Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Capote / In Cold Blood

  • Available Subtitles: English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Korean, Chinese, Thai
  • Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Unknown Format)
  • Commentary by director Bennett Miller and actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, Commentary by director Bennett Miller and cinematographer Adam Kimmel
  • Unanswered Prayers - a documentary on Truman Capote
  • 2 behind the scenes documentaries
In November, 1959, the shocking murder of a smalltown Kansas family captures the imagination of Truman Capote (Philip Seymour Hoffman), famed author of Breakfast at Tiffany's. With his childhood friend Harper Lee (Catherine Keener), writer of the soon-to-be published To Kill a Mockingbird, Capote sets out to investigate, winning over the locals despite his flamboyant appearance and style. When he forms a bond with the killers and their execution date nears, the writin! g of "In Cold Blood," a book that will change the course of American literature, takes a drastic toll on Capote, changing him in ways he never imagined. Stellar performances from Hoffman and Keener, as well as Academy Award® winner Chris Cooper (Adaptation) are why critics are calling Capote a "must-see movie."Bolstered by an Oscar®-caliber performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman in the title role, Capote ranked highly among the best films of 2005. Written by actor/screenwriter Dan Futterman and based on selected chapters from the biography by Gerald Clarke, this mercilessly perceptive drama shows how Truman Capote brought about his own self-destruction in the course of writing In Cold Blood, the "nonfiction novel" that was immediately acclaimed as a literary milestone. After learning of brutal killings in rural Holcomb, Kansas, in November 1959, Capote gained the confidence of captured killers Perry Smith (Clifton Collins, Jr.) and Dick Hickock ! (Mark Pellegrino) in an effort to tell their story, but he ult! imately sacrificed his soul in the process of writing his greatest book. Hoffman transcends mere mimicry to create an utterly authentic, psychologically tormented portrait of an insincere artist who was not above lying and manipulation to get what he needed. Bennett Miller's intimate direction focuses on the consequences of Capote's literary ambition, tempered by an equally fine performance by Catherine Keener as Harper Lee, Capote's friend and the author of To Kill a Mockingbird, who served as Capote's quiet voice of conscience. Spanning the seven-year period between the Kansas murders and the publication of In Cold Blood in 1966, Capote reveals the many faces of a writer who grew too close to his subjects, losing his moral compass as they were fitted with a hangman's noose. --Jeff ShannonOn November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from th! eir faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.

Five years, four months and twenty-nine days later, on April 14, 1965, Richard Eugene Hickock, aged thirty-three, and Perry Edward Smith, aged thirty-six, were hanged from the crime on a gallows in a warehouse in the Kansas State Penitentiary in Lansing, Kansa.

In Cold Blood is the story of the lives and deaths of these six people. It has already been hailed as a masterpiece."Until one morning in mid-November of 1959, few Americans--in fact, few Kansans--had ever heard of Holcomb. Like the waters of the river, like the motorists on the highway, and like the yellow trains streaking down the Santa Fe tracks, drama, in the shape of exceptional happenings, had never stopped there." If all Truman Capote did was invent a new genre--journalism written with the language and structure of literature--this "nonfiction novel" about the brutal slaying of the Clutter family by tw! o would-be robbers would be remembered as a trail-blazing expe! riment t hat has influenced countless writers. But Capote achieved more than that. He wrote a true masterpiece of creative nonfiction. The images of this tale continue to resonate in our minds: 16-year-old Nancy Clutter teaching a friend how to bake a cherry pie, Dick Hickock's black '49 Chevrolet sedan, Perry Smith's Gibson guitar and his dreams of gold in a tropical paradise--the blood on the walls and the final "thud-snap" of the rope-broken necks.
Genre: Drama
Rating: UN
Release Date: 17-FEB-2009
Media Type: Blu-RayBased on a true story, explores the events behind the creation of Truman Capote's book \In cold blood" when he went to a small Kansas town to write an article for the New Yorker on a multiple murder"A landmark collection that brings together Truman Capote’s life’s work in the form he called his “great love,” The Complete Stories confirms Capote’s status as a master of the the short story. This first-ever compen! dium features a never-before-published 1950 story, “The Bargain,” as well as an introduction by Reynolds Price. Ranging from the gothic South to the chic East Coast, from rural children to aging urban sophisticates, all the unforgettable places and people of Capote’s oeuvre are here, in stories as elegant as they are heartfelt, as haunting as they are compassionate. Reading them reminds us of the miraculous gifts of a beloved American original.When a horrific murder rocks the peaceful community of Holcomb, Kansas, legendary writer Truman Capote is inspired to record the shocking true story in his novel IN COLD BLOOD. Capote--accompanied by fellow wordsmith Nell Harper Lee (TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD)--travels to the Midwest in search of answers, and ends up becoming emotionally involved with one of the killers as they await trial.
web log free