Perry Smith (Robert Black) and Dick Hickock (Scott Wilson) murder the Clutter family in Kansas in 1959.
In Cold Blood is just about flawless. It dances the same delicate dance of the book, creating sympathy for Perry and then pulling back and showing his monstrosity, and then drawing in and creating sympathy again. It is this that is more disturbing than the murders themselves. Dick is less fleshed-out, in part, I suspect, because the movie avoided mention of the pedophilia, although mostly it's amazingly frank for its era. It also omits the fact that Dick's personality changed after a head injury, which was something I found fascinating in the book. Nonetheless, the movie works both as an adaptation of a "true novel" and as a film in its own right. It applies just the right amount of artistry to show Perry's distorted thoughts, and just the right amount of bareness to show a true story as it unfolds.
It is, perhaps, the bareness that is most shocking. Consider: The movie is rated R for violence, despite the fact that none of the violence appears on-screen. It feels that real.
What the movie cannot do, quite reasonably, is portray Truman Capoteyou'll have to see Capote, or perhaps Infamous, for that. The eyewitness journalist here is a fictional character named Jensen, of a neutral hard-boiled type that allows narration to happen without getting in the way.
In Cold Blood is just about flawless. It dances the same delicate dance of the book, creating sympathy for Perry and then pulling back and showing his monstrosity, and then drawing in and creating sympathy again. It is this that is more disturbing than the murders themselves. Dick is less fleshed-out, in part, I suspect, because the movie avoided mention of the pedophilia, although mostly it's amazingly frank for its era. It also omits the fact that Dick's personality changed after a head injury, which was something I found fascinating in the book. Nonetheless, the movie works both as an adaptation of a "true novel" and as a film in its own right. It applies just the right amount of artistry to show Perry's distorted thoughts, and just the right amount of bareness to show a true story as it unfolds.
It is, perhaps, the bareness that is most shocking. Consider: The movie is rated R for violence, despite the fact that none of the violence appears on-screen. It feels that real.
What the movie cannot do, quite reasonably, is portray Truman Capoteyou'll have to see Capote, or perhaps Infamous, for that. The eyewitness journalist here is a fictional character named Jensen, of a neutral hard-boiled type that allows narration to happen without getting in the way.