Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation. A Review

TRUMAN AND TENNESSEE: AN INTIMATE CONVERSATION

Had the term existed in their time, Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams would have probably referred to each other as a frenemy. These two openly gay Southern writers respected and detested the other, loved and hated in equal measure. Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation, puts these two titans of American literature as friends, rivals, and what one was to the other.

The documentary uses archival footage and off-screen interviews. We also have their personal writings read by Jim Parsons as Truman Capote and Zachary Quinto as Tennessee Williams. Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote were more alike than merely their shared heritage. Both of them, for example, had drunk parents: Williams his father, Capote his mother. Both of them found inspiration in the writings that they discovered early in their lives: Moby Dick for Capote, the works of Chekov for Williams.

Their lives continued to have parallels as they built up their literary careers. Despite being Southern to their core, their great success came once they hit New York City. Capote loved the Big Apple and loathed Gore Vidal. Williams was the opposite: have great respect and admiration for Vidal but finding New York less to his liking. The two wordsmiths soon hit the big time with their works, celebrated and feted by high society and critics. 

Those critics, however, would eventually, perhaps inevitably, turn against them. Capote and Williams were left slightly dumbfounded on how they went out of fashion. Things got worse when both lost their long-term partners and started flitting from one pretty young thing to another. They also fell into their separate addictions to booze and pills. 

Truman and Tennessee had a curious relationship, part admiration, part irritation. Through their letters and words, we find that they could be very bitchy about the other. Williams had no issue referring to his frenemy as "Miss Capote". Tennessee, according to Truman, "is not intelligent". To be fair, Tennessee unlike Truman was wise enough to try and break into his frenemy's home and get caught. Eventually, the adoration both public and private faded from view for these two figures. Truman Capote outlived Tennessee Williams by merely a year and a half, Capote dead at 59, Williams at 71.

I wonder, in retrospect, if Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation went a bit overboard in painting a portrait of parallel lives. Director Lisa Immordino Vreeland certainly wants to show how they both were almost twins. Everything from their family histories to their eventual fall into addiction is shown as being similar and happening at similar times. I do not think that Capote and Williams were mirroring the other person. These two were different and distinct people. As such, I wonder if Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation is less about what one thought of the other. It is more like it is trying to make a case that somehow, Capote and Williams are almost the same because they lived the same series of situations. 

A major flaw is the voiceover work. Jim Parsons sounded like a thinner-voiced Jim Parsons. He sounded nothing like Truman Capote. Especially in the beginning, Parsons felt too forced in trying to come across as Capote. While I can see how Truman & Tennessee was not attempting to do mimicry. However, I think Parsons struggled to sound like Capote. As such, I never heard Capote's distinct voice both artistically and vocally. Quinto was better as Tennessee Williams, his Southern drawl closer to Williams' voice.

It was easier to hear Williams' words than Capote's words because Quinto sounded better than Parsons. That is not to say that Zachary Quinto sounded exactly like Tennessee Williams. He just sounded better than Parsons. 

Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation at times is a bit too fixated on making their lives parallel ones. This is especially true when we see both of them interviewed by David Frost on separate occasions. I do not think that it would be surprising that both of these writers would be interviewed on the same program. Again, whether Truman & Tennessee wanted to push the idea that they were going through the same situations I cannot say for certain. It just looked that way.

I hope that people do not think that I disliked the documentary. On the contrary, for I thought that Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation is a well-crafted documentary that will give viewers good insight into these figures. I just do not think that because both were gay Southern writers that they are parallels. Each was his own man. Each was creative. Their friendship, at times their cattiness towards the other, is an interesting subject. Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation does much to bring their own stories to the viewer. It is a conversation worth listening in on.

DECISION: B+