathon (Pythonathon) on BBC America later on.


*Here's a link to a press release about the murders, trial, and sentencing.
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/1960/mar/30/clutter_murders_sentenced/ Briefly, 4 of the Clutters were bound and shot in their rural Kansas home by two men. The killers had been falsely informed that there was a safe containing thousands of dollars in the house.