Plot intro
A chemical company executive, Tom Gruneman, goes missing, leaving behind some communication with a New York City call girl called Bree Daniels (Jane Fonda). Police Detective John Klute (Donald Sutherland) is assigned to investigate the disappearance and temporarily moves into Bree’s apartment building so that he can maintain surveillance on her. The two grow close, but Klute and Bree start to get the feeling that she is being stalked…
Oh, we’re in very ‘70s territory now. The lighting is dark, the soundtrack is minimal, the dialogue is muted, the tone is miserable and the themes are either sexually violent or violently sexy. Or both. This is the same year as The French Connection and A Clockwork Orange and next year would see The Godfather storm into theatres and filmmaking is being revolutionised by a new cohort of young, mostly male, directors - Coppola, Spielberg, Scorcese, de Palma and Kubrick to name just a small group.
Klute is very much the quiet, tense detective thriller that had influence on Seven and The Silence of the Lambs twenty years later. It may be set in one of the largest, busiest cities in the world, but there is a suffocating, lonely claustrophobia all the way through. Bree’s flat is tiny and verging on squalid (as are most indoor spaces during the film). As in other contemporary Best Pictures winners such as Midnight Cowboy and The French Connection, the director puts a lot of work into conveying how frigid, uncomfortable, and unhomely these cheaply-built, neglected apartment buildings are.
Atmosphere is everything, which leads to some outstandingly suspenseful scenes. The use of Bree’s skylight to accentuate her paranoia that someone is watching her is a captivating Hitchcockian technique. She may be attractive, resourceful, reflective and smart, but the skylight leaves her vulnerable to any predator who happens to be lurking, even in her own sanctuary. Much of the suspense comes from the question of whether anyone is watching her at all. One scene in which Klute is certain he heard a noise at the skylight and gives chase into the shadows is extremely tense because we remain uncertain if he is chasing the criminal or it’s our heroes’ paranoia getting the better of them.
The film remains stubbornly quiet and subdued. Even the climactic confrontation between Bree and the killer is achieved through dialogue and intense stares. You won’t find car chases, gunfights or fisticuffs here but you will find monologues on prostitution and murder. I also enjoyed the fact that the story is pretty much a takedown of patriarchy (even if it is told through the classic trope of a big man protecting a woman). The murder(s) that occur either on or off screen are all the result of ambitious men trying to destroy each other’s careers. Bree, representing women, is only involved due to their carnal lusts and man’s inability to solve their conflicts without involving innocent parties. At the end, the killer’s behaviour and dialogue delivery has an animalistic quality while Bree remains comparatively composed and resolute.
The downside to the film is the abject misery of it all, a reminder that the ‘70s is not usually my favourite era of filmmaking. Levity is one of the most powerful things a script can give a film, but Klute is sadly devoid of it. Fonda is great, oozing charisma and self-determination, but her lengthy monologues to her psychiatrist feel arduous and forgettable because it doesn’t provide any respite from the film’s intensity. Even Donald Sutherland can’t breathe much life into the title character because he’s just another sweaty, moody character blending into a mood board of black, brown and grey (and because, quite frankly, he is overshadowed by Fonda).
Objectively speaking, Klute is a very strong and sometimes frightening crime thriller, with Fonda carrying it along competently. But the typically ‘70s emphasis on style, realism and atmosphere over plot can become suffocating. It probably needs a colourful character like Hannibal Lector to fully elevate it.
The final climax, relying almost solely on beautifully-delivered dialogue rather than action, is fantastically executed.
The psychiatrist scenes cause the film to meander and stall. Fonda is great but the script in these scenes doesn’t develop the character more than her two-handers with Sutherland.
Full disclosure, we watched this several months ago and then life intervened and so I don’t remember much of the specific events - even with a quick Wikipedia recap to jog my memory. However, I don’t think this is necessarily a bad way to do a review, because the memorable things that stick in the mind long after watching are likely to be what makes or breaks a film, and speak to its very core.
What I remember is a film about surveillance and paranoia - there are constant allusions or uses of recording tapes, and as Paul says a lot of fear of being watched - we never really find out if anyone was watching Fonda’s character through her skylight, but there are so many shots and visual references to it that director Alan J Pakula is clearly hammering home the point. We are in the Watergate era when even the President of the USA can be upended and overturned by technology and recordings - and the plot (such as it is) seems almost secondary quite a lot of the time.
Firstly, for Pakula, seems to be atmosphere. In a way that recalls Midnight Cowboy, the film builds images and feeling over plot. We see these desperate characters - Fonda’s Bree claims to not hate being a call girl but is also attending auditions and trying to find other roles, while Sutherland’s Klute seems lonely and wretched - sleeping under a cheap blanket in a single bed with a rough iron frame, recording voices from a basement. It’s hardly Elizabeth Taylor Glamour anymore!
There are also some beautiful framing shots - the way Bree’s apartment is shown, with the overhead lamp and the kitchen table feels poetic. It’s not a shaming of her poverty, just a clear-eyed representation of how humans consistently make homes out of the most grim and unappealing places.
The mystery itself seems not so important (and is frankly quite guessable), but as I say it seems secondary, providing a skeleton for Pakula to weave a film about underdogs and the underbelly of the city (some of the people Klute and Bree interview are used more for highlighting the way people lived and their homes than actually serving the plot).
Fonda is excellent - a brittle and brusque performance of a woman who is just getting by, and the scene when she seduces Klute is uncomfortable, but also fascinating in how the power shifts constantly between the two of them. It’s not a performance or film that will stick long in my mind, partly because it’s so gray and miserable that it blends perfectly into the oeuvre of the 1970s, but it is in itself a well-made film that captures the paranoia of the time.
I actually love the framing of various scenes. We’re really starting to see directors explore with artistic choices rather than just serving the story.
Gray and miserable - how I long for a joke or two!
Mark
6/10
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