Having been intending to see The Holiday, the mood was somewhat altered in preparation for Infamous. It starts off like a comedy, but quite quickly becomes very serious. However, it does alternate a bit too much - suddenly he's in New York, then back in Texas, then in New York. He's serious and then he's gossiping with women in cocktail bars. It disconcerts you a little, doesn't let you settle into the pace of the narrative. Another problem is the speaking to camera. It is never explained but the close acquaintances of Capote all have 'interviews' to camera, as if we were watching a documentary. This undermines the illusion of the fiction completely. To make it worse, letters are read out to camera and as voice overs. Again, this ruins the world that we had up until that point been happily observing - they speak directly to us, involving us in ways we don't want to be involved. Otherwise, I thought this was a good, engaging film. However, I haven't seen Capote and have no idea how this one will relate to it. Which one is more truthful to his life; which one the better performance? Certainly Toby Jones was excellently convincing at bringing a person to life; but was that person Truman Capote? The issues dealt with here are engrossing - art and its cost to the writer and his sources - but does the film address them sufficiently, or simply present them to us? I hope to answer this question soon.
(I saw this at the Odeon Mezzanine.)
1 comment:
When we saw this movie there were a small gaggle of girls who when a homosexual kiss was on the screen all went "urgh" in unison.
I couldn't help but feel these were exactly the kinds of people who would be helped by the definitions of the difference between movies and films.
My guess was that Infamous was a film, and it was a film that you should only see if you see films more than once a month. None of this means it was good or bad yet, it's not a quality judgement. It's something that tells you the kind of person who would enjoy it.
It's part about the accessibility of the movie/film to the less film versed movie-goer, and part about the kinds of concessions the movie/film makes to film conventions.
Those girls should have been watching The Holiday - they would have enjoyed it much more. That might sound pejorative but it isn't. They clearly hated this film, I'm just suggesting which movie they'd prefer.
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