A biography that doesn’t flinch at exposing unflattering truths

IN an age when federal prosecutors focus on who told what journalists when, along comes a movie, “Capote,” that examines in unflinching, sparsely rendered detail the love, ego, ambition and betrayal that can go into the messy relations between an author and his subject.

The writer in question, of course, is famed tiny terror Truman Capote, who, in the film, labors to complete his masterwork “In Cold Blood,” which details the 1959 murders of a farm family in Holcomb, Kan., by a pair of drifters. He developed a close attachment and identification with one of the killers, Perry Smith. But that didn’t stop him from lying repeatedly to Smith or yearning for their execution, say his biographers, so his creation -- his story -- would have a grand finale.

“It’s a tragic story about a guy who wants something so badly he destroys himself and what matters most to him. It’s a great, true American tragedy,” director Bennett Miller said. “He himself would say later in his life that he never recovered from the experience of writing it. [He said that] had he known what he was going to experience when he went to Kansas, he would have driven right through like a bat out of hell.”

Austerely shot in Canada, the movie features a reunion of childhood friends -- Miller, actor-turned-screenwriter Dan Futterman, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, who plays Capote. Hoffman lost a significant amount of weight and rehearsed extensively to play the distinctive artist.

“We had the benefit of having Gerald Clarke available to us,” Miller said, referring to Capote’s biographer, whose work formed the basis of the film. “He provided Phil with audiotapes of Capote that weren’t from TV appearances or documentaries. For years and years and years, he interviewed Capote.

“[Capote’s] voice was different than you might hear on Johnny Carson. When he relaxed, his register went down a little bit. Throughout production, Phil had his Walkman on during breaks so he could have Capote’s voice going through his head.”