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Capote

Date: Oct 14 2005

Intro

1. Learn Vocabulary - Learn some new vocabulary before you start the lesson.

2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.

Let’s talk drug abuse, backstabbing friends, crazy behavior and genius writing. Let’s talk Truman Capote.
John and I have been waiting and waiting for the movie Capote to be released in Portland. The movie stars one of John’s favorite actors, Philip Seymour Hoffman. It tells the story of writer Truman Capote as he begins a newspaper report on a story that would eventually become his magnum opus, In Cold Blood.
Listen to John and I talk about the flick.

Dialog

1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.

2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Dave

John

Dave: John, I’ve been waiting for this movie Capote to come out in Portland. It’s playing everywhere in the U.S., but not here.

John: I can’t wait to see it. It’s got my favorite actor, Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Dave: Yeah, I like him a lot. He’s really funny.

John: Yeah, he does a really good job. But, I don’t know much about Capote other than, other than he’s an author and he kind of had a funny voice, and was pretty colorful.

Dave: Yeah, yeah. He was a really flamboyant guy. He used to rub elbows with the literati and a lot of the, um, Hollywood elite. Um, he invented the nonfiction novel.

John: Now, what exactly does that mean? Because it seems kind of contradictory.

Dave: Yeah, ah, well, novels are traditionally fiction. What he did is he would take stories from real life and change the facts around a bit, but keep it true to life, true to form.

John: Oh, cool. And that kind of, did that add to the suspense of the novel, or?

Dave: Yeah. His pioneer work was In Cold Blood.

John: Uh huh.

Dave: And it’s where he takes a true crime story: a family, ah, in some southern town, was murdered, and he went down there as an investigative reporter and actually wrote a book based on the reality, the truth of this family being murdered.

John: Now that’s the story that’s being told in the movie, right?

Dave: I think so. I think it kind of follows his development through that book.

John: Oh, cool. I’m looking forward to learning more about him in the movie.

Dave: Yeah, it’s supposed to be great.

Quizzes

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Lesson MP3

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Discussion

Some people loved him, others couldn’t stand him. He was colorful and outrageous. He rubbed elbows with the glitterati, was among the elite of the literati, and pioneered a new genre of literature that would earn him a place among the masters of literature.