Executive producer Ryan Murphy’s FX anthology series FEUD returns with its second season, Capote Vs. The Swans, which enthralling explores the rift between the celebrated American author and his high society New York friends after he wrote about their lives in a thinly veiled fictionalization published in the November 1975 issue of Esquire, entitled La Côte Basque, 1965.
Based on the bestselling book, Capote’s Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era by Laurence Leamer (credited as a consulting producer), the entire season is written by Other Desert Cities playwright Jon Robin Baitz, with six out of the eight episodes directed by Milk and My Own Private Idaho filmmaker Gus Van Sant (Max Winkler and Jennifer Lynch are in the director’s chair on the fifth and seventh episodes respectively). In other hands “the swans”—Barbara “Babe” Paley (Naomi Watts), Slim Keith (Diane Lane), C.Z. Guest (Chloë Sevigny), and Lee Radziwill (Calista Flockhart)—might have been two-dimensional camp caricatures, but Baitz and Van Sant, aided by exceptional performances, use the time available to allow us to get to know these women well enough to see behind their carefully quaffed and manicured façades to the pride, insecurities, and societal pressures that made them build up that glamorous armour in the first place.
As the narrative shifts back and forth through the decades, we see how these once intimate friendships were forged, with Truman Capote (Tom Hollander) the raconteur paying his dues by providing sparkling and often salacious dinner entertainment, or serving as a substitute husband, best friend, and confidant to these women, supporting them during challenging times in a way that another woman or a straight man could not. What Capote gains in return is less clear-cut, and emerges gradually as the show progresses.
The special bond between Babe and Truman is what makes the private details he included in La Côte Basque, 1965 so unforgivable to her, and their subsequent estrangement so devastating to him. Naomi Watts delivers a layered tour-de-force as Babe, that manages to be brittle, charming, and ultimately deeply moving, without softening any of the character’s flaws, but poignantly humanizing them. The entire cast sparkles, making the most of every second on screen. Chloë Sevigny is particularly delightful as C.Z., the only swan who continued to speak to Truman after the chapter was published, even dancing with him at Studio 54. Nor was he abandoned by his Hollywood friend Joanne Carson (Molly Ringwald bringing warmth and an appealingly offbeat vibe to the character), who continued to open up her home to him California. While there is real fire to Demi Moore’s Ann “Bang-Bang” Woodward, whom Truman spread homicidal rumours about.
When it comes to the men in Truman’s life, as it plays out on the show, he takes for granted the unwavering loyalty and love of his longterm boyfriend since the late 40s, fellow novelist and playwright Jack Dunphy (an excellent Joe Mantello). Part of his self-destructive nature sees Truman become caught up in a prolonged emotionally and physically abusive relationship with the self-loathing bore, and boar, John O’Shea (a tortured, menacing Russell Tovey) whom he first meets in the steam room at a Manhattan bathhouse. Later he is drawn to an agreeable but unsophisticated Midwestern air-conditioning repair man (Vito Schnabel), who is probably straight, and entirely out of place at lunch with the swans. Along the way, depicted with a fun, sex-positive tone, Capote has plenty of casual encounters too.
With his familiar distinctive vocal delivery and mannerisms, Truman could prove to be a tricky figure to portray, especially over eight hours, but Tom Hollander pulls it off with real flare, delivering an acutely well-observed, delicately nuanced performance that subtly shifts depending on his circumstances, and alcohol intake. Hollander always finds Capote’s humanity, no matter how many layers of protective affectation it might be under; whether he is entertaining an entire party, at a more intimate table at Côte with the swans, or alone in despair, taunted by the memory of his late mother Lillie Mae Faulk embodied by a terrific Jessica Lange (Emmy-nominated for playing Hollywood legend Joan Crawford in the first season of FEUD).
Baitz is not afraid to draw on his background as a playwright to take us into his characters’ minds with some stylized scenes such as Capote’s conversations with his dead mother, who is often the devil at his shoulder encouraging him to drink as he attempts to write his next novel, Answered Prayers (which La Côte Basque, 1965 was originally intended to be a chapter of). It is a boldness that pays off, and these scenes, in conjunction with flashbacks to his childhood, are insightful and affecting. Similarly, the sequences of Babe and Capote imagining comforting each other as they take their final breaths are beautifully poetic and acutely touching. While there is a heightened tone to the scenes that play out in Capote’s mind as he attempts to write, with the swans renamed, playing version of themsleves. These aspects of the show that take artistic license, sit intriguingly alongside detailed recreations of actual events, such as Capote’s excruciating 1978 talk show appearance with Stanley Siegel while he was severely inebriated. The subject of his alcoholism and drug use is handled with care, never used for humour, but depicted as a debilitating and destructive disease that is frustrating and agonizing to observe.
Two standout episodes take an unconventional and unexpected approach. The first, episode three, is almost entirely in black and white, presented as unedited footage shot by Grey Gardens filmmakers Albert and David Maysles, with the brothers appearing as characters on screen. There is an enticing air of anticipation in the lead-up to Capote’s much publicized Black and White Ball held at New York’s Plaza Hotel in November 1966, with a riveting behind-the-scenes peek as the swans frequently ask the camera to be turned off or demand that the footage never be seen.
All of this private, backstage intrigue is involving and fun, with Capote teasing who will make the guest list and who will be struck off with all of the ruthlessness of Anna Wintour putting together the Met Gala. While he teases the swans by dropping noncommittal hints about who will be the guest of honour. The opulence of the ball is beautifully contrasted with the fly-on-the-wall aesthetic of the imagined Maysles’ footage, with stunning work by director of photography Jason McCormick. The swans’ gowns, designed by Zac Posen, are pure period perfection, suitably lavish for the occasion complete with some deliciously kooky masks.
Later, the season’s rather magical fifth episode, sees a dejected Capote following the fallout of Côte being published, spend the day with fellow writer James Baldwin (a fantastic, soulful and playful Chris Chalk) who drops in on him while briefly back in New York from Paris to offer some much-needed queer companionship and tough love. There’s a compelling behind-closed-doors dynamic between two of the world’s most famous literary figures, both openly gay, that sustains well.
Given their carefully considered way of presenting themselves to the world, bringing portrayals of these two famous men together on screen could have proved a little grating, but Chalk and Hollander make for a fascinating and captivating on screen pairing. As the two bond, we get to know more about the swans courtesy of pointed questions from Baldwin who has done some detailed research on swans (the birds, not the women), throwing in facts that characterize the various species, with some echoes in their human counterparts. The swan analogy reverberates throughout the show, from the imagery of Capote feeding the birds as they follow behind him on the crosswalk in the striking animated opening credits sequence, to visions that range from the majestic to the ethereal, and the tranquil to the nightmarish.
As well as the luxurious interiors of the swans’ New York homes and country retreats, and Truman’s more modest UN Plaza apartment with its East River views, there are frequent exterior Manhattan street scenes shot on location that help ground the show in the reality of the city of the 60s, 70s, and 80s without fetishizing any period details. While the high-end restaurant that Capote and the swans frequent—La Côte Basque, a few streets below Manhattan’s Upper East Side—is a magnificent, shapeshifting character in itself, that morphs depending on the time and Capote’s perspective. Mark Ricker’s production design is suitably sumptuous and evocative of the era, but is not relied upon to satisfy and never pulls focus, it simply helps to create the world of the show. Similarly, the first-rate work of Sean Flanigan’s hair department and Jacqueline Risotto’s make-up team, along with Leah Katznelson’s exquisite costumes, genuinely inform our understanding of these characters, for whom presentation is vital to their existence, but crucially Capote Vs. The Swans never simply dazzles us with beauty but always examines what lays behind it.
While Capote struggles to complete another novel and the swans’ youthful beauty fades, they discover that it is not just hats and gloves that are going out of style, but so is the Manhattan high society scene that they epitomized and sat so elegantly at the centre of. There is an achingly bittersweet, melancholy tone to the final act of Capote Vs. The Swans, a show that treats all of its characters with dignity, without sparing them the same intently focused, unforgiving gaze with which Capote observed the world around him. This is an enchanting, haunting work that proves that our current golden age of television has not yet delivered its swan song.
By James Kleinmann
The first three episodes of FEUD: Capote Vs. The Swans are now streaming on Hulu. New episodes air Wednesdays at 10pm ET/PT on FX and FXX and stream the following day on Hulu.