Capote
We have a station around here called "This." It's not just in this area, but it is available without cable (we found out when our cable was down after the tornado two years ago). I think "This" is a bizarre name for a channel, but "This" often shows interesting movies. Unfortunately, it shows ten minutes of movies and then ten minutes of commercials for lawyers who will help clients with Social Security disability and suing medical companies.
Last night, about midnight, Capote came on. I became fascinated and watched almost all of it, despite the ridiculous commercials (after 2:00 a.m. I had had enough). What an excellent movie, and how strange that Hollywood made two movies on the same subject within a year of each other. I am not motivated to watch the other because Capote was so good.
I have not read In Cold Blood but feel motivated to now. Capote is portrayed fully human, sometimes sympathetically, sometimes not, and sometimes as nothing but a user. He helps the killers from Holcomb, Kansas, get better legal counsel to stay alive, but why? To use them for research for his book. He is vain and of course annoyingly effeminate. There's effeminate and then there's effeminate. I vaguely remember seeing Capote on TV when I was a child. He would show up on Dick Cavett, a little man with a high pitched voice wearing an ascot or scarf and a hat inside. Dill grown up and allowed to be what he was. It is in those moments when we remember he is Harper Lee's Dill that he is sympathetic.
So one finishes the movie wondering about the ethics of using killers for one's own career purposes. The killers are human beings, after all, despite their crimes. Do criminals have a right to be treated as humans? Yes, and only if we see them as fully human is it right to punish them, because only when people are fully human are they responsible.
Last night, about midnight, Capote came on. I became fascinated and watched almost all of it, despite the ridiculous commercials (after 2:00 a.m. I had had enough). What an excellent movie, and how strange that Hollywood made two movies on the same subject within a year of each other. I am not motivated to watch the other because Capote was so good.
I have not read In Cold Blood but feel motivated to now. Capote is portrayed fully human, sometimes sympathetically, sometimes not, and sometimes as nothing but a user. He helps the killers from Holcomb, Kansas, get better legal counsel to stay alive, but why? To use them for research for his book. He is vain and of course annoyingly effeminate. There's effeminate and then there's effeminate. I vaguely remember seeing Capote on TV when I was a child. He would show up on Dick Cavett, a little man with a high pitched voice wearing an ascot or scarf and a hat inside. Dill grown up and allowed to be what he was. It is in those moments when we remember he is Harper Lee's Dill that he is sympathetic.
So one finishes the movie wondering about the ethics of using killers for one's own career purposes. The killers are human beings, after all, despite their crimes. Do criminals have a right to be treated as humans? Yes, and only if we see them as fully human is it right to punish them, because only when people are fully human are they responsible.
Comments