Barnes & Noble

Philip Seymour Hoffman capped the 2006 awards season with a well-deserved Academy Award win for his remarkable portrayal of writer Truman Capote in this mesmerizing drama, one of the previous year's best movies. Set in the period during which Capote -- the celebrated author of Breakfast at Tiffany's -- researched and wrote his chilling account of a Kansas family's brutal murder by “thrill killers” Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, the film paints an unflattering picture of its subject, who for many years was an A-list party guest, raconteur, bon vivant, and darling of New York's literary set. Dan Futterman's screenplay doesn't attempt to obscure the fact that Capone ruthlessly exploited and manipulated everyone around him -- including Smith, whom he befriended and pretended to represent to the outside world -- to get the story he knew would be his crowning achievement. That even included his loyal friend Harper Lee (Catherine Keener) and his patient lover Jack Dunphy (Bruce Greenwood), who sacrificed much to help Truman achieve his goal. Although the burly Hoffman isn't at all physically suited to play the diminutive author, he so fully submerges himself into the role that he is able to convey Capote's essence with uncanny accuracy. He nails the superficial characteristics -- mincing speech, fluttery hand gestures, and a supercilious manner -- but also gets under the writer's skin, revealing the profound self-loathing and deep-rooted insecurity that compelled Capote to dismiss or reject those who cared about him most. Hoffman's performance would be a thing worth marveling at even if it appeared in a mediocre motion picture; that it further distinguishes such a spellbinding drama makes it all the more irresistible. Ed Hulse

All Movie Guide

The creation of one of the most memorable books of the 1960s -- and the impact the writing and research would have on its author -- is explored in this drama based on a true story. In 1959, Truman Capote (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) was a critically acclaimed novelist who had earned a small degree of celebrity for his work when he read a short newspaper item about a multiple murder in a small Kansas town. For some reason, the story fascinated Capote, and he asked William Shawn (Bob Balaban), his editor at The New Yorker, to let him write a piece about the case. Capote had long believed that in the right hands, a true story could be molded into a tale as compelling as any fiction, and he believed this event, in which the brutal and unimaginable was visited upon a community where it was least expected, could be just the right material. Capote traveled to Kansas with his close friend Harper Lee (Catherine Keener), herself becoming a major literary figure with the success of To Kill a Mockingbird, and while Capote's effete and mannered personal style stuck out like a sore thumb in Kansas, in time he gained the trust of Alvin Dewey (Chris Cooper), the Kansas Bureau of Investigation agent investigating the murder of the Clutter family, and with his help Capote's magazine piece grew into a full-length book. Capote also became familiar with the petty criminals who killed the Clutter family, Dick Hickock (Mark Pellegrino) and Perry Smith (Clifton Collins Jr.), and in Smith he found a troubling kindred spirit more like himself than he wanted to admit. After attaining a sort of friendship with Smith under the assumption that the man would be executed before the book was ever published, Capote finds himself forced to directly confront the moral implications of his actions with regards to both his role in the man's death, and the way that he would be remembered. Capote also co-stars Bruce Greenwood as Capote's longtime companion Jack Dunphy, and Amy Ryan as Mary Dewey, Alvin's wife who became a confidante of Capote's. Mark Deming

Product Details

• UPC: 043396126480
• Source: SONY PICTURES
• Region Code: 1
• Presentation: Wide Screen
• Sound: Dolby AC-3 Surround Sound
• Language: Français
• Time: 1:54:00
• Sales Rank: 1,956

This DVD is also available as part of a box set:

• Capote / Pollock
• Capote/in Cold Blood

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