Klute

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Jane Fonda came into her own with this Oscar-winning performance as an insecure high-class call girl who can't make it as a legitimate actress or model yet can't give up her addiction. She loves the control too much. But when she's stalked by a killer, she's forced to confront the darker aspects of her nature and profession. It's a complex and authentic performance and Fonda plays it cool and smart. Typical of early '70s films, Klute peels away social inhibition and hypocrisy with precision and candor. It's also typical of director Alan J. Pakula's intelligence and ability to work so well with actors. Donald Sutherland plays John Klute, the vulnerable detective trying to determine if his missing friend is the stalker and sexual deviant. This is the kind of moody, character-driven film so many of us miss today, even if the plot is pure hokum. --Bill Desowitz

Description

"I love inhibitions because they're so nice to get rid of," New York call girl Bree Daniels says. Her ordered life will soon veer wildly out of control. The man hearing her taped voice has gone far beyond inhibitions. He's a killer. As detective John Klute, Donald Sutherland gives a cool performance devoid of screen sleuth cliches. And Jane Fonda makes Bree a shattering tour-de-force.

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Customer Reviews:

The talking cure.......2007-06-29

One of the most characteristic films of the most exciting time in Hollywood history--the so-called "Hollywood Renaissance" from 1969 to 1977--, KLUTE stands as Alan J. Pakula's attempt to reinvent the traditional urban detective film; it may be seen as even better today than when it was released in 1971. Dispensing with giving clear conventional backstories for most of his characters, Pakula has them reveal themselves primarily through their dialogue: both the displanted Pennsylvanian detective, John Klute, and his quarry, a sadistic killer, use audiotape as tools of their trade. Their secret recordings of the heroine Bree, a high class call girl memorably played by Jane Fonda, evokes the talk of the therapy sessions she attends throughout the entire film, where she tries to make sense of her downwards career and conflicted feelings about her trade. Klute himself says hardly anything in the film, in a manner very much akin to a therapist's silences; we find out little about his motivations in a way that can seem frustrating but that was also clearly intentional. The film is mostly used to explore the rich character of Fonda's character, Bree Daniels, and there are probably few films that allowed such a fine actor so much breathing room to show her stuff. The film's dialogue was largely improvised, and its gorgeous Gordon Willis cinematography is extremely experimental for the era; it conjures up not only an adventurous kind of studio filmmaking peculiar to the time but also a certain vision of New York that's highly emblematic of its period.

Klute.......2007-06-11

Enjoyed this movie from the past. Interesting plot and character study and fun seeing the clothes, cars etc from over 30 years ago

The lunatics seventy.......2007-05-18

New York is the backdrop for the dance between the realistic cynicism and the Puritanism. The moral is so relative and Jane Fonda so beautiful ...

Distrust, Distance, Dominance and Submission.......2007-02-21

May contain a SPOILER.

The 1971 freshman psych student who learned Erik Erikson's Eight Stages of Human Development surely saw Bree Daniel for what she was: Distrustful and everything that comes along with it for the serial molestee. The student might have missed just why John Klute was so driven to put up with her, however. (Erikson didn't say much about "rescue imperative." For that, he'd have to wait for Timmen Cermak and Melody Beattie, about 15 years later.)

Erikson had been observing people for several decades before he concluded that the acquisition of Trust is a human's first hurdle in the race for social competence. "Good enough parents" (an idea from another professional observer named John Bowlby at about the same time) make it possible for infants to acquire the capacity to Trust. Parents who are not "good enough" (say, those who abuse, abandon or confuse their offspring) leave the kiddies with a bad case of -distrust-.

Erikson saw that Trust lead to a capacity to explore the world with confidence (which he called Autonomy or separation from sole interaction with and complete reliance upon the parents). Distrust, he said, tends to result in a corrupted sense of separation. In the case of molestees, distrust spurs a drive to separate before frightened little toddlers are really ready to do so. And that colors pretty much everything on up the developmental line, including Initiative, Industry, Identity, Intimacy, Generativity and Integrity.

In Baby Bree's (and pretty much every other call girl's) case, we can pretty much figure on Distrust, hyper-Autonomy, contaminated Initiative ("Where's the door?"), corrupted Industry ("Men are dangerous, but they have money, and they -owe- it to me."), a split sense of Identity ("I'm a tough little b***h, and I don't need -anyone-" vs. "I stayed alive then/now by allowing daddy/them to use my body"), no capacity whatsoever for Intimacy (beyond the act of sex), typically manipulative, self-serving and sociopathic Generativity, and Integration into a chilly little grifter capable of rationalizing pretty much anything to beat the system, pay the bills and get back at every male on the planet. Sad, but certainly understandable.

John Klute is another story. John's a "detective," of course. He wants to "find things out" and he thrives on risk-taking in the process. I'll push my chips out for John as the son of an overwhelming and over-controlling mother who gave -him- a nice case of distrust, separation anxiety (and conflict), contaminated Initiative, hyper-adaptive (fit-the-mold-or-die) Industry, intellectualizing (to the exclusion of anything like -complete- emotion-feeling) Identity, problems with real "give-and-take" Intimacy, save-the-world Generativity and a failure to ever reach Integrity owing to a take-it-to-the-grave conflict between the rule-bound lawman and the impulsive rescuer.

Mother-conflicted rescuers ("I don't like her, but I want her, so I have to save her and change her") and powerful sex machines ("He's a man, and they're all rapists, but... what has he got that I can use?") may be a match made in hell, but it's a match you can count on every time such people cross paths. Klute -had- to try to save Bree. And Bree had to claw and bite the lion tamer.

Regarding the conclusion: It takes two to five years of very insistent psychotherapy to unravel the wiring that makes call girls call girls. It also takes at least that long (in something like Alanon, Naranon, Co-Dependents Anonymous or Adult Children of Alcoholics) to re-wire the mind of the dedicated rescuer.

Johnnie's and Bree's may -think- they can do a "relationship," but healthy ones are very hard for these distrustful, controlling people... and what we usually see is that she will have to submit to being rescued (to get her reward) because she senses it's really what she wants, or he will have to submit to being dominated (to get his reward) because it's really what he wanted all along.

In either case, of course, the psychic price is pretty high.

Pakula does a better-than-average job of illustrating the dynamics. For additional edification, buy copies of Bette Davis's work in "Of Human Bondage," Elizabeth Taylor's in "Butterfield 8," as well as Sharon Stone's in "The Quick and the Dead," "Basic Instinct" and "Casino," and Glenn Closes's in "Fatal Attraction."

Remembering Jane Fonda Before Hanoi.......2007-01-11

It was good entertainment to watch this mystery film of days long gone by,
and enjoying Jane and Donald Sutherland deliver excellent performances.
A good story, well directed.

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