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Infamous (Almost) and the Ransom Note Approach
Filed under: X-Rea: Irvin Type Watch Tagged: Maud Newton, Rea Irvin, Truman Capote
I saw Infamous, the "other" movie about Capote, tonight, and I must say I liked it. I happened to get a gander at the movie poster and got a snootful of faux Irvin font! So close, close, close. It's clearly not quite Irvin—and equally clearly, intended to evoke same.
T'other day I linked to a 2003 post on Maud Newton's sharp media blog; if you look at her masthead image, you'll see some authentic Irvin font peeking back at you. —Martin Schneider
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A few clips
- Report: Learning to read with comic books edited by Françoise Mouly (for Print)
- Interview: Designer Eleanor Grosch (for Print)
- Review: Charles Addams: A Cartoonist's Life by Linda H. Davis (for Newsday)
- Review: The King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Review: Does The New Republic's recent redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Proposal: A more attractive MetroCard (for A Brief Message)
- Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
- Report: Eustace Tilley spruces up for The New Yorker's website redesign (for Print)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands (for Print)
- Review: books about various New Yorker cartoonists by Liza Donnelly and Iain Topliss (for Newsday)
- Profile: screenwriter and novelist Joe Keenan (for Newsday)
- Review: The Complete New Yorker (for Print)
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Edited by Martin Schneider, designed by Pretty, and illustrated by Inkleaf. Additional drawings by Carolita Johnson. Kissable pencil girl by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.
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Comments
I'm so glad someone saw it! I liked Capote a lot; I liked Infamous better. But it never stood a chance as the second release, especially with that awful title. People should Netflix it.
Capote is an excellent movie, and its ambitions (I think) led it to a very specific flaw, which is that it was much too hard on Truman; its guiding logic precluded it from granting In Cold Blood even a jot of redemptive value. That is to say, Truman has to be using those boys, he has to be a vampire. If you stop and say, "Hey, is some small degree of vampirism worth it if you produce a work of art as great as ICB?" the movie just about falls apart. So despite its high accomplishment, I sort of thought there was a lie at the heart of Capote.
So because of all that, I was highly predisposed to enjoy Infamous, a far more modest movie--not a great movie--but one clearly intent on not succumbing to that particular flaw. There were a lot of good things in it.
You know what everyone should see, also? Joe Gould's Secret. I'm a fan.