Harper Lee as Movie Character: Two Takes on Late Author in 'Capote' and 'Infamous'

(From left) Sandra Bullock as Harper Lee in ‘Infamous’; Harper Lee in 1963; Catherine Keener as Harper Lee in ‘Capote’ (Everett Collection/AP Photo)

Most of the obituaries and appreciations for Harper Lee, who died this morning at the age of 89, have focused, quite appropriately, on her revered novel, the Pulitzer Prize-winning To Kill a Mockingbird. Despite all the chatter last year about the release of her long-hidden second novel, Go Set a Watchman, it’s that first book from 1960 about Scout and her righteous attorney father, Atticus Finch, that unquestionably will remain Lee’s most enduring contribution to American culture.

But for movie buffs, the memory of the famously reclusive writer lives on in smaller ways, too. It’s possible to watch Lee – or at least a version of her – in the pair of mid-aughts movies about her close friend Truman Capote. In 2006′s Infamous, the second and lower-profile of the two projects, Sandra Bullock plays the soft-spoken Lee. The actress told Charlie Rose at the time that she didn’t try to contact her subject while preparing for the role because she had so much respect for the woman’s privacy (watch the clip below).

Then there was Capote, Bennett Miller’s 2005 examination of how the author wrote his true crime classic, In Cold Blood. Capote earned five Academy Award nominations, for Best Picture, Best Actor (which Philip Seymour Hoffman won) and Best Supporting Actress for Catherine Keener’s gentle yet firm read on Harper Lee. You can see a bit of Keener – who, like Bullock, also told Charlie Rose that she didn’t dare contact Lee – in this scene from Capote, which takes place at the after-party following the premiere of To Kill a Mockingbird.

The drunk and self-involved Capote may take a drag on his cigarette and dismiss the movie (“I frankly don’t see what all the fuss is about.”). But plenty of people understood the fuss about that novel and its adaptation, which was nominated for eight Academy Awards. Lee may not be represented physically in that Gregory Peck classic, but the spirit of her novel is everywhere in it, giving lovers of film yet another motion picture reminder of her and her masterpiece.