Honestly, this is one of the nastiest, most biased depictions of a historic literary figure that I have seen. After the opening sequence, it starts in a semi-objective manner, but then becomes a cruel character assassination. One thing that particularly disturbed me was the claim that Truman Capote had been urging the authorities to end the stays of execution for Perry Smith and Richard Hickock (the two killers in the book, In Cold Blood). It implies that due to Capote's ambition for publication and success, he threw them under the bus. However, it fails to note that if not for Truman Capote, the pair would have been hung many years before. It is possible that Capote actually wanted the stays of execution to end because he wanted the death sentence to be commuted to a life sentence. Afterall, it was Truman Capote who organized a reputable lawyer to lodge their first appeal. This was a biased production. It made me wonder, who financed The Capote Tapes? I felt that it was homophobic in parts. As if a Gay kid in high school was being rounded on by a group of malicious students, bitter that he'd had the audacity to be a success. At the beginning there are a series of recorded voices commenting on Capote. Two remarks stood out to me.. A man claims: "He was a freak, an absolute freak". A woman's voice quips: "I haven't had a good laugh since he died." - The full series of comments are predominantly spiteful. Those quotes set the standard for what follows...
Review of The Capote Tapes
The Capote Tapes
(2019)
Not A Legitimate Biopic. More A Vicious Character Assassination.
11 July 2023