Brooke Derin
Mrs. White
CP English- pd 2
Capote vs. In Cold Blood (hard cover)
In Capote’s non-fiction novel In Cold Blood we never hear of him himself being mentioned. We never even learn his name, who he is, or where he is from. Truman uses a third person limited point of view during his narrative. On the other hand, the film Capote, by Bennett Miller takes a different road. We learn Capote’s story of In Cold Blood through a first person point of view. Throughout the film Capote we experience a type of closeness and relationship with him through the first person point of view. The film and book should be both viewed and read in order for one to see the difference in the emotional attachments between Perry, Dewey and his family, and Truman.
During the movie we learn most of our information about Perry through Capote visiting him in his cell and his investigations. We watch how when Capote hears how Perry will officially be put to death, he breaks down to the point where he won’t answer or talk on the phone, not even to his best friend, Harper Lee. He would just lay in the hotel room bed sobbing in a daze. This scene shows us how attached he has become to Perry emotionally. In the book we see this emotional attachment through a few people, one being Ms. Meier. She speaks of Perry after he has been sentenced to the death penalty, “...I shut myself in the kitchen to keep from having to see him” (Capote 308). Although we do see the attachment with Truman, we see it through another character. We don’t see her sorrow in the movie towards Perry, but we see it in the book instead of seeing it from Capote himself who actually experienced it. That’s not the only difference we see.
When reading, we don’t have as strong of a connection with Capote in his book. An outside source says, “Capote’s ambivalence about Smith and Hickock and the agonizing turmoil it wreaks on his life is the major plot line throughout the film” (Gibbons). This statement is completely true. The movie shows how close Capote becomes with Perry throughout this whole fiasco. Although Capote knows how much of a criminal Perry is and how cruel his actions were, he still becomes close when listening to his story and almost seems extremely sympathetic towards him. In the book we don’t see any of the characters become close with neither Perry or Dick on the level Truman does in the book.
The last huge difference between the movie and the book is the fact that in the movie, Capote and Harper Lee both become extremely close with Alvin Dewey and his family. Harper Lee is actually not even mentioned in the book In Cold Blood just as Capote is not, though she is a huge part in the movie and Truman’s best friend and partner during the investigating. Dewey, during In Cold Blood, speaks to his wife, “The name Clutter has to hit them like a hammer, a blow they never knew was coming” (Capote 213). Here we see how Dewey is talking to his family about everything involving Perry and Dick, but in the movie Dewey actually speaks to Lee and Truman as he and his family invite them over to dinner. The family acts as though they have known the two strangers for a while by welcoming them and treating them well in their home. The reader does not see the closeness between Dewey and the two writers, or the information they share, or the dinner scene. The reader does not come to realize how much Dewey actually made an impact on the both of them.
There are many differences between point of view In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, and the movie Capote by Bennett Miller. Although they both show great detail and suspense the movie brings readers closer to Truman. We never get to meet the great author through his book, where as in the movie we get to follow him through his journey with these two mysterious, yet almost friendly, killers.
Works Cited
Capote, Truman. In Cold Blood. New York
Gibbons, Phil. “Capote vs. Capote .” FAIR . May First Technology Collective , n.d. Web. 9 Feb. 2012 . <http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2880>.
