Film Forum

4:40 ONLY

Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams: Brilliant, tortured mid-century writers with much in common. They were Southerners, gay, afflicted by traumatic childhoods and substance addictions. Both were magnified in the mainstream cultural imagination as icons and anti-heroes via award-winning movie adaptations and confessional talk show appearances. Filmmaker Vreeland immerses the viewer in the words of Capote and Williams (voiced by Jim Parsons and Zachary Quinto respectively): witty, fearlessly candid, and decidedly unconventional. Seamlessly collages excerpts from letters, literary works, and diaries with clips from TV interviews (Dick Cavett, David Frost) and film adaptations: Williams’s A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, and THE GLASS MENAGERIE; Capote’s BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S and IN COLD BLOOD.

Presented with support from the R.G. Rifkind Foundation Endowment for Queer Cinema and the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation Fund.

USA      2020    86 MINS.      KINO LORBER

Reviews

“CAPTIVATING. A stirring visual tapestry. A wonderfully evocative time capsule and a candid tribute to a pair of artistic legends. This beautifully constructed documentary vividly recounts the often analogous lives of two of the 20th century’s most notable writers. A treasure trove of archival material… and fine work from Jim Parsons and Zachary Quinto… (brings) us back to a singular time in American culture and literary creation.”
– Gary Goldstein, Los Angeles Times

“A fascinating portrait that astutely uses their decades-long, sometimes rocky friendship to shed light on their respective personas... makes one not only nostalgic for its subjects, both of them gay trailblazers who revolutionized American writing in very different ways, but also for a vanished time in which in-depth, revelatory conversations were a feature of the talk show landscape... succeeds beautifully in providing a revealing look at their troubled psyches.”
– Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter

“Two of the most engaging and beguiling talkers - and, oh yes, two of the better writers - of the last century...make for easy and natural stablemates in Lisa Immordino Vreeland’s sympathetic and nicely shaped documentary, which takes their great talents as a given and happily refuses to sensationalize their struggles...makes both men vividly present.”
– Todd McCarthy, Deadline