Customer Reviews

Great Writers: Truman Capote [VHS]

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If you're looking for a documentary on the life of Truman Capote, you have two choices:

* Truman Capote, A&E DVD Archives (2005) [ASIN: B0009HMTFS]; and

* Great Writers: Truman Capote (2000) [ASIN: B000FC2HNG]

Neither one is inexpensive, so I would have liked a review saying which one is better. As it turned out, I ended up buying and watching both. Although both programs are of roughly the same length, the differences are significant.

The Arts & Entertainment (A & E) version is clearly better. It has more information, photographs, film footage, and interesting interviews than the Great Writers version, which seems to be trying to make some sort of artistic statement of its own - lots of pictures of grass waving in the wind, country roads, etc., none of which are terribly relevant.

You will be better off buying the A & E program.

This is an extremely modest 45-minute video of the life of Truman Capote. Although a couple of actors read several long passages from Other Voices, Other Rooms and Breakfast at Tiffany's, there is less than three minutes use of actual footage of Capote speaking (including about fifteen seconds of the author himself reading from his first novel), and none of it has him commenting on his fiction (or even his journalism). There are no interviews with anyone who knew him or any writers of his generation. Although the commentary does cover the events of his life pretty well (more on his writing than his mascot years performing for New York cafe society), the whole thing feels very thin. Quite a let down.

I just received and watched this 'documentary'. I'm struggling to find something positive about it, but the fact is, it is the lowest quality biographical documentary I've ever seen. In fact, I'm amazed at the lack of substance this video has. It is about 10% actual footage/photos of the subject, and 90% non-relevant (filler) scenery. It suffers factually due to an obvious lack of research, especially surprising because of the great amount of material/photos that exists on Capote. This video is a disgrace to one of America's great writers. Buy the A & E Biography of Capote, it is first rate (but Too short!)