Fans of classic movies will most likely be familiar with two of Truman Capote's most famous works - both Breakfast at Tiffany's and In Cold Blood were successfully adapted to the screen in the 1960s. It is during Capote's long period of research for the latter that the biopic Capote is set, as the great writer pieced together the events surrounding the murder of a family in Kansas while writing for New Yorker magazine. The late Philip Seymour Hoffman delivers a powerhouse performance in the central role, capturing Capote's eccentricities, from his unusual, high-pitched voice to his effete mannerisms. It's Hoffman's film, too - an intense study of a meticulous writer struggling to draw the line between fiction and reality (in the aftermath of the publication of In Cold Blood, which Capote touted as a "nonfiction novel", its huge success was met with a variety of critics who questioned the factual accuracy of the book and accused him of embellishing and fabricating aspects, deviating from the truth). After In Cold Blood Truman Capote never wrote another novel again, and spent much of the rest of his life doing the chat show circuit and mingling with New York's high society. Alcohol and drug abuse eventually took its toll, mirroring Philip Seymour Hoffman's own struggle with substance abuse which also took his life earlier this year.
