Journalists give as well as take

A dingy yellow light suffuses the film "Capote." It is, if I'm not mistaken, the light of Moral Ambiguity, and I'll bet they even have it labeled that way in the lighting director's official handbook. "Moral Ambiguity: Tint No. 7," it might read, not to be confused with "Outraged Innocence: Tint No. 4" (a blithe golden shade edged with nervous red) or "Gross and Unwieldy Ambition: Tint No. 678" (a crepuscular purple).

We are meant to understand, from the slightly sickly sheen this light throws upon the people and places of "Capote," that questionable ethics are afoot. The bleak light makes everyone -- especially Truman Capote (Philip Seymour Hoffman), the peculiar fellow whose "In Cold Blood" created a new literary genre, and Perry Smith (Clifton Collins Jr.), the killer whose lousy childhood and soulful yearnings are chronicled in that book -- seem slightly out of moral focus.

In the journalism world that "Capote" depicts, everybody's using everybody else. It's all an appalling pageant of betrayal and exploitation.

This is an odd time for journalism, an unsettling time, and among its challenges is an unusual confluence of truth and imagination. Movies such as "Capote" and "Good Night, and Good Luck" have arrived in the same mail drop as the still-unfolding escapades of one Judith Miller, the recently retired New York Times reporter who went to jail rather than reveal a source -- that's good -- but who also wrote now-discredited stories that helped legitimize the invasion of Iraq, which is not so good.

Art and life, which already tend to monopolize each other's dance cards, are once again locked in the suffocating embrace of a mysterious waltz:

Journalists are heroes ("Good Night, and Good Luck," the story of legendary broadcaster Edward R. Murrow's verbal takedown of Sen. Joseph McCarthy).

No, they're bums (Miller's role in spreading the misinformation that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction).

Wrong. Journalists are heroes (Miller's fight to preserve the sanctity of the anonymous source).

Nope -- bums ("Capote").

Such moments, moments when real-life events occur just as works of art come along and travel down the same road, are always instructive. Art can tell us things that cold reality can't. And reality tethers art to the solid ground of topicality, making it hard to dismiss a film or a novel as just a mess of airy musings. "Capote" and "Good Night, and Good Luck" are as urgently up-to-date as breaking news bulletins.