Truman Capote successfully profiled iconic Hollywood legendary actor Marlon Brando in his 1957 piece, The Duke in His Domain for The New Yorker. The duke is Marlon Brando, observed and interrogated by Truman Capote during the filming of "Sayonara," at Kyoto, Japan. Readers are exposed to the softer side of Brando. We get to feel of someone in his unguarded moments. Something we do not get from the famous in their public domain such as the infamous, the droll, and the improbable side. While some ethical issues may rise from personal interviews, Capote is able to handle such dilemmas in a powerful way, effectively getting close enough to his subject without offending one’s feelings or violating privacy lines. The interview takes place at the Miyako Hotel in Kyoto where Brando is shooting the 1957 film, Sayonara and it is during a time in Brando’s life when he has already gained recognition from his previous roles in such classic film, A Streetcar Named Desire.
In the portrayal, the normally reticent and reclusive actor was not a shimmering Hollywood star but a flawed man who could be seen from all sides and angles; Brando who revealed much of his soul talking endlessly into the night. Truman Capote managed to successfully get him to reveal their innermost selves, and he did that by talking about himself and being quite open about it. Telling someone something about yourself, a secret, a flaw, the other person may feel inclined to tell you a secret in return; something truthful yet something that you may have never think about them. Brando at the time would continue the gabfest. Capote told Brando his problems, as they sat in the suite, being served by Japanese waitresses, and then Capote started to observe things while keeping a polite manner. “I hadn’t taken a note. I hadn’t done a thing. I hadn’t even seemed to be interested. . . You tell him about yourself, and slowly you spin your web so that he tells you everything,” Capote mentioned in a report with Rolling Stone how he methodically inspire the actor, to allow him to relax, and so permit a surprising result.
Through the “interviewer’s” lens, we learn about Brando as a reluctant hero who in real life actually is having a period of self-doubts and insecurity. As a highly skilled performer he is, he shows this appearance that he is shooting the movie for the money, he tells Capote, “The only reason I’m here is that I don’t yet have the moral courage to turn down the money,” in films as opposed to return to performing in stage plays, where his career originally started, to be the famous Hollywood star. On the contrary, in the near to the end of Brando and Capote’s conversation, Brando himself even said in the article, “And listen! Don’t pay too much attention to what I say. I don’t always feel the same way.” As readers, we are able to discover that Brando is an intelligent and artistic man who loves to express his creativity. As a result of Capote’s calm style of interviewing and profound questions, Brando feels comfortable enough to open up quite candidly.
As the conversation progresses, we learn more and more about Brando’s personality and his feelings. Marlon Brando talks, non-stop, for hours, to Capote that night during the conversation. Readers get to pick up more of the surface on Brando’s personality. He drinks vodka. He clearly feels relaxed. The fact that Brando feels so relaxed, he actually talks about his feelings in his own unique way. He talks about his problems with fame, his issues with directors, his problems with the Sayonara shoot. He talks about how he is on a diet for the role in his current movie. He also recalls an experience in boxing as happy as the Sicilian nap, “It was when I was in ‘Streetcar..’ One night, I was mixing it up with this guy and—crack! . . . My nose was really busted. They had to give me an anesthetic to set it, and put me to bed.” He discusses how his nose was injured on the set of “Streetcar” after friendly contests of boxing, with the guys backstage and Capote details its significance in making Brando seem less perfect. His nose did not heal nicely thus the look was appeared pretty roughly that many women yearn for. That was a key to his sex appeal was that even though he had an overall attractive body, his face looked too innocent and pure.
We get a sense of Capote bringing up a topic that shows significance to Brando when the writer questions his subject on why he had not returned to the stage. He initially answered with great apathy and excitement but after thinking for a second about what he had just said, he turns his side comment into a professional sounding answer that is meant for publication. Capote’s descriptions of Brando “musing” and pondering about such a topic provides an excellent example of how literary journalists can achieve such results by just having a chat with the subject. It was entirely casual and laid-back between the two of them. As knowledgeable as Capote intended to present himself, while secretly memorizing the subject’s words, he spoke with such breathless assurance about the culture, and kabuki, and sake, and all that. The setting was relaxed and pleasant. While Capote may have been sneering at Brando in an delightful manner, what should be taken into consideration is that there has to be a starting point for every conversation to keep it going. The dialogue goes from what to order and foods that would lead to proper weight control lead to being on a diet for a movie role and eventually talking about whether or not to return to the stage. It is important that the more a journalist can get out of their subject the better. This is an extraordinary piece that a literary journalist can do organically.
The more we follow the conversation between Capote and Brando, the more we are able to enter the mind of the subject. He is a very introverted character, who seems to need someone to inspire him to talk and readers never would get that image from seeing the characters that he is portrayed in films like “Streetcar.” As the interview goes on, Brando becomes more insightful and we learn about how it was difficult for him to cope with the loss of his mother and how such a tragedy was one of the life events that helped inspire him to make a change in the world. We can get the sense and realize that the loss of his mother was a very sensitive, emotional subject to bring up. By now, we can know that Brando has let his guard down and is able to reveal such personal information. Throughout the whole time, Capote’s passiveness makes the environment comfortable enough. There was never a time in the interview when he was aggressive. If Brando wanted to answer a question he could, if he did not that was cool.
The reconstructing of past events aspect of the piece may or may not be factual that made me question its accuracy throughout the passage. However, this ethical dilemma comes to a simple solution. The piece is about the life of Marlon Brando from his own words. But there is an issue that he jokes about his opinion and tends to change his mind and thoughts later as he thinks twice. Therefore, words written on a page for a magazine article clearly do not define who he is as a person and from this, some things may be true and some may have been just made-up fiction. It is hard to consider the information reliable when quotes coming from the writer’s pure memory. We are not sure what to believe and what not to believe. However, it is truthful that the things that happened and what Brando said in the story. For an example, the injured nose is real. The way that it healed and the way that he dealt with it may seem a bit more fabricating, but it is a quote as good as his memory is. With that, as readers, we are able to learn a lot about a character from the actions and words. It is a fact that the interview took place and it is a fact that the statements said came from the mouth of Brando. As Joseph Mitchell said, “sometimes the facts don’t tell the truth you know,” and such a statement can be apply to be accurate. Brando changes his mind and he does not always feel the same way about what he says, so fascinating, a fact that was told earlier in the story may have just become a fiction later on in the story.
In the end Capote is able to handle the dilemmas of journalism in an ethical way. Capote called "the secret to the art of interviewing,” structuring his idealized writing style with a unique formula. I read that Brando felt “tricked” because he was entirely unaware that what he said to Capote was going to be published in public on the New Yorker. As much as Capote hopes to write about this piece, it is tactful that he tells an amount of information about himself, which reversed the roles and give the person the feeling of being the interviewer. The facts are there in that they came from the subject’s mouth and he is able to use quotes accurately. It may seem as inventing and contriving his own characters in his writing, but why tell a factual story when journalist can rather craft the story in a unique way. Nonetheless, Capote’s article shows how amazing that a chain of conversation can lead to revealing and some emotional scenes, as we hear about the diet conversation leading to a discussion about the play industry. The article is not only a piece of reading to learn how to report and handle the dilemmas of journalism in an ethical way, it is also an essential document to look at how to carefully control situations that are dealing with the field of literary journalism. This is among the greatest challenges a writer can face.
