Season 2 - Feud: Capote vs The Swans

[Sweet-tea]

On 3/6/2024 at 1:40 PM, Elizzikra said:

Kind of… but I’m really drawn in by the swans and their clothes. I’ve been loving the period clothing and accessories, as well as just the overall glamorous vibe of the show. Capote v. Vidal wouldn’t have had as much of that.

 

I don’t think there was a place to buy gloves at that point except in fall/winter. As you said, no one was wearing indoor gloves.

The show hasn’t made this point especially well, but I don’t think that Bill was moved to care for Babe during her illness out some finally-realized profound love for her. Bill loved his possessions. Babe was like a fine jewel or a nice piece of art. He had invested a lot into her and she was broken. He was angry that she was broken and could not be fixed. Him carping on her ruined hands would have been completely in character for him; it would have been like having a cracked vase on display in the front hall. I believe he remarried shortly after her death. While I loved Treat Williams (rest in peace) I’m having a hard time seeing him as Bill Paley because to me, he is forever Andy Brown from Everwood. 

One thing I noticed in this series is Babe isn't as beautiful as I expected. I mean, Naomi Watts is very pretty, but the way Babe is described is like she's some goddess.... like a combination of Elizabeth Taylor and Ava Gardner during their prime or someone similar. I looked up pictures of her and didn't see it in the real person either. Perhaps it was her poise and fashion and it came through more in person than in photos? 

I like Treat Williams so much that it was also hard for me to see him as Bill Paley. I'm reading the book now, and it paints a different mental picture for me of Paley. 

On 3/8/2024 at 8:05 AM, Maximona said:

I laughed out loud when I read this.  😀

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Me too. It was interminable. 

In the Hulu documentary one of men who knew Capote said he believes he did finish Answered Prayers. I can't remember who it was though. Another said the opposite. 

On 3/13/2024 at 10:44 PM, Starchild said:

I appreciate a well-placed fantasy sequence now and then, but this show overindulged.

Yes it was too much for me too. And it seemed to go on forever. 

Edited March 16 by Sweet-tea

[Sweet-tea]

On 3/14/2024 at 11:38 AM, tennisgurl said:

Of course we cant get through this season without one more episode featuring Jessica Lange doing her one woman Tennessee Williams play,

She was frightening to me and whatever she did to her face wasn't good. 

[Elizzikra]

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One thing I noticed in this series is Babe isn't as beautiful as I expected. I mean, Naomi Watts is very pretty, but the way Babe is described is like she's some goddess.... like a combination of Elizabeth Taylor and Ava Gardner during their prime or someone similar. I looked up pictures of her and didn't see it in the real person either. Perhaps it was her poise and fashion and it came through more in person than in photos? 

I had the exact same reaction; Naomi Watts is stunning but styled as Babe Paley, all I could see was the helmet hair and all the endless cigarettes. I also didn't see the ravishing beauty in photos I've seen of the actual Babe Paley. She was pretty and certainly elegantly dressed and perfectly turned out but I didn't think that she was that draw droppingly exquisite.

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I like Treat Williams so much that it was also hard for me to see him as Bill Paley. I'm reading the book now, and it paints a different mental picture for me of Paley. 

Treat Williams will always be Everwood's Dr. Andy Brown to me. I can't see him as the constantly philandering, endlessly perfectionistic, serial cheater that Bill Paley is widely described as being. May they both Rest In Peace.

[Blakeston]

On 3/16/2024 at 8:55 AM, MissAlmond said:

Well, IRL was Capote actually witty/funny or was he simply catty about others and the swans loved it? That is, until the leopards came to eat their faces. 

He was chosen to be on lots of talk shows because he was so entertaining, and he was one of the most sought-after dinner guests of all time. And he lived in an era when gay men were expected to be closeted, but he managed to become the toast of town while being out and flaming. He must have had a good sense of humor.

Even if he wasn't the wittiest bon vivant in real life, the writers should have had some fun with the character. But I think they were far more concerned with their pretentious aspirations than anything else.

[Black Knight]

Thanks to the poster who provided the link to the infamous story. Having just read it, I can understand why Slim Keith was so angry with Truman - except for Ann, out of them all she had the most reason. I also see now why the show had the Slim/Bill affair, since the story's Slim says she and Bill were lovers for two years back when they were young, and remained incredibly close afterwards. So it wasn't a completely ludicrous plot point to have them fall back in bed for a bit.

I finally watched the last two episodes, and they worked for me. I admit it, the dreamy elegiac stuff always works for me. I understand where some would think it's over-indulgent and drawn out and boring, but for me it's none of those things. I haven't really felt Ryan Murphy's hand in this show until these last two episodes, but I sure recognized it now. For both of us there's something so interesting about the looking back and the consideration and reconsideration of our narratives. Joan Didion, one of the pioneers of New Journalism, famously wrote, "We tell ourselves stories in order to live." And the question Ryan Murphy sometimes asks is, "What are the stories we tell ourselves in order to die?" I was shocked when Capote died at the end of episode 7 and didn't understand how there could be an episode 8, but then I saw episode 8 and understood.

[Spartan Girl]

Well, this show got me to finally watch Capote. Phillip Seymour Hoffman, may he rest in peace, did a much better job humanizing Capote; he was still a social climbing egomaniac, but there was enough humanity for the experience of writing In Cold Blood and getting sucked into the killers’ orbit that clearly rattled him. And if you connect the two shows, that was what caused him to switch off whatever modicum of decency he had left and turn into the self-destructive parasite we saw in Feud. 

[iMonrey]

I didn't even finish the last episode, I admit it. I watched about 15 minutes of it then turned it off. I sat through seven hours of Tom Hollander vamping and monologuing and I'd had enough. 

There really wasn't much of a "feud," per se. Truman betrayed his friends and they shunned him. That's not actually a feud. This was just a lot of Tom Hollander swanning around making an eight hour Emmy reel with a few scenes of the Ladies Who Lunch gossiping about him. The talents of Naomi Watts, Diane Lane, Calista Flockhart, Demi Moore and Molly Ringwald were completely wasted here. Less so for Chloë Sevigny, but still. The whole thing felt very lopsided.

It almost felt like they shot something else, then got caught up in Tom Hollander's performance and had him do more of it while editing out "the swans" to make room for more of it. It was Capote overload.

[DXD526]

We got virtually no backstory on Capote and the Swans, nothing to really give context, but we did get to see Capote die, twice, in two different episodes. What a good time.

What a disappointment. The Bette/Joan Feud told a cohesive story and was fun and enjoyable. This started off pretty good, but quickly dissolved into a mess of monologues and endless dream sequences. A talented cast, wasted. 

[Elizzikra]

3 hours ago, iMonrey said:

I didn't even finish the last episode, I admit it. I watched about 15 minutes of it then turned it off. I sat through seven hours of Tom Hollander vamping and monologuing and I'd had enough. 

There really wasn't much of a "feud," per se.

I hadn’t thought of it that way but you’re right. Capote pissed off the swans with the Esquire article and they spent the rest of the miniseries shunning him. He didn’t feud back; he spent the entire miniseries trying to get back into their good graces.

[carrps]

3 hours ago, iMonrey said:

The whole thing felt very lopsided.

Very succintly and accurately put. An off-kilter show.

 

[ljenkins782]

21 hours ago, DXD526 said:

We got virtually no backstory on Capote and the Swans, nothing to really give context, but we did get to see Capote die, twice, in two different episodes. What a good time.

What a disappointment. The Bette/Joan Feud told a cohesive story and was fun and enjoyable. This started off pretty good, but quickly dissolved into a mess of monologues and endless dream sequences. A talented cast, wasted. 

My hope is that like has happened in other cases, once a story is brought up, several different vehicles (or networks) come up with their own version. Like when Hulu did Candy and then HBO came out with Love & Death. Same story, but with different actors and different direction, it produced a different feel.

I would love to see a less...creative (? not sure what I'm looking for here, but fewer dead mommy dream sequences) version of this story. Something a little more direct and with more buildup to the actual splintering of the relationships. 

Quote

One thing I noticed in this series is Babe isn't as beautiful as I expected. I mean, Naomi Watts is very pretty, but the way Babe is described is like she's some goddess.... like a combination of Elizabeth Taylor and Ava Gardner during their prime or someone similar. I looked up pictures of her and didn't see it in the real person either. Perhaps it was her poise and fashion and it came through more in person than in photos? 

I had the same thought when I looked up photos of Babe after reading Swans of 5th Avenue. Polished and attractive certainly, but not the otherworldly beauty I was expecting. It could certainly be a case of an aura that exists in person more than in photos, I've known many people who glow in person and photos don't capture it. 

[kassa]

On 2/6/2024 at 10:32 AM, monakane said:

Thank you!  Also, it looked more like a murder scene in there than period blood.  Who bleeds that much.  Gross.

Oh, I could tell you stories...

On 2/6/2024 at 12:06 PM, sugarbaker design said:

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

They only lightly touched on it, but his main issue was that he got a breathtaking advance and never delivered. Year after year the pressure increased and he couldn't give the publishers anything. He was writing articles for Rolling Stone and anything else that would bring in a few bucks. So he just was dug in deeper and deeper and desperate enough to use what he had to save himself. Not that that excuses what he did, but it seems to have been more something that he resorted to than a whim. 

On 3/14/2024 at 7:03 AM, Spartan Girl said:

Who bought Truman’s ashes? That was so morbid that they were auctioned off like that.

I don't think it's ever been revealed. But the auction only had a portion of them. They were initially split between Joanne and Jack, and then most of her share was buried at the Westwood cemetery, supposedly in the space Peter Lawford had occupied except his bills weren't paid and he got evicted (either by the Kennedys or his wife at the time). Joanne kept some of them and that was what ended up being auctioned (after her death). 

On 3/17/2024 at 3:08 PM, Blakeston said:

He was chosen to be on lots of talk shows because he was so entertaining, and he was one of the most sought-after dinner guests of all time. And he lived in an era when gay men were expected to be closeted, but he managed to become the toast of town while being out and flaming. He must have had a good sense of humor.

I was a child at the time, but he was on EVERY talk show (back when talk shows were in the morning and afternoon). What he contributed was way above my understanding at the time (I just thought of him as that weird guy), but he clearly delivered, even if towards the end it was a train wreck sort of thing. Part of what I think he delivered was a certain kind of bitchy gossip that was novel at the time. People were so much more guarded in public - he came out and said things that made people gasp, and I can see that appealing to the society folks because he dished the dirt on people he knew they already despised.  I think he made them feel modern and racy and liberal and cool, and he satisfied their mean girl streak, never suspecting that he'd do the same to them.

Edited March 19 by kassa

[12catcrazy]

On 3/15/2024 at 12:34 AM, ItCouldBeWorse said:

Here's the article that started it all:  https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/a40376194/truman-capote-la-cote-basque/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=arb_ga_esq_md_pmx_hybd_mix_us_18717285305&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwwMqvBhCtARIsAIXsZpbGL82f4Q8kgxEkKPz8OYa3rw-QYHRNIddOVojSGKulD3d5KbCnLfAaAk_0EALw_wcB

Yes, one has got to read this and understand why Slim Keith was so angry.  And my God, the way he beyond trash-talked Ann Woodward!  That's heavy-duty stuff when you accuse somebody of not only being a former hooker but also a very cold-blooded murderer.  If the woman was already shunned from the social circles she wanted to be in and then Capote puts out a story like this - well, I guess you can understand why she committed suicide.  

Frankly, other than Slim Keith and Ann Woodward, I don't understand why the other women were so incensed.  Ok, yeah, so Babe was probably embarrassed but it wasn't a secret that her husband was a notorious womanizer.  And my guess is that the "lady" in that tale  might not have been Happy Rockefeller but more likely Pamela Churchill Harriman, who by the way, had an affair with a Rothschild who refused to marry her. And she had also been a lover of Bill Paley as well as all other sorts of very rich men.     I think that Truman took all sorts of bits and pieces of these society women's lives and added it to his story.   

I'm going to admit that I've read very little of Capote's writing and I'm going to guess that the works that made him famous were better written than this was.  The lurid tales he was recounting kept me reading, but man, the writing was awful. 

Anyway, thanks for linking this -  it was good to be able to read the story behind Feud - Capote vs The Swans.  

[Sweet-tea]

In reading the book this show was based on, I’m struck by how Chloe Sevigny was miscast in this role. This is how the book describes CZ:

What set CZ apart from her fellow debs was not her height but her beauty. Her looks were such that she won the title North Shore’s Prettiest. Beauty had been C.Z.’s magic wand all her life. All she had to do was to wave it and she got what she wanted. As a little girl, adults looked at her and praised her in a way they did not children who had more common looks. As a debutante, her dance cards were always full.

I like Chloe as an actress but she doesn’t match this description. What is interesting is that normally in TV or movies, the actors are better looking than the real life people. But I’m not seeing that here with a few of the characters (CZ and Babe, but especially CZ). I also don’t buy CZ as a blueblood. Something is lacking in Chloe’s portrayal. 

Here is CZ and Chloe Sevigny. 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 24 by Sweet-tea

[12catcrazy]

I think that Naomi Watts looked more like CZ when she (Naomi) was young.  I found Chloe hard to believe as CZ as well.  

Of all the swans portrayed, I think that CZ Guest was the only one of the women "to the manor born",  though the families of Babe Paley and Lee Bouvier certainly were wannabes (and groomed their daughters to marry rich). 

[Sweet-tea]

On 3/20/2024 at 10:54 AM, 12catcrazy said:

Anyway, thanks for linking this -  it was good to be able to read the story behind Feud - Capote vs The Swans.  

I noticed in the intro to the article it says Answered Prayers was published after Capote's death. I thought the book was never found. He didn't complete it. 

Ah, never mind. Saw something saying an unfinished version was published in 1986. 

Edited March 29 by Sweet-tea

[ljenkins782]

On 3/24/2024 at 7:38 PM, Sweet-tea said:

In reading the book this show was based on, I’m struck by how Chloe Sevigny was miscast in this role. This is how the book describes CZ:

What set CZ apart from her fellow debs was not her height but her beauty. Her looks were such that she won the title North Shore’s Prettiest. Beauty had been C.Z.’s magic wand all her life. All she had to do was to wave it and she got what she wanted. As a little girl, adults looked at her and praised her in a way they did not children who had more common looks. As a debutante, her dance cards were always full.

I like Chloe as an actress but she doesn’t match this description. What is interesting is that normally in TV or movies, the actors are better looking than the real life people. But I’m not seeing that here with a few of the characters (CZ and Babe, but especially CZ). I also don’t buy CZ as a blueblood. Something is lacking in Chloe’s portrayal. 

Here is CZ and Chloe Sevigny. 

 

 

 

 

Yeah, the styling did no favors to Chloe Savigny's already not classically beautiful face and she doesn't remotely resemble the real CZ Guest. I found her performance overly mannered in a way that didn't quite fit.

[CarpeFelis]

On 3/24/2024 at 4:38 PM, Sweet-tea said:

What set CZ apart from her fellow debs was not her height but her beauty. Her looks were such that she won the title North Shore’s Prettiest.

Seriously? THIS was the Prettiest Girl on the North Shore? With those eyes? Hopefully this particular picture just didn’t capture her very well. She looks like she’s squinting into the sun.

[NowVoyager]

6 hours ago, CarpeFelis said:

Seriously? THIS was the Prettiest Girl on the North Shore? With those eyes? Hopefully this particular picture just didn’t capture her very well. She looks like she’s squinting into the sun.

She has lovely bone structure. But, the weirdly dark penciled in eyebrows always sent me. Plus, as here, she often had visible roots. 

It's giving: Basic Bleach Blonde.

I like to think she had the exceptional personality depicted on the show.

[Sweet-tea]

On 4/15/2024 at 9:36 PM, CarpeFelis said:

Seriously? THIS was the Prettiest Girl on the North Shore? With those eyes? Hopefully this particular picture just didn’t capture her very well. She looks like she’s squinting into the sun.

It isn’t a great picture of her. I saw some others that were better. 

[surfgirl]

For me, the only redeeming quality of this series was the costuming, and in particular the jewelry. It was worth watching for the jewel porn alone. But the story and how it was presented sucked. Ryan Murphy sucks at his job. That's all I got.