I watched Capote with Matt and Betsy. I know the director thought Winnipeg looked just like Finney County, he was a little off. It was the sky that gave him away. Every shot in "Finney County" had gray skies. Unlikely. And the winter ground hadn't been tilled.
The commentary also referred to Capote as leaving Finney County as the mayor. That's not how I've heard it, but I guess the point of the story is that this is an anonymous community about which you can say anything and project onto it whatever assumptions you have. For this reason, it is appreciated when people believe that a place is at least worthy of seeing before making a movie using it as a setting... Anyway, if you love artsy, well-done, and ultimately meaningless work, you'll love this movie. I will have to check and see if that photo of the Judge hanging in the courtroom scene wasn't actually a picture of Judge Tate... I could be wrong, but it looked very familiar. If you were wondering, I think our courthouse is much more distinguished looking than the one used in the movie. I guess what the movie makers did was less aggregious than Steinbeck's geographical folly in The Grapes of Wrath. At least Capote wasn't about Kansas.
I wonder if there would be a way to make a movie about New York City using settings that are wholly contrived landmarks and still have people realize that you are portraying New York. You would film some random bridge and refer to it as the Brooklyn Bridge, or put tigers in front of the public library. I think that would be hilarious. Though most people wouldn't get the joke, I would be amused.
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Kind of reminds me of that book that portrayed Junction City as a quaint, idyllic country town. On another subject, I get SO tired of people slamming Kansas and acting like they know all about it despite the fact they've never been off of I-70.
Certainly not the "hard blue skies" nor "desert-clear air" described in the first paragraph of "In Cold Blood" A couple of other items of note--
--On the first page of the book Capote emphasises the correct pronuciation of the Arkansas River(mispronounced during the movie)
--Holcomb DID have their own school at the time--one building for K-12
--It was Phillips funeral home (which was on main street)
It's like saying I know all about NYC because I've been there once. I wouldn't have the audacity to write a novel about NYC with that knowledge, though people do it about the middle of the country all of the time. And to his credit(I think it's what makes the novel so authentic and real) Capote really spent time in Finney county... as Lobi attests to.
the judge photos in the courtroom do not depict any of the actual judges for the judicial district
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