In other stuff. I went to see Copote with Ch, it was very good.
It made me think about circumstances when people have opportunities to take advantage of others for their own benefit. Maybe in just small ways, but we lie ourselves about our motives. We might try to convince ourselves that we are doing something for them when it’s really only for ourselves.
In Copote he not only lied about his intentions for his book to Perry, he lied to Perry about caring for him. It seemed to me (from the movie) that Capote didn’t care about Perry, he refused to admit it to the end. He felt guilty about it. So somewhere on some level he did care about Perry, but knowing what that would involve and cost him he took the other path.
There’s something in our culture that makes it acceptable to take our own interests above all others. It was important in the movie that they included Copote’s party scenes. He was just living the New Yorker famous writer lifestyle. Genuinely caring about Perry might have took admitting the farce of that life.
On the other hand, having no real connection to Perry, is thrusting himself into the position of friend simply an unachievable goal? Copote would never have tried to write a book that required he play that role if he had known it would take 4 years for Perry to be executed.
Perry was on death row, to be clear.
It may just be too much to take on, no matter who you are. Thinking of it this way, who is there that would take it on? What would the motives be of anyone who did that?
Capote tried to use Perry for his own benifit. That was his first intention, friendship was what he paid with. I guess another aspect of the movie is that friendship isn’t a commodity.
I’ve often wondered at the motives of salvation army type people. Sometimes they seem like they are helping others for their own benefit. It makes them good. It feels cheap.
Honesty about our intentions to ourselves and others is important. If we can’t tell our intentions to someone are we ashamed of our intentions?
