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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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They say that dashes “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like em dashes—provides a thoughtful pause amid the hubbub.
Emdashes, founded in 2004, is currently written and drawn by Emily Gordon, Martin Schneider, Pollux, Jonathan Taylor, and Benjamin Chambers, as well as occasional guest contributors. (Unsigned posts through October 2008 are by Emily Gordon.)
The site is designed and maintained by House of Pretty and illustrated by Jesse Ewing for Inkleaf Studio. Additional drawings are by Carolita Johnson and Pollux (who also draws our daily comic, "The Wavy Rule"). The kissable Emdashes logo is by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.
Other writing by Emily Gordon
- Profile: Valerie Casey, Designers Accord founder, is spearheading the design of sustainability (for SXSW World; PDF, p. 20)
- Feature: Rea Irvin: visionary art director, man about town, and New Yorker founding father (for Print)
- Report: Learning to read with comic books--that are 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: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Review: Does a New Republic redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- 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, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (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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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.