(It was this or how to create a concise article title)
And now, our feature presentation. Popcorn grab. Snare drums. Spotlights. 20th Century Fox—quick dim. Music--slow burn melancholy. Pause. Fade-in words—Based. on a true. Story.
Or perhaps it should be put at the end? Right before closing credits so viewers are shocked? Forced to reprocess the plot?
Disregarding the ethics, what else could be so effective? Dispelling all comforts of falsity simply because it did happen. Reflecting now upon the twists and turns history has provided us--tailored of course--many such events would be declared unbelievable aside from the fact that they did happen.
“Anything you imagine is real” – Picasso
Truman Capote, author of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and the novel relating to this article, In Cold Blood, wrote the novel based on very real events—the 1959 murders of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas.
Arriving in town shortly after the incident, Capote extensively interviewed persons involved with the case, procuring mountains of information before ultimately spending six years to complete the novel.
“Spell-binding, a masterpiece” –Life
"The best documentary account of an American crime ever written. The book chills the blood and exercises the intelligence . . . harrowing." —The New York Review of Books
But with success inevitably comes detraction, and acceptably so, but the criticism in this case was peculiar since it wasn’t directed towards the skill of the author or the subject matter, but the authenticity.
