txfilmfan wrote: ↑February 2nd, 2024, 10:45 am
CinemaInternational wrote: ↑February 1st, 2024, 2:57 pm
The writing is a bit excessive and makes at least two glaring mistakes (a flashback scene set in the 1950s mentions 60 Minutes which did not premiere until 1968, and Family, a series not on until early 1976, is seen on a TV screen in a scene set several months earlier), but it does capture the devastating feeling of the incestuous nature of high society and the pain of a betrayal of a close friend very well. I think I will continue watching due to the performances and also out of curiosity to see what New York society was like a few decades ago.
I watched the first two episodes. There is a "director's cut" of the pilot that my DVR picked up (from FXX), so I suppose there are 2+ episodes so far. I caught a few other glaring mistakes in the timeline as well, The Bermuda Triangle was referenced by Capote in the 1955 scene on the plane going to Jamaica, when the term wasn't coined until 1964. In the 1968 scene recounting Paley's Happy affair, Babe says she just walked off the Concorde from Paris, but that plane didn't fly until 1976.
I've enjoyed what I've seen so far of
Feud: Capote vs The Swans, but I always expect these dramatizations of real-life stories to take creative license in order to have a cohesive narrative that has meaning to the audience they're meant for. William Shakespeare took a lot of liberties with his "history" plays. For example, there's the anachronistic clock striking in
Julius Caesar.
The New York governor's wife that CBS executive Wiiliam Paley had the affair with --- the one who menstruated on the Paleys' bed --- was most likely the wife of Averell Harriman rather than Happy Rockefeller, the wife of Nelson Rockefeller, as depicted in
Feud. Rockefeller was probably used in the series because the name is more recognizable.
Feud also takes some liberties with the character of John O'Shea. Truman Capote did meet him at a bathhouse, but the idea that it was O'Shea who suggested to Capote that he use his lunches with the Swans for the "excerpt" from
Answered Prayers that was published in
Esquire as “La Côte Basque 1965” is creative speculation. The scene on the subway where O'Shea plants this idea to Capote is admittedly a dramatic touch.
The idea that Slim Keith actively orchestrated the Swans in a plot to destroy Truman Capote after the publication of the
Esquire article is also more about dramatic effect. In reality, she just never gave him the time of day again rather than expending any energy on a retaliatory plot. Her declaration of war at the end of the first episode admittedly has more dramatic punch.
So I am enjoying the “drama” of this season of
Feud even though the truth of the Swans’ reaction to Capote’s thinly veiled depiction of them was more cold shoulder than fiery revenge.
