Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Venice diary – 'Infamous' review
Dave Calhoun gives his opinion on the second Truman Capote film of the year.
Aug 31 2006
You have to feel sorry for the makers of 'Infamous', the second film about Truman Capote to emerge in less than a year. The cameras rolled on 'Infamous' - which stars British stage actor Toby Jones as the effete novelist and Bond-to-be Daniel Craig as murderer Perry Smith - around the same time as 'Capote', which, as we all know, granted Philip Seymour Hoffman the Oscar and film-goers everywhere temporary licence to exit the cinema with their feet slightly closer together than when they entered. 'Capote' took the glory; 'Infamous' took to the shelf.
Now, 'Infamous' has opened the 'Orizzonti' strand of the Venice Film Festival, and the good news is that it's not a bad effort; Jones rivals Hoffman for intelligent mimicry and the film's reliance on the first-person testimonies of George Plimpton's biography (which allows for amusing talking-head turns from Sigourney Weaver, Peter Bogdanovich and Hope Davis, among others) offers a sparky insight into Capote's rarefied
social world.
The bad news, though, is that 'Infamous', in its focus on the writing of 'In Cold Blood' and Capote's ambiguous, varied motives for completing that work, is in many ways a carbon copy of the concerns and themes of 'Capote'. Worse, it doesn't handle those same concerns as well as its predecessor. All this, of course, is the fault largely of coincidence (the two scripts were written independently and without prior knowledge of each other's existence), but 'Infamous' still remains a work that is largely redundant.
Which is not to say that 'Infamous' is not enjoyable. Its screenplay by writer/director Douglas McGrath is compelling - but it lacks the subtlety of Bennett Miller's ambiguous, precarious treading over this Manhattan socialite's sojourn to the wheat plains and prison corridors of Kansas to write a novel inspired by a news clipping from the New York Times about a pair of cold-blooded killers. McGrath is bolder in his assumptions than Miller: his Capote kisses Smith (and vice versa) when they're alone before the latter's execution. But such boldness is to the film's detriment.
All that was painted grey in 'Capote' becomes black-and-white in 'Infamous'. It's an inferior approach to a character as complicated, as multi-faced as Truman Capote.
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Has David Cronenberg turned tame?
Has director David Cronenberg veered too far from his radical and bloody roots with new film 'A Dangerous Method'?
The 10 worst date movies
Just in time for Valentine's Day, we present ten of the least romantic films ever made
Where to watch this year's Oscar-nominated films
Find out where to watch 2012's Oscar-nominated films in London cinemas
10 unlikely badboy biopics
Featuring Phil Collins, Jeremy Clarkson, Nick Clegg, David Starkey and a host of other unlikely subjects
Interview: Sean Durkin on 'Martha Marcy May Marlene'
The first-time director of the brilliant new thriller discusses religious cults and robot boxing
Pop-up cinema for Valentine's Day
Side-step romantic clichés with some alternative Valentine’s viewing








What do you think?
Post your comment now