Capote (2005)

I just finish watching the movie Capote.

www.imdb.com...

It's a dark movie about Truman Capote writing a book about the brutal of 4 people in Kansas. The crime itself happens when two drifter's "botched robbery results in the brutal murder of a rural family." Truman Capote is a flamboyant gay writer from New York City who has an amazing insight and depth in his writing. At one point in the film the character boasts he has a 94% retention of anything he hears. The movie highlights Truman Capote's sensitivity to his experiences dramatically translates into his emotions and writing. The movie is little slow but mostly engaging.

I think the book itself is more interesting to me than Capote's life around the book. The book itself provides deep insight into the human condition an how murderers come to be. I think in today's label this and label that mentality we've lost site of where the most evil parts of society come from. The book In Cold Blood is amazing in showing just how inhuman we can treat each other without even being aware of how evil leads up to murder. People are looking for respect. People are looking to be cared for when in need. I get people can be callous when they think people are mooching. But there really is a point when treating people badly actual amounts to something.

For example, consider this passage from page 206 of the book:

Consequently, as Perry recalled, “Iwas always thinking
about Dad, hoping he could come take me away, and I
remember, like a second ago, the time I saw him again.
Standing in the schoolyard. It was like when the ball hits the
bat really solid. Di Maggio. Only Dad wouldn’t help me.
Told me to be good and hugged me and went away. It was
not long afterward my mother put me to stay in a Catholic
orphanage. The one where the Black Widows were always
at me. Hitting me. Because of wetting the bed. Which is
one reason I have an aversion to nuns. And God. And
religion. But later on I found there are people even more
evil. Because, after a couple of months, they tossed me out
of the orphanage, and she [his mother] put me some place
worse. A children’s shelter operated by the Salvation Army.
They hated me, too. For wetting the bed. And being halfIndian.
There was this one nurse, she used to call me
‘'n-word'’ and say there wasn’t any difference between
'n-word's and Indians. Oh, Jesus, was she an Evil Bastard!
Incarnate. What she used to do, she’d fill a tub with ice-cold
water, put me in it, and hold me under till Iwas blue. Nearly
drowned. But she got found out, the bitch. Because I caught
pneumonia. I almost conked. I was in the hospital two
months.

english4success.ru...

I think there's a real evil in this country that comes from racism, bigotry, and prejudice. How we treat other people matters. Murder just doesn't happen for no reason.

a reply to: dfnj2015

Yeah. Nurse Ratchet in One Flew Over the Cockoo's Nest was a real piece of work too. I wonder if Capote ever read that book?

a reply to: dfnj2015

Great twist in your thread. First, I found the movie fascinating and the acting in it was incredible. The movie "In Cold Blood" based upon Capote's book was not bad. Ironically, it stared Robert Blake as Perry Smith. My son is reading the book now and I am now inspired to read it when he is done.

People in general have a need to believe murderers are somehow defective, less than human, and therefore don't need to be understood but simply terminated. I am not, and don't believe you to be defending murder. In attempting to understand the roots of someone's ability to commit this ultimate crime most people think you are defending the indefensible.

IMO, any one of us, anyone, is capable of murder under the right circumstances. We don't want to look at what caused this person to do so because we may see the reflection of our own soul. The more we are able to understand the root causes, the better we will be able to prevent it in the future.

People will often say that others have suffered similarly or worse and have not gone on to become murderers. This is true. A case in point is the recent trial and subsequent suicide of the former New England Patriot Aaron Hernandez. He and his brother had substantially the same experiences in life after the death of their father. They both chose very separate paths. If we can understand why one brother chose the wrong path and one the right path perhaps we will better know how to prevent the person from taking the wrong path in the future.

In order to commit murder we need to dehumanize the victim. If we see the victim as a human with equal rights and worth as we see ourselves, we can not commit murder. By dehumanizing the murderer himself we use the same logic as the murderer.

Great OP, S&F