Other Voices, Other Rooms (1995) User Reviews

A misfire but not without its moments

[BrentCarleton · 5/10 · 18 January 2009]

For inexplicable reasons, the scenarists of this film decided to remove those very phantasmogorical qualities that permeate Capote's novel, and lift it from a mundane portrait of a depression child sent to live with distant relatives in a crumbling plantation house.

Moreover, there are casting problems. Lothaire Bluteau is excellent as Cousin Randolph as is Anna Levine as Amy. Both seem to have drunk deeply of the absinthe of Southern Gothic, and move with assured melancholy within the dusty shadows of Skully's Landing.

There is just one serious problem with the duo: they are way too young. Thus, what possible meaning can Amy's dialog: ("Cousin Randolph--when are the good times going to come back? Can you make them come back?") mean when they are exchanged between two very good looking people under forty?! The whole premise of some 25 or 30 years having passed since they were abandoned by their former glories is undercut, and we are left to scratch our heads as to what these two relative youngsters are doing sequestered away in this moldering mansion.

April Turner as the negress servant "Zoo" is politically correctified beyond either recognition or any connection with Capote's conception of her, and her characterization consists in little more than being an updated and very sit-comish "Aunt Jemima" type.

The central character of Joel on which the whole story pivots, is so important that one is just dumbfounded at the mis-casting of David Speck in the role. Master Speck is an attractive youngster, and he would have been just the candidate if Disney were doing a remake of "Old Yeller".

But he is badly out of place here, failing to convey Joel's poetical, quasi-mystical psychic drift with his matter of fact, mono-tonal line readings, which convince one that the director Rocksavage gave him no understanding of the character.

These demerits, when compounded by the complete absence of Joel's illness/delirium (which forms such a key piece of the novel's climax)in which the sinister carnival midget, Miss Wisteria seeks Joel out at the mansion, thoroughly cripple the piece. (What marvelous visuals this sequence might have made for--but alas, we'll never know.) More's the pity too, for the physical production in on the mark, with outstanding art direction evidenced in the decadent Sully mansion. Mr. Capote's more tolerant fans may still find enough of interest, here, however, to warrant a viewing.

Wrongly deformed adaptation of Capote masterpiece

[pmullinsj · 14 April 2004]

(I say "wrongly deformed," because Capote often was attracted to deformed things, carnival freaks, monstrous children and more; by "wrongly deformed" I mean purposelessly destroyed.)

This is the kind of adaptation that one could forgive even still in the early 60's, as in the endings of SUMMER AND SMOKE or BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S, complete untrue to the whole meaning of the original.

But in 1997 it is just a disgrace that such a gross deformity would be made when the chance was really there. Whatever had been said about any problems with the cast are still minor. If M. Bluteau is not perfect, that is not very important. He was fine, as far as it went, even if he wasn't the older, fleshy Randolph that was clearly Capote's Randolph.

Before viewing this, I was able to tell from the cast list that probably one of the most quintessentially Capote scenes had been omitted. When Joel and Idabel run away to the travelling carnival, they actually get to the carnival and meet the lonely, pretty older midget Miss Wisteria, who fondles Joel on a ferris wheel ride. Later, in a storm Miss Wisteria searches for Joel,still desperately stalking him sexually, needing a boy to match her smallness that grown normal men cannot stay with. She cannot find him in the drafty old house,as she calls out "Little boy! Little boy!" and he is later found cold and passed out, and taken home for a rather lengthy recuperation. In the meantime, Idabel herself has fallen in love with Miss Wisteria and Joel gradually begins to turn away from the sentimental charm of the exoticism of the rural South and his fondness for his tomboy pal Idabel; and to find himself drawn to the elegant exoticism of the world-weary homosexual Cousin Randolph.

This was very radical stuff when it came out, and still is: You see the bridge between two cultures that Joel decides to cross as had Capote before him himself had done, now remembering it. At least it is radical insofar as it is a delicate matter that is of the essence of Capote but that he does not address again, perhaps because he had executed it so thoroughly this first time.

In this treatment, Joel's breakdown is done via a snakebite quickly administered in crossing a muddy stream before Joel and Idabel can even get near town--I thought for a brief moment that there were just some uncredited players when the Joel narrator does say that he and Idabel will go off to join this carnival, but that was quickly dashed by this CHEAP snakebite cop-out; I wouldn't be surprised if the snakebite weren't some kind of "saviour" from something much worse in these inept creators' minds. In any case, this is how he goes home and we never meet the haunting Miss Wisteria.

The carnival scene and its immediate aftermath in the abandoned house was one of Capote's most evocative passages--he had a special fondness for carnival people--and this alone proved that something would be as badly gone wrong as the commentary in 1997 indicated.

That the follow-up distortions would completely ruin everything the novel stood for was NOT something I could have predicted.

For about 15 minutes, the movie is beautiful, very much in the spirit of Capote's Alabama (though filmed in South Carolina). The scene at the country store where Jesus Fever has come to take him to Skully's Landing is excellent, as are the first few scenes in the house: All the scenes with Joel (David Speck) and Zoo Fever (April Turner) are golden; they are like the similar scenes in THE GRASS HARP, an infinitely better film of a far less important Capote work. However, tomboy Idabel is not sufficiently embodied by Aubrey Dollar at all. Elizabeth Byler as her more feminine sister is much better cast, with a real Southern accent.

This is the novel that brought Capote enormous success, that made him world-famous--and he never came close to equalling it again. He became absorbed in celebrity. He had written a story that was almost like an impossible modulation from a country Gospel song into a Mozart opera (or at least Sonata or early Symphony). It was too perfect to be followed up, and it never really was. OTHER VOICES, OTHER ROOMS had something that no other novel has ever had: that peculiar alternation of a combination and differentiation of the exotic and elegant, making new definitions of what those have been, are, and can be.

For years, I had thought it incredible that OTHER VOICES,OTHER ROOMS had never been adapted, and also thought how horrified Capote had so often been by the various adaptations of his work: It seems that at least he was pleased with some of the songs he and Harold Arlen wrote for the Broadway musical of his story HOUSE OF FLOWERS. But it was usually a matter of messes--wrong casting (to his mind) in the film of BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S, a disastrous Broadway musical adaptation of the same story with Mary Tyler Moore. There were some fine numbers in the Broadway THE GRASS HARP (provided by Karen Morrow primarily), even though it, too, was a flop.

At least the film of THE GRASS HARP conveyed much of what that simple story had been intended to--but while fine actors like Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie made this a gem, the subject matter wasn't controversial and likely to offend.

The homosexual themes of OTHER VOICES, OTHER ROOMS are just circled around and skirted nervously--as if the filmmakers were already mystified audience members, or amateurs putting on something prestigious for a puritanical small-town audience. What sometimes emerges--whoever is in charge of what decisions, be it director, star, or writer(s), the whole system of points you can find explained by John Gregory Dunne--can be just abysmal, as in the ridiculous tacking on of one plot line fragment to a completely unrelated story thread as in LA CONFIDENTIAL. There, additionally, the most important crime theme, the smut racket, is simply omitted--the result is a terrible movie, but it doesn't matter so much.

However, it is a serious artistic offense when finally a really important piece of literature like Capote's masterpiece is about to become visualized on film--and is trashed to such a degree that it is literally an example of artistic incontinence.

Awful....except Randolph

[operaghost7 · 2/10 · 19 December 2011]

This movie was absolutely disappointing. I loved Truman Capote's book. It is probably one of my favourite books and this movie was awful. They completely changed the ending from Joel staying with Randolph at the Landing to his running away. I was so confused. He was supposed to stay with randolph! 95% of the acting was awful. Joel was OK. Idabel was awful. She is supposed to be really skinny....not fat....... and she was too old. They completely cut out the part at the fair and when their mule kills itself at Little Sunshine's Hotel (which was my favourite part of the book). There was one good thing about this movie: Randolph. The actor was perfect. Perfect. He was exactly how I imagined him. Also I loved all of his robes and his accent was beautiful. THis movie could have been so much better....

Early Truman Capote work finally makes its way to film and video

[gonz30 · 8/10 · 5 April 2000]

OTHER VOICES, OTHER ROOMS was Truman Capote's first novel. It was later adapted for the stage, and a few years ago, finally made into a film obviously destined to video. Since the film's final format appears to have been known from day one, it is no wonder it has the feel of a TV movie. This is fine, since now it is the way you are going to see it, and on PAL video only, almost three years after its initial release. This typically Capote Southern Gothic drama set in the 30's, is about a young man played by David Speck who goes in search of his ailing father. The father is being cared for by an eccentric pair of cousins, Anne Thomson and an outrageous Lothaire Bluteau. Bluteau, (Jesus of Montreal, Bent,) arguably Canada's best character actor, tackles another challenging role successfully, and is in my opinion the only reason to see this film other than the Capote curiosity factor. The Quebecois actor, whose fluent English has nevertheless always sported his Quebec origins, has difficulties with a Southern accent. But his ample acting abilities and over the top characterization of what is best described as a male Blanche Dubois, still bring the most appealing aspects of this film to life.

SPOILERS HEREIN: Ending discussed at length. Do not read if this is a problem

[pmullinsj · 10 May 2004]

It is well-known that the novel OTHER VOICES, OTHER ROOMS ends with Joel's choice FOR Randolph, NOT against him, although this unbelievably coarse film relates the latter for the Sunday School set, for the Christian Right, for all the other graceless bigots.

Joel knew about Randolph's accidental shooting of his father, now lying up in the bedroom and nursed by Zoo Fever, BEFORE they go to the beautiful old ruin that is the Cloud Hotel--where Little Sunshine lives. He never held that against him, nor did he hold against him the fact that Randolph had taken him to the Cloud Hotel because he knew that Ellen had come from New Orleans looking for him. On the next to last page, Joel's thoughts turn toward the cynical regarding Ellen Kendall: "But Ellen had never answered his letters. [It's beside the point that Amy and Randolph had made sure the letters never arrived.] The hell with her. He didn't care any more. His own bloodkin. And she'd made so many promises. And she'd said she loved him..."

In the film, when Randolph and Joel get back, it is only then that Amy announces to Joel about Randolph: "He shot him!" And then this absurd series of movements--Joel throwing out the favourite things Ellen had brought him, Joel packing up, Joel telling Randolph "I loved you!" quickly followed by "I hate you!" and saying that Pepe Alvarez (the boxer for whom Randolph had become an 18th century countess at a Mardi Gras ball--the moment that Randolph has chosen to prize above all memories as he sends letters out to Pepe every day to all parts of the globe...) could by now only see him as a "ghost" were he to come back, by some miraculous chance; and climaxed by Joel's leaving the place in full view of Randolph who moans "Don't go, don't go."

Why anyone would make this movie like this is completely beyond me.

Joel GOES to join the "queer lady" in the window at the end.

Joel does not leave Skully's Landing.

He goes back to the house, having chosen homosexuality.

Yeah, he's pretty young, that's a fact. But THAT is what he does, whether you like it or not.

He is going to be as Pepe as he possibly can for Randolph.

He's going to COMFORT him.

It has to be because Rocksavage wanted to save Joel from the "fate" that is the whole point of the book. In this case, why not just make a film about a sexual predator and a young boy who manages to escape him--a young boy who escapes him because he does NOT want to have sex with Randolph.

Joel DOES want to have sex with Randolph and is going upstairs to do so.

*********************************************************************

In the novel, after Randolph, who has gotten quite drunk coming back from the Cloud Hotel, has gone back in the house, Joel stays outside in the stillness of the summery garden.

The whole passage is worth quoting to anybody who doubts that Joel made the choice FOR Randolph and not AGAINST him (or they can look at Gerald Clarke's biography of Capote).

"A sound, as if the bell had suddenly tolled, and the shape of loneliness, greenly iridescent, whitely indefinite, seemed to rise from the garden, and Joel, as though following a kite, bent back his head: clouds were coming ove the sun: he waited for them to pass, thinking that when they had, when he looked back, some magic would have taken place: perhaps he would find himself sitting on the curb of St. Deval Street, or studying next week's attractions outside the Nemo: why not? it was possible, for everywhere the sky is the same and it is down that things are different. The clouds traveled slower than a clock's hands, and as he waited, became thunder-dark, became John Brown and horrid boys in panama hats and the Cloud Hotel and Idabel's old hound, and when they were gone, Mr Sansom was the sun. He looked down. No magic had happened; yet something had happened; or was about to. And he sat numb with apprehension. Before him stood a rose stalk throwing shadow like a sun-dial: an hour traced itself, another, the line of dark dissolved, all the garden began to mingle, move.

"It was as if he had been counting in his head and, arriving at a number, decided through certain intuitions, thought: now. For, quite abruptly, he stood up and raised his eyes level with the Landing's windows.

"His mind was absolutely clear. He was like a camera waiting for its subject to enter focus. the wall yellowed in the meticulous setting of the October sun, and the windows were rippling mirrors of cold, seasonal color. Beyond one, someone was watching him. All of him was dumb except his eyes. They knew. And it was Randolph's window. Gradually the blinding sunset drained from the glass, darkened, and it was as if snow were falling there, flakes shaping snow-eyes, hair: a face trembled like a white beautiful moth, smiled. She beckoned to him, shining and silver, and he knew he must go: unafraid, not hesitating, he paused only at the garden's edge where, as though he'd forgotten something, he stopped and looked back at the bloomless, descending blue, at the boy he had left behind."

It seems almost conceivable that Rocksavage and Flanigan may have thought that "he knew he must go" meant that he would, in fact, need to vacate the premises since he had made the assessment that he was in grave danger; that perhaps they may have needed the text to read "he knew he must go to her" for them to know for sure what the text meant. That cannot have been the case; this has to be that they wanted to make one of the most original stories in all of American literature a "morality play" about a sexual predator--they had to know they were destroying everything Capote's work had stood for. Astonishing that they would bother with all the trouble and money for something this appalling.

I have quoted the entire passage because the only other possibilities are "the garden's edge" and "looked back at the bloomless, descending blue" that could have involved some literal working-on of the minutiae of the "set," as it were, in the text. Clearly, he had been just outside the garden, and was going in, clearly the "bloomless blue" is finally to be seen on all sides at sundown, as easily looking back from the house as toward it..in any case, Joel wouldn't have left that night in the novel with not a thing of his own on his person and defied the odds of a dark Southern swamp at night...

..and anyway, this is not Robbe-Grillet, where the same stairway can lead to any number of different rooms, full of drug dealers, full of a dead prostitute on a bed, now in the wrong room; or a pier that is the same one but that is sometimes composed of several planes, sometimes just one; or a cord in the pocket that has been lost (definitely lost) and is then there again (without having been found; or an Oriental commercial wrapper of some item or pack of cigarettes which keeps reappearing with exactly the same properties in highly differentiated places and lines of plot completely antagonistic to each other.

We know this, we just want to point out AD INFINITUM that this kind of usage of a classic text is symptomatic of the very worst dishonesty in all of world culture today. I appointed myself to point it out here, since this novel is sacred to me (there are only a handful of really good hardcore homosexual novels, and Jean Genet did a few of the others), but it is by no means an isolated incident of artistic obscenity.

George Davis hilariously told Capote that "somebody had to write the fairy HUCKLEBERRY FINN." This is funny, because it is as if Randolph's Countess is saying to Joel "Come back to the raf', Huck honey..." but we know that here Foucault's (more than Plato's) "keenest of pleasures" does prepare to occur.

This film is on a level with Trump's THE APPRENTICE.

A lot of people would rather hear Joel say to Randolph "YOU'RE FIRED!" than face the fact that he went up the stairs afterward with something a lot more like "TELL ME HOW YOU WANT ME TO GIVE IT TO YOU, BABY..."

Confusing and too jumpy...

[bkn6006-1 · 22 January 2006]

...and especially disastrous if you've read the story already.

Everyone who sees the name "Truman Capote" is already braced for impact, so to say, that something strange and/or awful is going to happen, and probably to the boy in the stories. With that in mind, why is it so impossible for anyone to make a movie - whether of a Capote work or not - that stays true enough to the story to not offend the viewers/readers? As for the actors, I was ready to strangle Miss Amy right after "meeting" her. Zoo, Randolph, and the rest were OK. Speck as Joel was watchable, almost appearing as if he were waiting for his chance to act - and never got it. What he did get, as far as script and direction, obviously, he did well with. One can only imagine the scenes so carefully avoided, and how he could have done those. And what of the relationship with Randolph and Joel? I kept waiting for the obvious to be stated - that he wanted the boy there not only to atone for what he had done wrong...but probably to do MORE wrong things.

That never happened.

Children get molested every day. A lot of the viewers were probably molested as children. A lot of us were, no doubt, put through worse when we were Capote's age in this tale. The film makers would not have had to have a full blown-nude-rape scene; they could have "filmed around that" and still had the carnival and Miss Wisteria, and strongly implied that she was after him.

Also, the timeline of Capote's recollections is confusing, when compared to "A Christmas MEMORY, THE THANKSGIVING VISITOR, and ONE Christmas." By this age, the boy should have been in a military school already. However, it could be a stretch in the semi-autobiographical sense, and I simply misinterpret.

But with an episode like this in his life, is it any wonder that he turned out the way he did? The closest thing I can compare this film to in the area of mangling a book by turning it into a movie is to compare it to Spielber's "AI" with Haley Joel Osment as a robot boy. I'm sure both Stanley Kubrick and Truman Capote went spinning in their graves after these films were made.

My only advice - watch the film, re-read the story, and use that to create your own film in your head.