Posted by Gunther Gloop on 02/28/06 17:41

Tricky Dicky wrote:
> Just finished watching it. I was surprised to say the least by the
> denoument but in reflection it was the only ending that could be
> possible. In any other year it would have swept the oscars but
> unfortunately we have Capote as well
>

I saw Capote yesterday and I think it illustrates a point I was making
earlier in this thread...


Take "Dead Man Walking". On the whole, I thought it was an alright movie. I
liked the fact that it wasn't saying "this man is innocent" in order to get
its point across.
But still, it cranked up the audience-manipulation and in the end missed the
opportunity by being so one-sided and fingerwaggerly.

Now take Capote. It's not about judging a person or an event. It's not about
taking sides, or swaying a particular point-of-view one way or another.

It's an unbiased presentation of the story. It contains complex (though not
complicated) thoughts and emotions and points-of-view. It has people that do
very bad things in different ways.
It also shows these individuals as _real_ 3-dimensional people. They're not
all bad. They are far from all-good.

There is no "accepted viewpoint". In my opinion, this marks Capote as a
superior film. I'd love a little bit more insight into the main characters
(and their wider-circles), but that's not really what this movie is about,
so I'll just sit in hope that a dvd special will fill in those gaps for me
(out on the 14th of March on R1 I believe! -not sure of the quality of
extras though)


....Apart from Philip Seymour Hoffman, I doubt it'll win too many other
Oscars though. It's too subtle for that.

-Kevin.

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