Based on A Tru Story

What about the experience undid Capote?

As both movies show, not long after Capote arrived in Kansas in 1959, two suspects were arrested for the murders and the true story came out. Ex-convicts Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, operating on a bad tip that Kansas farmer Herb Clutter kept thousands of dollars in a safe at home, had broken into his Holcomb farmhouse that November, and tied up Clutter, his wife and two of their children, both teens. When they realized there was no money in the house, they decided they'd have to kill the Clutters anyway.

Capote developed a growing empathy for Smith. Both men were short in stature and had suffered considerable trauma during childhood. It was just circumstance, Capote often said, that made him a successful writer and Smith a murderer.

"On one hand, he did care about this man and was genuinely fascinated by him as a person, as the flip or the dark side of himself," says Futterman, whose screenplay is based on "Capote," Gerald Clarke's definitive 1988 biography. "And he had genuine love, although I don't know if he would have called it that. He just as strongly had a purely mercenary interest and saw in Smith his ticket to writing his great work. He made a decision that the ambitious, mercenary side was more important. That decision, I think, plagued him for the rest of his life."

"I believe he fell in love with Perry Smith," says McGrath. "I think something broke in him -- having to see those executions. It undid the delicate balance between being able to feel things and the part of the artist that needs to be tough to keep going."

In love or not, the real Capote could barely bring himself to witness Smith's hanging six years later. And in both films, he returns to his former life a successful artist and household name -- but emotionally haunted. (Speaking of hauntings, in the graphic-novel version, Capote has running conversations with Nancy Clutter, the ghost of one of the victims.)

"It's like Perry got ahold of him and never let go," says McGrath.

If "Capote," a smaller production at $7 million, focuses exclusively on the writer's Kansas years, McGrath's movie -- in postproduction -- gives a greater sense of Capote's social life. McGrath describes scenes at high-society Manhattan watering holes like El Morocco and La Cote Basque with escorts including Babe Paley (Sigourney Weaver) and Gloria Guinness (Isabella Rossellini) -- the rich, manicured friends Capote called his "swans." Reflecting the format of its main source material, George Plimpton's 1997 biography, "Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career," the film also features faux-documentary conversations with famous characters who talk about Capote.

Meanwhile, Hoffman's performance has gotten critical attention. The New Yorker's David Denby writes that Hoffman's Capote "looms up like some strange Rushmoric outcropping--heavy-domed skull, golden hair, pink skin, double-peaked upper lip, owlish glasses, and blue eyes that occasionally peer directly at the bruised ego and longings of the person in front of him. Hoffman starts with the physical and works inward to the soul."

McGrath's movie may not come out soon enough to capitalize on the buzz created by "Capote," but its cast of celebrities -- including Bullock, Weaver, Paltrow and Hope Davis -- will at least arouse the attentions of moviegoers if not critics. It's unclear how either film will resonate with younger audiences who may not have a strong awareness of Capote's sensational 1948 debut ("Other Voices, Other Rooms") or his whimsical novella "Breakfast at Tiffany's," made into the 1961 movie starring Audrey Hepburn.

Director Miller believes they'll respond to the story of one man's bittersweet rise to fame 45 years ago, because it's about how everyone else got there.

"Warhol's 15 minutes of fame and all may sound trite nowadays," says Miller. "But there was a starting line, and I think that's the clearest example of someone crossing that line. Whether Capote created or formed or directed it or not, he was an indicator of what was to come. . . . Sometimes, in the natural cycle of things, there comes a time when you look back. I personally feel a collective sense of discontentment and disgust with so much of what the culture has become," he says. "I think you can look back to ["In Cold Blood"] as the genesis of certain components of it. This story is crystalline. It's the Davy Crockett of modern culture, in a way."

There's a scene in "Capote" when Hoffman gazes at Perry Smith for the first time. The experience makes you think of Norma Desmond in "Sunset Boulevard" looking to her fans, "those wonderful people out there in the dark." The line is a tacit reference to the real audience watching the movie -- somehow implicating them in her need for fame and recognition. In this case, Hoffman-as-Capote isn't just looking at Perry as someone who appeals to him, he's looking at his own hungry future, and ultimately ours.