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Truman Capote's In Cold Blood (1965) probably aroused more discussion and enjoyed more publicity than any other book published in America during the last decade. The author was once quoted as saying: "I think most of the younger writers have learned and borrowed from the visual, structural side of movie technique. I have."1 No one can read Capote's book without being struck by its filmic construction. Hence In Cold Blood, which was made into a film, raises two important critical questions. To what extent does the influence of film operate legitimately in fiction? And why is it that literary works which use filmic techniques so often prove unsatisfactory when transferred to the screen? It is my aim in this paper to try to suggest answers to both questions.
In Cold Blood, which Capote calls a "non-fiction novel," is the re-creation of the murder of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas. The structure of the book is divided into four parts: "The Last to See Them Alive," "Persons Unknown," "Answer," and "The Corner." These four parts are subdivided into eighty-six scenes-the majority of which are but a few pages in length-with constant alternations of viewpoint. In Cold Blood resembles a screenplay, in that Capote avoids chapter headings and numbered sections; all the action unfolds in a fluid succession of scenes. The pace is rapid, the fundamental technique simple-perhaps even a bit mechanical, at least when one reads the book through a second time.
It seems doubtful whether any serious writer before Capote ever applied the method of parallel editing so consistently throughout the entire length of a novel. In "The Last to See Them Alive" the author crosscuts between the members of the Clutter family and the two killers, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith. The opening sections contrast the psychological, social, and economic situation of the Clutters with the circumstances of the men who are going to kill them. Through intercutting scenes showing the poverty, abnormality, rootlessness, and spiritual emptiness of Hickock's and Smith's lives with scenes revealing the wealth, normality (with the exception of Mrs. Clutter, a fact which tends to establish a curious link between the two sides), love of the land, and strong religious beliefs of the Kansas family. Capote sets the stage...