Filmmaker Lisa Immordino Vreeland (Love, Cecil) presents the lives and literary careers of two of America’s most iconic writers in her latest feature documentary: An Intimate Conversation.
The film’s title is somewhat misleading, more of an artistic flare than a representation of the film itself. It implies a conversation between Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams, but instead Vreeland presents the two writers largely in parallel, reflecting on life, work and their friendship individually rather than in conversation together. Careful editing often places the two writers’ accounts in tandem to mimic the sensation of conversation, but the viewer isn’t fooled. And while the voiceover narration provides biographical information and interesting details, the accompanying photos and B-roll footage designed to keep us engaged still leave us visually wanting.
Zachary Quinto and Jim Parsons do an admirable job giving voice to Williams and Capote, respectively, in extensive voiceover narration taken from the writers’ own words, as the film’s opening text states. Quinto and Parsons capture the nuance of the writers’ specific drawls and intonations. When placed immediately next to archival footage, Quinto in particular often sounds remarkably like Williams.
Archival footage of the writers’ individual appearances on David Frost and Dick Cavett’s respective talk shows consists of the most intimate and rewarding sequences in the documentary. While the voiceover narration recounts interesting details and specific stories, there is no supplement for the real thing—watching Williams and Capote (albeit still separately) as they ruminate and respond to Frost and Cavett’s questions. The visual cues are equally important as the audio, and having someone to engage with and react to in conversation is invaluable.
The talk show segments also provide a layer of intrigue for their contrast to modern talk shows. Nowadays, you’d be hard pressed to find a host who would pose such intimate queries or a guest proffer such personal revelations. It also raises the question of when and why mainstream talk shows stopped inviting literary celebrities as guests—I’m sure many Truman and Tennessee viewers will agree that we must rectify that mistake.
Vreeland is no stranger to chronicling the life and work of artistic icons, having previously made films about Cecil Beaton, Peggy Guggenheim, Diana Vreeland, and Jean Cocteau. In Truman and Tennessee, she eschews talking heads and instead relies heavily on Quinto and Parsons’ voiceover narration as well as clips from film adaptations and archival footage of the writers’ talk show appearances. It’s an ambitious approach, as is Vreeland’s decision to present two icons simultaneously and equally within one documentary. In theory, Capote and Williams’ friendship forms the basis of the film, but in practice it’s their similar journeys through life and work that weave the film together.
Indeed, Vreeland highlights many parallels between Williams and Capote. The two gay southern writers both experienced difficult childhoods, grew up with an alcoholic parent, and struggled with depression and addiction themselves in later life. Both Williams and Capote received critical acclaim early in their careers and struggled with a period of professional decline, or rather a lack of acclaim. Both spent years traveling and living abroad in Europe and socializing with mutual friends (and sometimes each other) during the height of their careers. Both were superstitious, attributing it to their southern upbringing. Both Williams and Capote had their works adapted into films, both writers desiring and failing to achieve a certain degree of creative control in the adaptation process. Capote insisted that Marilyn Monroe play Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s and felt betrayed by MGM when they cast Audrey Hepburn instead. Williams’ film adaptations were made in a time of heavy censorship, resulting in dramatically different endings from the original material, much to Williams’ chagrin. The two writers also admitted to their professional jealousy of each other, despite each acknowledging his own success. While thirteen years apart in age, Williams and Capote died only eighteen months apart.
Truman and Tennessee employs a variety of documentary techniques including voiceover narration, archival footage, clips from film adaptations, still images, and B-roll footage to chronicle and highlight similarities between Williams and Capote’s lives and careers. An ambitious project, Vreeland’s approach results in a dual biography of the two writers and captures elements of their friendship, but struggles to explore Williams and Capote’s relationship in a deeper and more contextualized way.
Truman and Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation opens June 18 in select theatres and virtual cinemas, including Kino Lorber’s virtual cinema platform, Kino Marquee.
Score: C+
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