Synopsis:
CAPOTE: Bennett Miller's CAPOTE is a finely crafted biopic that recounts a historic chapter in American history and, in the process, captures the unraveling of a truly gifted mind. Starring an...
CAPOTE: Bennett Miller's CAPOTE is a finely crafted biopic that recounts a historic chapter in American history and, in the process, captures the unraveling of a truly gifted mind. Starring an extraordinary Philip Seymour Hoffman as the legendary Truman Capote, the film concentrates on the seven-year period during which Capote wrote his groundbreaking nonfiction novel, IN COLD BLOOD. One morning in 1959, Capote learned of a horrific family killing in Holcomb, Kansas. With the intention of writing an article for the New Yorker, he traveled to the Midwest with his good friend Nell Harper Lee (Catherine Keener), who was about to publish her own masterwork, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. Somehow, the soft-spoken, eccentric writer managed to earn the trust of local authorities--most notably, reserved K.B.I. agent Alvin Dewey (Chris Cooper). But when the two killers were caught and returned to Kansas to await trial, Capote began to form an intense emotional bond with one of them, Perry Smith (Clifton Collins, Jr.). The pressure of this connection threatened to push an already fragile Capote into the darkest recesses of himself. His only hope was to finish the book that he was convinced would shock the nation and change the course of writing forever.
Hoffman's tender portrayal of the writer is a remarkable achievement. He slips into the skin of Capote flawlessly, allowing viewers to experience Capote's inner turmoil for themselves. Keener and Cooper once again deliver compassionate performances. But it is Miller's overall vision, based on a script by Dan Futterman and beautifully realized by his technical collaborators (especially director of photography Adam Kimmel and production designer Jess Gonchor), that makes CAPOTE an Oscar-worthy production.
POLLOCK: Ed Harris's POLLOCK is a moving portrait of artist Jackson Pollock, an abstract expressionist painter whose work had major influence on the modern art movement. Pollock was also a serious alcoholic, and was married to Lee Krasner, another prominent painter. The film records Pollock's rise to fame in the last 15 years of his life, and his subsequent surrender to the bottle, which brought about his death in 1956. In its best moments, POLLOCK shows Krasner (a strong, dynamic, and fascinating Marcia Gay Harden) and Pollock (a stern Harris) conversing about the progression of the modern art movement while criticizing each other's work from their adjoining studios in a tiny apartment in Manhattan's East Village. Other highlights of the film include a handful of high-energy painting sequences that demonstrate Pollock's technique--the fluid straight-from-the-tube strokes of his earlier work and the more radical "action painting" (throwing, drizzling, and splattering the paint from brush to canvas) in his later works. There are also amusing depictions of the New York and Long Island art worlds with Peggy Guggenheim (Amy Madigan), Clement Greenberg (Jeffrey Tambor), Willem de Kooning (Val Kilmer), and Howard Putzel (Bud Cort) in the major roles. Based on the biography JACKSON POLLOCK: AN AMERICAN SAGA by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, the film has an uplifting musical score and a soundtrack that includes some of Pollock's favorite jazz-blues tunes, both of which are welcome counterpoints to the movie's darker moments.
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