Plot Summary

Though his childlike voice, fey mannerisms and unconventional clothes arouse initial hostility in a part of the country that still thinks of itself as part of the Old West, Capote quickly wins the trust of the locals, most notable Alvin Dewey (Chris Cooper), the Kansas Bureau of Investigation agent who is leading the hunt for the killers. Caught in Las Vegas, the killers - Perry Smith (Clifton Collins Jr.) and Dick Hickock (Mark Pellegrino) - are returned to Kansas, where they are tried, convicted and sentenced to die. Capote visits them in jail. As he gets to know them, he realizes that what he had thought would be a magazine article has grown into a book, a book that could rank with the greatest in modern literature. His subject is now as profound as any an American writer has ever tackled. It is nothing less than the collision of two Americas: the safe, protected country the Clutters knew and the rootless, amoral country inhabited by the killers. Hidden behind Capote's often frivolous facade is a writer of towering ambition. But even he wonders of he can write the book - the great book - he believes destiny has handed him. "Sometimes, when I think how good it could be," he writes a friend, "I can hardly breathe."

Memorable Quotes

Nelle Harper Lee: You paid him to say that. Truman Capote: How did you know? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Truman Capote: I have 94 per cent recall of all conversation. I tested it myself. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Truman Capote: Ever since I was a child, folks have thought they had me pegged, because of the way I am, the way I talk. And they're always wrong. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Truman Capote: It's as if Perry and I grew up in the same house. And one day he stood up and went out the back door, while I went out the front. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Perry Smith: I thought that Mr. Clutter was a very nice gentleman. I thought so right up to the moment that I cut his throat. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Truman Capote: I couldn't have done anything to save them. Nelle Harper Lee: Maybe not, Truman. But the truth is, you didn't want to. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Truman Capote: Perry, I know what 'exacerbate' means. Perry Smith: Okay... well... Truman Capote: There is not a word or a sentence or a concept that you can illuminate for me. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Truman Capote: It's the book I was always meant to write. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Truman Capote: On the night of November 14th, two men broke into a quiet farmhouse in Kansas and murdered an entire family. Why did they do that? Two worlds exist in this country: the quiet conservative life, and and the life of those two men - the underbelly, the criminally violent. Those two worlds converged that bloody night. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Truman Capote: [to Perry Smith] We're not so different as you might think. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Truman Capote: If I leave here without understanding you, the world will see you as a monster. Always. And I don't want that. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Truman Capote: Sometimes when I think of how good my book is going to be, I can't breathe. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nelle Harper Lee: How did you like the movie? [referring to To Kill a Mockingbird] Truman Capote: [Muttering after she wanders off] I don't see what all the fuss is about. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Truman Capote: I had lunch with Jimmy Baldwin the other day. Party date: How is he? Truman Capote: He's lovely, he's a lovely man. And he told me the plot of his new book. And he said, "I just wanted to make sure it's not one of those problem novels," you know. And I said , "Jimmy. You're book is about a Negro homosexual who's in love with a Jew. Wouldn't you call that a problem?" [Everyone laughs] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- William Shawn: This book will change how people write. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Truman Capote: God, I'm glad you agreed to come. You're the only person I know with the qualifications to be both a research assistant and a personal bodyguard. Nelle Harper Lee: Thank you. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Truman Capote: More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Warden Marshall Krutch: You know, I didn't know where to count your boy at first... him being half-Indian. But I did him a favor. I counted him as a white man. Truman Capote: You're a kind and generous man. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Perry Smith: [of Hickok] He's naturally mendacious. Not to be trusted. If he had a hundred dollars he'd steal a stick of chewing gum.