"In Cold Blood" is the relatively faithful filming of the non-fiction novel of the same name by Truman Capote. It tells of the senseless murder of the Clutter family, modestly wealthy Kansas farmers who two convicts believe have $10,000 in a safe in their farmhouse. The movie captures most of the book, even some of the themes that don't lend themselves to being filmed, and is generally about an accurate a depiction of the Clutter murder as the book was. The most glaring change is the awkward insertion of a reporter character to provide some editorializing. Presumably this character is based on Capote, but even though the film was edgy for 1967 (it was the first American film to use the S-word, apparently) audiences weren't deemed to be ready for an effeminate, gay New York writer and the character is watered down greatly.
I found the movie striking because it exhibits many elements of the New Hollywood of the 1970s, despite being made in 1967. Perhaps the realism of the story forced it, but this movie definitely doesn't feel like anything else I've seen out of mainstream US cinema in the 1960s. The characters are realistic and we aren't asked to feel sympathetic for them or at least feel sorry for the way they fell to their current state, which seems to be the big contrast from most films of its era. The black and white cinematography, the symbolic transitions in the energetic opening, the sparse soundtrack near the end, these all look forward to the ground-breaking movies of the 1970s.
The score by Quincy Jones is generally good but the heartwarming themes played at the Clutter house, prior to the attack, seem quite out of step with the hip sounds heard elsewhere, and the score's awkward disappearance as the movie wears on is a bit problematic. At 130 minutes the movie is overlong, especially with the moralizing at the end, which has its moments but generally serves to show this movie isn't fully part of the sleek New Hollywood of a few years later.
Perhaps it's just because I read the book first, but the movie also seems to not properly exploit the shocking nature of the crime. You don't even really find out what they did, in all the gory detail that made it famous, until late in the movie.
I just felt like had this movie been trimmed down to 90 minutes it could have been a real stunner, instead it has one foot in the New Hollywood and its big toe in the tradition of bad juvenile delinquent movies of the 1950s and 1960s. Sure the direction is sleek but I couldn't help feeling some of the sermons of the movie's conclusion would have been at home in a horrible delinquent movie like "The Violent Years".
Still, this movie is a perfectly good filming of the book and one of the earliest American examples of the kind of cinematic thinking that made so many great movies in the 1970s.
I found the movie striking because it exhibits many elements of the New Hollywood of the 1970s, despite being made in 1967. Perhaps the realism of the story forced it, but this movie definitely doesn't feel like anything else I've seen out of mainstream US cinema in the 1960s. The characters are realistic and we aren't asked to feel sympathetic for them or at least feel sorry for the way they fell to their current state, which seems to be the big contrast from most films of its era. The black and white cinematography, the symbolic transitions in the energetic opening, the sparse soundtrack near the end, these all look forward to the ground-breaking movies of the 1970s.
The score by Quincy Jones is generally good but the heartwarming themes played at the Clutter house, prior to the attack, seem quite out of step with the hip sounds heard elsewhere, and the score's awkward disappearance as the movie wears on is a bit problematic. At 130 minutes the movie is overlong, especially with the moralizing at the end, which has its moments but generally serves to show this movie isn't fully part of the sleek New Hollywood of a few years later.
Perhaps it's just because I read the book first, but the movie also seems to not properly exploit the shocking nature of the crime. You don't even really find out what they did, in all the gory detail that made it famous, until late in the movie.
I just felt like had this movie been trimmed down to 90 minutes it could have been a real stunner, instead it has one foot in the New Hollywood and its big toe in the tradition of bad juvenile delinquent movies of the 1950s and 1960s. Sure the direction is sleek but I couldn't help feeling some of the sermons of the movie's conclusion would have been at home in a horrible delinquent movie like "The Violent Years".
Still, this movie is a perfectly good filming of the book and one of the earliest American examples of the kind of cinematic thinking that made so many great movies in the 1970s.