Capote

With his fair hair, pale skin and faint voice, Truman Capote cast somewhat of a ghostly appearance. So does the stark winter countryside portrayed in “Capote,” the 2005 film that examines the creation of the novel “In Cold Blood.” The spectral nature makes sense, since the novel, and the film, deals with a quadruple homicide. As Capote becomes infatuated with the murderers, the rural Kansas setting, painted in long-distance shots and moments of ambient sound, harbors the ghosts of the murdered, so that we don’t become too infatuated ourselves. It’s a brilliant device, moments of art within a creepy story.

Infamous

It would be easy for a journalist to be jealous of a novelist. Journalists must adhere to the facts, while novelists can manipulate the facts to suit the narrative. (Don’t start with your opinions about the news media. That’s a conversation for another time.) But while journalists can report the facts and consider it truth, novelists must adhere to an abstract concept of artistic truth that is much, much harder to execute. So to speak. Which explains “Infamous” (2006), the story of “In Cold Blood” and the mentally tortuous route through the gallows that Truman Capote took in creating it.