I swore off blogging for a bit to stay focused, but this I need to talk about.

Just saw Capote. Extraordinary. Especially for a writer. What a gift to get such a glimpse at his process. But . . .

Huge but. But what a cynical take on him. I just don't buy it. He got all those people to open up to him by faking empathy? When he was truly just cold blooded, calculating and entirely manipulative? I guess there are con artists that good out there. I just found it way too hard to swallow.

Now I totally buy that he manipulated people. And that he was routinely conflicted: horrified and saddened, while at the same time at work--he could spot great potential for his own gain at the same moment he experienced great sorrow for them.

But this film showed only half of that equation, hence very little internal conflict. He cared only about himself in this version. Monstrous megalomaniac.

I wrote down CYNICAL! on my note paper about 20 minutes into it. Later I replaced it with cruel. Eventually, comical. Mommy Dearest level ludicrous when he whined that they were torturing him by keeping his alleged friend the killer alive.

Maybe he really was as cold blooded as the killers. But I found that aspect of it exceptionally unconvincing.

And just about everything else about the film pitch perfect. Unfortunately, that was the central conceit.

So I still admire it greatly, with one gigantic reservation.

Mark it a deeply flawed masterpiece.

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Note: I don't fault Philip Seymour Hoffman's acting, by the way, which was stunning. (And everyone else in the film was exceptional, too.) Unless they left the other half on the editing floor it was clearly written that way and directed that way. Not his decision, it would appear.