Klute

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Klute

Film poster for Klute
Directed by Alan J. Pakula
Produced by Alan J. Pakula
Written by Andy Lewis
Dave Lewis
Starring Jane Fonda
Donald Sutherland
Charles Cioffi
Roy Scheider
Music by Michael Small
Cinematography Gordon Willis
Editing by Carl Lerner
Studio Gus Productions
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Release dates June 25, 1971
Running time 114 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $2.5 million
Box office $12,512,637[1]

Klute is a 1971 crime thriller film directed and produced by Alan J. Pakula, written by Andy and Dave Lewis, and starring Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Charles Cioffi and Roy Scheider. It tells the story of a prostitute who assists a detective in solving a missing person's case.

Klute was the first installment of what informally came to be known as Pakula's "paranoia trilogy". The other two films in the trilogy are The Parallax View (1974) and All The President's Men (1976).

The film includes a cameo appearance by Warhol superstars actress Candy Darling, and another by All in the Family costar Jean Stapleton.[2] The music was composed by Michael Small.

Jane Fonda won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the film.

Plot

The film begins with the disappearance of Pennsylvania executive Tom Gruneman (played by veteran actor Robert Milli). The police reveal that an obscene letter was found in Gruneman's office, addressed to a prostitute in New York City named Bree Daniels (Jane Fonda), who had received several similar letters from him. After six months of fruitless police work, Peter Cable (Charles Cioffi), an executive at Gruneman's company, hires family friend and private detective John Klute (Donald Sutherland) to investigate Gruneman's disappearance.

Klute rents an apartment in the basement of Daniels' building, taps her phone, and follows her as she turns tricks. Daniels appears to be liberated by the freedom of freelancing as a call girl, but in a series of visits to her psychiatrist, she gradually reveals the emptiness of her life and that she wants to quit. Klute asks Daniels to answer some of his questions, but she refuses. He approaches her again, revealing that he has been watching her. She assumes that he will turn her in if she does not cooperate, but does not recall Gruneman at all. She reveals that she was beaten by one of her johns two years earlier, but after seeing a photo of Gruneman, she says she cannot say for sure one way or the other. She is only certain that the john "was serious" about the attack.

Daniels takes Klute to meet her former pimp, Frank Ligourin (Roy Scheider), who reveals that one of his prostitutes passed the abusive client on to Bree and another prostitute named Arlyn Page (Dorothy Tristan). The original prostitute committed suicide, and Page became a drug addict and disappeared. As they search the city for the woman over several days, Klute and Daniels develop a romance, though she tells her psychiatrist that she fears these feelings and wishes she could go back to "just feeling numb". She admits to Klute a deep paranoia which makes her think that she is being watched. Throughout the film, she is frequently shown from the perspective of a stalker across the street.

When the couple finally track down Page, she says that the customer was not Gruneman but an "older man... fatter, balder". Shortly after the meeting, Page's body turns up in the Kill Van Kull, another apparent suicide. Klute deduces a connection between the two 'suicides' of the prostitutes who have been with the mysterious abusive client, surmising that the client probably also killed Gruneman and may kill Daniels next. He revisits Gruneman's contacts anew to try to find connections with the case. By typographic comparison, the supposed obscene letters of Gruneman are traced to Cable, with whom Klute has been meeting regularly to report on his investigation.

Now with a suspect, Klute asks Cable for an additional $500 to buy the "black book" of the first prostitute who apparently committed suicide, telling Cable he is certain the book will reveal the identity of the abusive client. This flushes Cable out. Cable corners Bree and reveals that he sent her the letters, explaining that Gruneman had interrupted him when he was attacking a prostitute. Certain that Gruneman would use the incident as leverage against him within the company, Cable attempted to frame Gruneman by planting the letter in his office. He confesses to killing Page and the other prostitute to cover his tracks. After playing an audiotape he made as he murdered Page, he attacks Daniels. Klute rushes in, and Cable jumps or is thrown (film uses ambiguous edit), out a window to his death.

The film closes with Daniels moving out of her apartment with Klute's help, though Daniels' voiceover with her psychiatrist reveals her fear of domestic life and a likelihood that she'll "see me next week".

Cast

Reception

Critical reception

Klute received generally positive reviews from film critics. It currently holds a 96% approval rating on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes based on 28 reviews with an average rating of 8.1/10.[3]

Jane Fonda received worldwide recognition based on her performance. "[Fonda] makes all the right choices, from the mechanics of her walk and her voice inflection to the penetration of the girl's raging psyche. It is a rare performance.".[3] She won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role and the film was nominated for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Factual Material or Material Not Previously Published or Produced. Fonda also received awards for her performance from the New York Film Critics Circle, Kansas City Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics.[4]

References

  1. ↑ "Movie Klute - Box Office Data". The Numbers. Retrieved July 24, 2011. 
  2. ↑ All In the Family began airing in January 1971, the same month as the film's release.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Klute Film Reviews". Rotten Tomatoes. 
  4. ↑ "Jane Fonda Awards". Internet Movie Database. 

External links

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