Season 2 - Feud: Capote vs The Swans

[Spartan Girl]

The Black and White Ball!

So even before he stabbed them in the back, Truman was already a duplicitous bitch, playing them all against each other by making each of them think she was his “special guest.” Hard to believe they still put up with them after that; guess Answered Prayers really was the final straw.

[MsMalin]

He really was a little shit.

[blueroses]

2 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

Where was Allison wright?  I missed her. 

She was Pamela Harriman and had a scene with Slim Keith at the buffet (chicken hash). Perfect casting. 

[voiceover]

2 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

tried finding the black and white ball documentary but no success

It’s an invention for this series.

[Carolina Girl]

On 2/6/2024 at 9:06 AM, sugarbaker design said:

And he did it for money.  What a piece of shit.

I hope so too.  There's a good TV-movie/mini-series called The Two Mrs. Grenvilles from the 80s, it's a fictionalized account of Ann Woodward's story, based on the novel by Dominic Dunne.

I was once able to find the full movie on YouTube.  Ann-Margaret as "Ann Woodward" and Claudette Colbert as "Elise Woodward" (which earned her a Golden Globe).  Fictional account that perpetuates the story that Ann was already married at the time she wed Billy Woodward.  

On 2/6/2024 at 10:19 AM, meep.meep said:

I recently read a book by Roseanne Montillo about Ann Woodward's life called Deliberate Cruelty.  It covers Capote and the Swans as well.

This is awfully campy - I keep falling asleep.

This Crazy Thing Called Love book is an excellent account of the Woodwards' marriage.  

[Starchild]

The ball episode was stylish and mildly entertaining, IMO, but didn't advance the story at all. I was bored, overall. Seemed like a waste of an hour.

[peacheslatour]

8 hours ago, buttersister said:

Chicken hash, my dears.

What is this ? A barbeque?

[Madding crowd]

This isn’t as fun as I thought it would be. I love seeing some of my favorite actresses but I think the writers are caught between trying to be truthful about what is actually known and telling a good story. The article Capote wrote for Vanity Fair and the aftermath are known but exact meetings and conversations between him and the swans is just being guessed at. 

[sugarbaker design]

1 hour ago, Madding crowd said:

The article Capote wrote for Vanity Fair and the aftermath are known but exact meetings and conversations between him and the swans is just being guessed at. 

Of course it is.  That's why I'm watching.

[Penman61]

There's a long TV history of "They're making a documentary of us!" episodes, going back to at least M*A*S*H. And I'm disposed to appreciate the attempt to give us a very different view of characters/situations we know.

But this didn't work for me. First, they way overdid characters shouting "Are you filming this? Stop filming this!!" I mean, once, maybe twice, but multiple times in multiple ways? It's just lazy writing and strains credulity.

Also: The line "the only thing unforgivable is deliberate cruelty" is Blanche from "A Streetcar Named Desire," by Tennessee Williams, so I don't know why this show is acting like Capote wrote/said it. Perhaps I missed a moment? Or did Williams steal it from Capote?

Edited February 8 by Penman61

[Madding crowd]

22 minutes ago, sugarbaker design said:

Of course it is.  That's why I'm watching.

Yes, me too. But the writers of the show are being careful to keep the conversations about things known in the news like someone’s divorce without going into details that would make the scenes more interesting. Since the black and white ball never happened, I’m thinking the real life lunches and dinners were boring and the show doesn’t have anything interesting to say about the swans except that they are rich and either cheated or got cheated on in one of their many marriages. 

[carrps]

7 minutes ago, Penman61 said:

Also: The line "the only thing unforgivable is deliberate cruelty" is Blanche from "A Streetcar Named Desire," by Tennessee Williams, so I don't know why this show is acting like Capote wrote/said it. Perhaps I missed a moment? Or did Williams steal it from Capote?

I seem to remember in the previous episode Capote commenting on Tenneseee Williams...something to the effect of he (Capote) being better than Williams. Sounded like sour grapes. Williams was more prolific and successful than Capote even if they both had messy ends.

[sugarbaker design]

36 minutes ago, Madding crowd said:

Yes, me too. But the writers of the show are being careful to keep the conversations about things known in the news like someone’s divorce without going into details that would make the scenes more interesting.

The scenes are more than interesting to me.

36 minutes ago, Madding crowd said:

Since the black and white ball never happened, I’m thinking the real life lunches and dinners were boring and the show doesn’t have anything interesting to say about the swans except that they are rich and either cheated or got cheated on in one of their many marriages. 

I haven't watched the episode yet, can't comment.

Edited February 8 by sugarbaker design

[sistermagpie]

5 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

The Black and White Ball!

So even before he stabbed them in the back, Truman was already a duplicitous bitch, playing them all against each other by making each of them think she was his “special guest.” Hard to believe they still put up with them after that; guess Answered Prayers really was the final straw.

I didn't feel too badly for them on that score. They all just personally thought they deserved to be a guest of honor for no reason whatsoever and had to backtrack. It was of course bitchy of him to leave them guessing and hoping, but the only reason it worked was because they share some similar flaws with him. 

3 hours ago, blueroses said:

She was Pamela Harriman and had a scene with Slim Keith at the buffet (chicken hash). Perfect casting. 

Yes! Really makes me want to see her in more roles like this.

43 minutes ago, Penman61 said:

But this didn't work for me. First, they way overdid characters shouting "Are you filming this? Stop filming this!!" I mean, once, maybe twice, but multiple times in multiple ways? It's just lazy writing and strains credulity.

 

Especially since I kept wondering what it was like back then doing it. Now people can easily be shot without them knowing, but back then they're staring at a guy pointing a camera at them.

1 minute ago, sugarbaker design said:

I have no idea what the black and white ball is.

It's the ball Truman threw in the episode. It was a huge deal at the time and still famous for the guest list.

[Cheezwiz]

1 hour ago, Madding crowd said:

Since the black and white ball never happened, I’m thinking the real life lunches and dinners were boring and the show doesn’t have anything interesting to say about the swans except that they are rich and either cheated or got cheated on in one of their many marriages. 

The black and white ball definitely happened - it was a real event that Truman Capote hosted in the mid-sixties, with all the hype and intrigue that was depicted in the episode. Everyone in high society circles wanted an invite - kind of like our current Met Galas. It's fun to google pictures of everyone's get-ups back then.

The fictional element in this episode was the documentary filming by the Maysles brothers - that never happened around the ball. The brothers did apparently meet with Truman briefly at his beach house about a year before the ball took place - not sure if they did any filming.

I was looking forward to this episode, as I had read so much about the ball, but it seemed a bit draggy to me - the fun juicy elements (Truman playing the swans against one another, everyone thinking they were the special guest of honour) were truncated, while the more tedious ones ("stop filming!") were too repetitive.

[sugarbaker design]

33 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

It's the ball Truman threw in the episode. It was a huge deal at the time and still famous for the guest list.

I haven't seen the episode.

[ItCouldBeWorse]

On 2/6/2024 at 4:17 PM, txhorns79 said:

Outside of Babe Paley, I really don't know much about any of these women or their background,

Here you go (mostly from Wikipedia):

C.Z. Guest only had only one marriage (resulting in 2 children), to a Churchill cousin who divorced his first wife 3 years before marrying C.Z., and remained married to him until his death.

In contrast, Babe Paley was married to:

1) her first husband (with whom she had 2 children), for 6 years

2) Bill Paley the year after her divorce (and had another 2 children with him), remaining married until his death. They married 3 days after Paley's first wife (who had started an affair with Paley while still married to her first husband, a son of William Randolph Hearst), received a divorce in Reno.

Lee Radziwill (Jackie Kennedy's sister) was divorced for the second time (a year before La Côte Basque was published) from a Polish aristocrat whose 3rd wife she was and with whom she had 2 children.  (The Polish "prince's" previous (2nd) wife later married a British earl whose previous (2nd) wife later married Lee's first husband.) Years after Capote died,  Lee married director Herbert Ross.

Slim Keith:

1) had a daughter with her first husband, the director Howard Hawks (who had to divorce Norma Shearer's sister to marry her.)

2) She divorced the cheating Hawks to become the 3rd wife of producer Leland Hayward who divorced actress Margaret Sullavan (his 2nd wife, who had previously had a very brief marriage to Henry Fonda and a longer one to Director William Wyler) to marry her.

She allegedly had affairs with Frank Sinatra and others, and Hayward divorced her after 10 years to marry Pamela Churchill (ex-wife of Winston's son), as his 4th wife (or 5th, since he had married and divorced his first wife twice.) Pamela is called "Pamela Harriman" in the 3rd episode of Feud, but she didn't marry Averell Harriman until after Hayward's death, years after the Black and White Ball. Pamela was the much older Harriman's 3rd wife.  And his daughter by his 1st wife married Babe Paley's first husband, a year after their divorce, the same year Babe married Bill Paley.

3) At the time of the Black and White Ball, Slim was married to British banker Kenneth Keith, whom she later divorced.  Between those times, he was knighted, and she became "Lady Keith".

On 2/5/2024 at 4:19 PM, Snazzy Daisy said:

C.Z. Guest is kind of boring

So maybe C.Z. Guest is boring because she had the least drama in her life of the above women? https://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/a46320559/who-was-cz-guest-true-story/

Has anyone seen evidence that the Guests actually had their assets seized by the IRS?

12 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

Where was Allison wright?  I missed her. 

She played Pamela Churchill Heyward (Harriman), currently married to Slim Keith's ex, Leland Heyward.

Edited February 9 by ItCouldBeWorse

[12catcrazy]

6 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

Where was Allison wright?  I missed her. 

Try watching the Maysles brothers’ Salesman. Fascinating and depressing. Then there’s Grey Gardens, of course, which I find exploitative. 
I tried finding the black and white ball documentary but no success. 

Agree 100% about Salesman and Grey Gardens.   And the spoof series "Documentary Now" did great versions of each.  

I don't think the Black and White Ball documentary was ever actually made.  

[meep.meep]

1 hour ago, Madding crowd said:

Yes, me too. But the writers of the show are being careful to keep the conversations about things known in the news like someone’s divorce without going into details that would make the scenes more interesting. Since the black and white ball never happened, I’m thinking the real life lunches and dinners were boring and the show doesn’t have anything interesting to say about the swans except that they are rich and either cheated or got cheated on in one of their many marriages. 

?  The Black and White ball happened.  From Wikipedia:

"The Black and White Ball was a masquerade ball held on November 28, 1966, at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. Hosted by author Truman Capote, the ball was in honor of The Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham."

This was obviously the episode that got most of these actresses to sign on to the project.

If any one is keeping score, I fell asleep again.  It's just not compelling.

 

[Snazzy Daisy]

S02•E03 - Masquerade 1966

Well, Truman Capote is always wearing a mask. Ironic huh.

Am not a fan of this episode. Nothing much to further the plot. I still feel woozy from the shaky camera movements and several abrupt cuts. 😵‍💫

This Black & White Ball is basically a 1966 social experiment, disguised as a lavish social gathering attended by 540 diverse, colorful characters carefully selected by Truman. His prayers are unanswered, he’s at his peak.

It’s just he has painted himself into a corner by overplaying the “guest of honor” card. IRL, he might have copied the idea from his friend, Dominick Dunne who threw a B&W Ball in 1964 for his 10th wedding anniversary.

Truman’s mother is the key to his betrayal of the swans. He is reliving his childhood trauma and covering his pain with this flamboyant mask.

Lee Radziwill’s confessional is the most powerful scene in this episode. She reads him like a book and it hurts him.💥

Quote

“We have a man, a celebrated little man, trying to outdo himself in a ballet called Dance of the Seven Trumans. Wherein he spins himself into a butler for having made so many declarations to so many friends.

Truman takes advantage of this fear (of betrayal) and aloneness. He makes us into his number-one friend. He makes himself out to be our great protector, but really, is he?

To be a woman is to be very much out on the limb alone. So don’t pretend that there’s such a thing as a best friend…”

 

 

Edited February 8 by Snazzy Daisy

[12catcrazy]

30 minutes ago, ItCouldBeWorse said:

Here you go (mostly from Wikipedia):

.....

My God, you need a flow chart! 

C.Z. Guest came from a Boston Brahmin family.  She wasn't a social climber in the way the other women were.   I recall that she had a Newspaper gardening column in the late 80s or early 90s; in some ways she was a proto Martha Stewart.  Her daughter Cornelia Guest was all over the NY Social columns in the 80s - I think she was also well known as an Equestrian.  

Pamela Harriman - now that woman was a piece of work - she made the Swans look like a bunch of amateurs when it came to social climbing and bed hopping and a quest for power.  I read a fascinating book about her some years ago and I guess that she could be described as the last of the great Courtesans.  They don't make them like that any more.  

[peacheslatour]

Pamela Harriman - now that woman was a piece of work - she made the Swans look like a bunch of amateurs when it came to social climbing and bed hopping and a quest for power.  I read a fascinating book about her some years ago and I guess that she could be described as the last of the great Courtesans.  They don't make them like that any more.  

With the internet and social media, intrigue is much harder the pull off these days.

[Snazzy Daisy]

59 minutes ago, ItCouldBeWorse said:

So maybe C.Z. Guest is boring because she had the least drama in her life of the above women?

Nah. Am just not a fan of Chloë Sevigny and her RBF.

I do appreciate that the show goes into details to feature C.Z.'s photo with her son at Villa Artemis and also the Diego Rivera's painting during the IRS raid scene. 💙

Link: Adorable Story #14: C.Z. Guest

 

[Madding crowd]

I apologize for my mistake about the black and white ball. I read a review on another site which stated that the ball didn’t happen so I didn’t check further. I still feel the series is lacking some excitement factor for me but I understand others feel differently.

[sistermagpie]

1 hour ago, sugarbaker design said:

I haven't seen the episode.

Ah--in that case, just a big party that Truman Capote through with a very carefully considered guest list that made a big splash.

[sugarbaker design]

30 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

Ah--in that case, just a big party that Truman Capote through with a very carefully considered guest list that made a big splash.

Yes, I'm familiar with the actual party.  It's funny, CBS Sunday Morning recently ran a tribute to the late great Charles Osgood, they reran a few of his stories, one of which, was of course, the Black & White Ball. 

[babyrambo]

Truman: “So I can swoop in and fix it, as I do.”

Seems that’s what it comes down to, in the end. Obviously reality was more complex than that but this series emphasizes just how much those society people leaned into the parts they played and needed an outlet to feel seen and appreciated, and if you buy that angle, which I do, it’s easy to see why they were so easily taken by Truman. 

He’s portrayed as borderline sycophantic but not grating. A listening ear, fun time and loyal, until he’s not. It’s funny, they’re aware of his shrewd, loose lipped antics but think it doesn’t apply to them or believe that Capote loves the perks of society life too much to ever betray them for fear of being ostracized. Guess they found out the hard way  

This was my favourite episode so far. Everything is a bit much, as always, but the documentary format lends itself to the dramatics. In this style it works, even that callous, BravoTv-esque back and forth with Ann Woodward (which didn’t even happen since in real life she and Capote met only once).

I just hope this is the last of Jessica Lange. She’s a good actress but I feel like they’ve said all they need to say regarding Capote’s mom and their relationship so that bit is wearing thin.

[EtheltoTillie]

47 minutes ago, sugarbaker design said:

Yes, I'm familiar with the actual party.  It's funny, CBS Sunday Morning recently ran a tribute to the late great Charles Osgood, they reran a few of his stories, one of which, was of course, the Black & White Ball. 

I saw that segment--you got to see real scenes of people going to the ball.  They interviewed the current-day Candy Bergen, who was a young invitee at the time.  Maybe one of the few people still living who were there.  You could catch it on YouTube. 

Edited February 8 by EtheltoTillie

[peacheslatour]

Frank Sinatra and Mia Farrow entering the Black and White Ball.

 

[EtheltoTillie]

Ah, Mia Farrow.  Another young person still alive. 

[peacheslatour]

Bill and Babe Paley and Gloria Guinness.

[Starchild]

3 hours ago, babyrambo said:

He’s portrayed as borderline sycophantic but not grating.

I found the scene where he's begging Babe to tell the filmmakers what she loves about him quite unseemly. He went on and on.

Clearly he needed to hear it himself, way more than the filmmakers needed to. Such low self esteem. Unsurprisingly with a mother like that.

Edited February 9 by Starchild

[Natalie68]

On 2/6/2024 at 1:17 PM, txhorns79 said:

I'm mixed on it so far.  I feel like we should have seen a lot more of Truman's relationship with these women before he betrayed them and they decided to cut him off.  Outside of Babe Paley, I really don't know much about any of these women or their background, or what Truman wrote about them.  Maybe it will be explained more as the show continues, but as it is, it's not particularly well done.   

And can anyone explain the point of Phyllis Diller being at Joanne Carson's Thanksgiving?  She did nothing, said nothing, but her presence was very much a distraction. 

 

 

Loved seeing Phyllis!  They can have her show up anywhere as far as I am concerned!

[ItCouldBeWorse]

5 hours ago, Snazzy Daisy said:

I do appreciate that the show goes into details to feature C.Z.'s photo with her son at Villa Artemis and also the Diego Rivera's painting during the IRS raid scene. 💙

Link: Adorable Story #14: C.Z. Guest

 

Do you happen to know if the IRS raid on the Guests is fiction?  I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere else.

[Snazzy Daisy]

32 minutes ago, ItCouldBeWorse said:

Do you happen to know if the IRS raid on the Guests is fiction?  I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere else.

Nothing about IRS raid, only an old article about their bad debts.

➡️ LINK

[howiveaddict]

1 hour ago, Natalie68 said:

Loved seeing Phyllis!  They can have her show up anywhere as far as I am concerned!

I didn't like that they dressed her as her stage persona.  i thought she was very elegant in real life.  She was also a concert pianist.

[Natalie68]

18 minutes ago, howiveaddict said:

I didn't like that they dressed her as her stage persona.  i thought she was very elegant in real life.  She was also a concert pianist.

I had no idea about the piano!

[txhorns79]

8 hours ago, ItCouldBeWorse said:

Here you go (mostly from Wikipedia):

This kind of proves my point.  The show isn't telling us these things.  You need to look them up to understand what's happening.  One of the nice things about the Bette/Joan feud season was the show gave us that history to explain why the women were the way they were.   

I thought the episode was a little silly and really did not move the dial on the story.  It was played like a dress rehearsal for Truman's betrayal of the women, given he invited the cameras to record them during particularly vulnerable moments.  I did enjoy Katherine Graham's face when Truman was talking to the camera about her husband's suicide.  It was kind of a mix of horror and "WTF?!?"  I also liked Joanne Carson randomly showing up at the end during the swan dance, like they suddenly remembered they needed to give Molly Ringwald something to do in the episode. 

[buttersister]

Quote

It’s funny, they’re aware of his shrewd, loose lipped antics but think it doesn’t apply to them or believe that Capote loves the perks of society life too much to ever betray them for fear of being ostracized. Guess they found out the hard way  

Surprisingly, to me, they didn’t realize how damaged he was. Perhaps the divulging was a one-way street and Truman was careful to keep it that way. 

He was never not damaged, but I think living and writing In Cold Blood  lit the fuse that eventually blew him up. The movie was okay, the book is harrowing to read.

I was sure when watching Truman dance around by himself that he imagined someone was there. 

I remember reading La Cote Basque when it ran in Esquire —all I could conclude was that irl, those women were gonna cut him. Or equivalent expression in those days. And I was in high school! 

[ItCouldBeWorse]

2 hours ago, Snazzy Daisy said:

Nothing about IRS raid, only an old article about their bad debts.

➡️ LINK

Ah, it wasn't the IRS: "Once a federal court ruled last March that Guest alone was responsible for Aerovias' bad debts, it was only a question of time before a federal marshal showed up at the Guests' Long Island estate. In August, he started tagging their paintings and objets d'art. Winston Guest went to court to stave off the indignity of a marshal's sale, got a month's grace, during which he scraped together the money to cover the half-million-dollar debt, plus $20,000 in interest and legal fees."

That's why we later saw C.Z. tearing the tags off the paintings.

[wonderwoman]

11 hours ago, carrps said:

I seem to remember in the previous episode Capote commenting on Tenneseee Williams...something to the effect of he (Capote) being better than Williams. Sounded like sour grapes. Williams was more prolific and successful than Capote even if they both had messy ends

capote was actually commenting on an episode of ‘family,’ a show that ran on abc in the late 70s.

what he said was that the show was so well written tennessee would be jealous. then noted that the characters all loved each other no matter how badly they behaved.  

‘family’ was one of my favorite shows, so i was fascinated and wondered if this is something capote actually said. 

[Chaos Theory]

20 hours ago, Madding crowd said:

This isn’t as fun as I thought it would be. I love seeing some of my favorite actresses but I think the writers are caught between trying to be truthful about what is actually known and telling a good story. The article Capote wrote for Vanity Fair and the aftermath are known but exact meetings and conversations between him and the swans is just being guessed at. 

The same issue with The Assassination of Gianni Varsace.  We know the details of what happened but the conversation for obvious reasons needed to be guessed at.  It was still a fascinating story and so is this.     
 

The reasons why Capote published the first chapter made a certain amount of sense.  He had writers block.  He was waaaay past deadline for his book and his publishers were threatening him.  He was deep into alcoholism and drug addiction.   None of these are excuses mind you but reasons why he might have just said “screw it” and wrote about Babe Paley legitimately thinking that she wouldn’t figure it out or that she would forgive him….because at that point he had ingratiated himself into her life as her one true confidant.  

 

 

 

[Ohiopirate02]

18 hours ago, Snazzy Daisy said:

 

 

This took me out of the episode.  It's 1966, Lee is still married to her Polish Prince and Jackie is still grieving Jack and heavily leaning on his brother Robert.  I know we all know Jackie will eventually "steal" Ari Onassis from Lee, but this line does not work in 1966.

On another note, I would loved to have been an extra for this episode.  

[peacheslatour]

2 hours ago, Chaos Theory said:

The same issue with The Assassination of Gianni Varsace.  We know the details of what happened but the conversation for obvious reasons needed to be guessed at.  It was still a fascinating story and so is this.     
 

The reasons why Capote published the first chapter made a certain amount of sense.  He had writers block.  He was waaaay past deadline for his book and his publishers were threatening him.  He was deep into alcoholism and drug addiction.   None of these are excuses mind you but reasons why he might have just said “screw it” and wrote about Babe Paley legitimately thinking that she wouldn’t figure it out or that she would forgive him….because at that point he had ingratiated himself into her life as her one true confidant.  

 

 

 

After the fallout, he kept saying "They know I'm a writer. They know I'm a writer." He was utterly baffled at why they all dropped him. He really didn't get it and became a caricature of himself. He was destroyed.

[carrps]

13 hours ago, wonderwoman said:

capote was actually commenting on an episode of ‘family,’ a show that ran on abc in the late 70s.

Thanks! My memory is not always the best these days. 🙃

[tennisgurl]

I was pretty unsure about the documentary gimmick for the episode, but by the end I came around to it. Some of it had that classic Ryan Murphy "Look at my camp!" vibe, but it think it ended up fitting the Black and White ball aesthetic. I also think we needed to see more of Truman's dynamic with the Swans, who is always played against each other for entertainment sake and to feed his ego, and see why they would so furiously turn against him. Truman really is a petty little shit head, but there really seemed to be something empty and broken in him that he was trying and failing to fill. He was desperate to be loved and acknowledged, him trying to get Babe to talk on camera about why she loves him, if he wasn't hiding behind all of his "capote-isms it would have been even more obviously needy. Even his big book of gossip is all in the name of being the center of attention. Its sad, but it doesn't make everything that he did in the name of feeling loved ok. 

I just looked up some pictures from the real life party, that guest list really was wild. And those outfits! The glamour of it all did give you more of a look into why these glamourous women were all so obsessed with Truman, even though they clearly knew how sycophantic and bitchy he was, they seemed to think they were all safe from his nasty side because of their symbiotic relationship. 

I'm impressed that Katherine Graham could make such an obvious "what the fuck?" when while masked when Truman started rambling on about her husbands suicide. 

I like Jessica Lange just as much as anyone, but I don't think she needs to be in every episode doing her Blanche DuBois impression just because she and Ryan Murphy are a package deal.  

Edited February 9 by tennisgurl

[sistermagpie]

10 hours ago, Chaos Theory said:

The reasons why Capote published the first chapter made a certain amount of sense.  He had writers block.  He was waaaay past deadline for his book and his publishers were threatening him.  He was deep into alcoholism and drug addiction.   None of these are excuses mind you but reasons why he might have just said “screw it” and wrote about Babe Paley legitimately thinking that she wouldn’t figure it out or that she would forgive him….because at that point he had ingratiated himself into her life as her one true confidant.  

 

While it doesn't excuse what he did, I do find myself thinking that he really is at their beck and call--we see them calling him when they're upset and he shows up to support them, but we never see them do that for him. Of course, that goes back to him not confiding in them back, and they are shown taking some interest in his life and showing concern. But it is kind of interesting how even when they talk about missing him they don't talk about that. 

Again, it's not a situation that makes me feel like they're in the wrong or he's the victim, but it does complicate things a little. Especially since this is happening when he's imploding. In this ep we've got Babe saying things like, "Well, I'm proud of you" etc. when he's at his height. Would they be standing together in a situation like this if In Cold Blood came out now? 

[Maximona]

On 2/6/2024 at 9:17 AM, sugarbaker design said:

This show is a great companion piece to the Phillip Seymour Hoffman film Capote, where Capote essentially sold his soul to get his In Cold Blood written.  At the point where F:CvTS begins Capote is already swirling the drain, in a death spiral.

Yes!!!!!!  Exactly!!!

For reasons completely unrelated to this show, I was on a Truman Capote biography reading binge these past two weeks. Gerald Clarke's excellent Capote: A Biography and George Plimpton's oral biography.

Truman vs. The Swans is very entertaining, but the way it positions Capote's downfall seems off the mark to me.

In Cold Blood is a pretty terrific book; moreover, it invented a whole new literary genre. By all accounts, it was extremely difficult to write because while writing it, Capote formed a very strange relationship with Perry Smith, one of the murderers, Perry Smith. They became emotionally very close; some people even thought they had somehow contrived to become lovers.

Capote was very insistent that the book couldn't be completed unless the two murderers were executed.  In fact, he insisted he had to watch the executions.  (He did watch Hickcock's execution, but he couldn't bring himself to watch Perry Smith's.)

There's considerable weirdness behind needing someone you are emotionally attached to be executed—by hanging, no less!—while you watch because you need to finish your book.  It's kinda the ultimate betrayal of love.

The boozing and the drug-taking began then.  Good writing is hard.  And you can't do it very well if you're perpetually drunk or drugged.  Since he could no longer write well, Capote fell into writing gossip.  The chapters of Answered Prayers that exist are really execrably written.  Just really, really, really bad.  PageSix on LSD-levels of bad.

In his mind, Capote was writing a 20th Century À la recherche du temps perdu—Proust's novel was also a Big Scandal when he published it.  The difference is that À la recherche was well-written, and Answered Prayers was not.

Anyway, this explanation would have been too sophisticated for Ryan Murphy.  Far easier to see it as a socialite Mean Girls—plus socialite Mean Girls attracts more viewers, too! 😀

I do hope Gore Vidal gets to make an appearance somewhere on this show.  When Capote's liver finally gave out, and he died, Gore Vidal quipped, A wise career move.

Of course, Gore Vidal died as a pathetic old drunk, too.  There must be some sort of moral there.  😀

[Ohiopirate02]

41 minutes ago, Maximona said:

 

I do hope Gore Vidal gets to make an appearance somewhere on this show.  When Capote's liver finally gave out, and he died, Gore Vidal quipped, A wise career move.

Of course, Gore Vidal died as a pathetic old drunk, too.  There must be some sort of moral there.  😀

I honestly wish this season was Feud: Capote vs. Vidal.  Both writers, both openly gay when homosexuality was technically illegal, both had a biting wit, both drunks, and both assholes.  I'm finding this season unbalanced because three episodes in the Swans have not done anything to Truman to warrant what he did to them with that article.

[NowVoyager]