Gone are the gorgeous costumes, the elegant lunches at La Côte Basque and offhand biting remarks from witty writer Truman Capote (Tom Hollander).
Murphy’s other successes, Ratchet, Nip/Tuck, Glee and Feud season one, about the rivalry between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford on their 1962 set for Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, all feature larger-than-life characters; Capote in Feud: Capote vs the Swans, is one of the largest.
In the first episodes, Capote is depicted as the darling of four women he labelled his Swans, all actual mid-century New York socialites, played by Diane Lane, Chloë Sevigny, Calista Flockhart and most memorably, Naomi Watts as Babe Paley, wife of philanderer Bill Paley (Treat Williams) the founder of CBS.
Babe is beautiful, a trend-setting perfectionist, a complicated person behind a steely exterior.
Like Ward McAllister in the previous century’s Gilded Age, Capote dictates to high society, stipulating who’s on each invitation list and who’s off.
His closeness to Babe Paley helps him maintain his insider status.
Capote, for all his foibles and bitchiness, was the love of Babe’s life, her rock, while for Capote, Babe was an idealised mother figure, his own mother (Jessica Lange) having been embittered, nasty and cruel.
Ryan Murphy’s forte is showing the downward spiral.
Feud: Bette and Joan showed gossip being central to the two characters’ destruction of each other.
In Feud: Capote vs the Swans, the publication of Capote’s malicious La Côte Basque, a tell-all short story, robs the Swans of their status and turns Capote into an aggrieved outsider.
Based on Laurence Leamer’s novel Capote’s Women, A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era, the bristling screenplay by Jon Robin Baitz picks up after the publication of In Cold Blood, the true crime story that made Capote famous.
Focusing on In Cold Blood, not on the Swans, Capote (2005) has Philip Seymour Hoffman in the title role while Infamous (2006) has Toby Jones playing Capote, neither nailing Capote’s flamboyant mannerisms nor his whining, child-like voice as effectively as Tom Hollander does.
Figments of the imagination are cleverly handled. Capote’s mother is one, another is a wannabe Swan, played by Demi Moore.
Both are dead, but still vivid in Capote’s mind.
When Capote falls from grace, the Swans’ fun disappears and emptiness takes over.
Afflicted with writer’s block, Capote succumbs to alcohol. An era has gone and although we knew it couldn’t last, we join Capote in grieving for it.
★★★★
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