Werner Herzog returns to the Toronto film scene with Into the Abyss, another existential work strangely similar yet totally unlike his last documentary, Cave of Forgotten Dreams. The documentary is both a rumination on the meaning of life and a true crime story, a version of In Cold Blood for the twenty-first century. Herzog recounts a triple-homicide in Conroe, Texas in 2001 when Michael James Perry and Jason Burkett killed three people in order to steal a Camaro. Interviewing friends and family of the victims and perpetrators, Into the Abyss exposes the audience to lives impacted by poverty and marred …
Capote
Capote chronicles the life of author Truman Capote as he chronicles the murders in Holcomb, Kansas which would become the basis for his book In Cold Blood. The quadruple-homicide may have permanently damaged the innocence of the country as the task of researching and writing the book harmed the conscience of the author. The Kansas scenery comes to life, albeit in the drab colours of winter. Instead of a stark conflict between good and bad, black and white, there are many varied interests at play. The contrast between the values of the upstanding citizens of Holcomb and those of Perry …
In Cold Blood
Unlike the film Gangs of New York, which adapted a spell-binding text and rendered it into conventional Hollywood tripe, In Cold Blood enhances the true crime novel by Truman Capote and brings it to life on the silver screen. The events which permanently altered life in tiny Holcomb, Kansas – and perhaps throughout all small towns in the United States – have been the subject of a true crime novel by Truman Capote, a documentary, television movie and the first widely-distributed American film to use profanity. Capote devoted six years to the project, compiling records and minutiae in order to …