Klute

Rating:
Summary: Better than good.
Review: Klute is more than good. Good films make you say to yourself �That was clever� or �Gee, I didn�t expect that�. Klute is a different animal; it is more involving and gets under your skin. It is a personal film. Maybe it�s just me but I really felt something after I watched it.

Klute is the last name of a detective (Sutherland) who is searching for a missing man. Much of the story focuses on a call girl named Bree (Fonda) the last person to see the missing person alive. The film explores the dark side of male sexual fantasy and effects on women which are involved in them. It is not a guilty pleasure movie or a heavy handed melodrama. It is a wonderfully mature, sensitive, subtle film which shows its subject matter in an honest light.

It is a unique film. A film that, in its own way, is so perfect. I could talk about how it was shot and the wonderful use of sound but I won�t. Klute is more than good, it is a film to relate to, and treats its audience with considerable respect. It is movie which makes you feel something.

Rating:
Summary: Better than good.
Review: Klute is more than good. Good films make you say to yourself 'That was clever' or 'Gee, I didn't expect that'. Klute is a different animal; it is more involving and gets under your skin. It is a personal film. Maybe it's just me but I really felt something after I watched it.

Klute is the last name of a detective (Sutherland) who is searching for a missing man. Much of the story focuses on a call girl named Bree (Fonda) the last person to see the missing person alive. The film explores the dark side of male sexual fantasy and effects on women which are involved in them. It is not a guilty pleasure movie or a heavy handed melodrama. It is a wonderfully mature, sensitive, subtle film which shows its subject matter in an honest light.

It is a unique film. A film that, in its own way, is so perfect. I could talk about how it was shot and the wonderful use of sound but I won't. Klute is more than good, it is a film to relate to, and treats its audience with considerable respect. It is movie which makes you feel something.

Rating:
Summary: Klute should have been on the AFI list
Review: Klute is one of my favorite films of all time.It ranks right up there with "The Parallax View" as Allan Pakula's best film.Donald Sutherland gives a superb performance as the low-key sensitive cop, Klute, and Jane Fonda is wonderful (as always).The film is brilliant in so many ways. It is very visually striking, perfectly acted, great musical score, I cannot say enough about this movie. It is a quintessential American film that along with so many others from the 70's: Deliverance, The Parallax View, The Conversation, Night Moves, and from the late 60's, Point Blank, was unjustly left of AFI's top 100 movies list.

Rating:
Summary: Klute should have been on the AFI list
Review: Klute is one of my favorite films of all time.It ranks right up there with "The Parallax View" as Allan Pakula's best film.Donald Sutherland gives a superb performance as the low-key sensitive cop, Klute, and Jane Fonda is wonderful (as always).The film is brilliant in so many ways. It is very visually striking, perfectly acted, great musical score, I cannot say enough about this movie. It is a quintessential American film that along with so many others from the 70's: Deliverance, The Parallax View, The Conversation, Night Moves, and from the late 60's, Point Blank, was unjustly left of AFI's top 100 movies list.

Rating:
Summary: Klute comes to DVD
Review: Klute represents the seventies rebirth in films as directors took charge and the studio system diminished. A gritty, psychological exploration into character, form and space, Klute remains one of the best this genre has to offer. Note Pakula's attention and utilization of space and subtext. It also represents one of the finest performances of any actress from that time period. Jane Fonda's untouchable in this film. The levels she develops in this role are amazing. A reviewer questioned the Irish accent she uses while auditioning to play Joan of Arc in a play. In answer to that, Klute was filmed when Irish actress Siobhan MacKenna was receiving praise for her performances (including, yes, one as Joan of Arc onstage utilizing an Irish accent).
This DVD is a solid transfer. I would have bought it in pan and scan just to have it for my collection but thank God it's in letterbox. I would have liked it if the credits had allowed a more complete listing for Jane Fonda & Donald Sutherland's filmography (Alan J. Pakula and others credited don't get filmographies). I also would have loved if this edition had a commentary track. (Pakula is deceased but they still could have gotten Fonda & Sutherland to do a commentary track.) That said, the documentary on the filming (which is really more of a promotional film) was interesting to watch. The trailer offers historical insight. I first saw Klute, many years after it's release, on television. I'd never seen the trailer but often wondered how the studio sold this film to the public. In cookie cutter fashion: an indepth exploration of soul, mood and character gets reduced to a check list of sex, drugs and thrills.
The film remains one of the best to come out of the seventies and a wonderful addition to any DVD collection.

Rating:
Summary: You won't believe it's 30 years old.
Review: Oh come on, any movie where Roy Scheider plays a PIMP is good in my book!

Actually, I tend to rent these older films and then take a couple weeks before I watch them. I was a bit reluctant heading in to Klute, but was hooked from the opening credits. I think I liked the same things that people disliked about it. There is a certain uncomfortable weirdness that permeates through this film, that was not in the least bit accidental. Donald Sutherland plays his part to the hilt! I loved those scenes where he wouldn't say anything at all. I get the impression, that we are so used to a certain style of dective films these days (lots of acrobatics and explosions and shooting) that we fail to appreciate subtle films such as this. I've never been a fan of Jane Fonda. I've really had no impression of her whatsoever. This film, however, really changed that. She was FULLY deserving of her Oscar for this role.

Anyway, I highly recommend this film. Buy it. Now!

Rating:
Summary: Incredible!
Review: Oh come on, any movie where Roy Scheider plays a PIMP is good in my book!

Actually, I tend to rent these older films and then take a couple weeks before I watch them. I was a bit reluctant heading in to Klute, but was hooked from the opening credits. I think I liked the same things that people disliked about it. There is a certain uncomfortable weirdness that permeates through this film, that was not in the least bit accidental. Donald Sutherland plays his part to the hilt! I loved those scenes where he wouldn't say anything at all. I get the impression, that we are so used to a certain style of dective films these days (lots of acrobatics and explosions and shooting) that we fail to appreciate subtle films such as this. I've never been a fan of Jane Fonda. I've really had no impression of her whatsoever. This film, however, really changed that. She was FULLY deserving of her Oscar for this role.

Anyway, I highly recommend this film. Buy it. Now!

Rating:
Summary: They Don't Make Films Like This Anymore...
Review: The 1970's was a glorious era for film making. Finally free of the formulaic approach the film studios took in the production of films, directors, screen writers and actors were finally given the opportunity to take risks, to stretch the imagination, to experiment with content, all the while creating bodies of work which are still relevant today, but, sadly, are not as present in the box office these days. Such films such as "MASH", "The French Connection", "The Godfather", "Taxi Driver" and "Klute" cast a diversity of some of Hollywood's finest talent in gritty realism, addressing themes of sexuality, violence, racism, war and peace in ways that may have been suggested in the past but were never realized until the 1970's. In the film "Klute", Jane Fonda plays Bree Daniels, an anxiety-ridden wanna-be actress who is consumed by her addiction to the attention and power she craves in her secret life as a high-priced call girl. In this powerful role, Fonda demonstrates a remarkable depth of character, portraying a woman both confident and insecure, revellatory in her sexual freedom and disgusted by it at the same time. She inadvertently becomes embroiled in a disappearance/murder mystery, one which stoic detective John Klute, played marvelously with considerable restraint by the terrific Donald Sutherland, is brought in from rural Pennsylvania into gritty New York City to investigate. Klute is asked by a family friend to search for a friend, a wealthy businessman who has disappeared in NYC and may have been a client of Daniels. In the meanwhile, a serial killer has been preying on call girls, and Klute fears his hometown friend may be the killer. From the start of their relationship, as Klute's investigation leads him to depend on Bree Daniels for clues and help, there is an unbreakable, almost unbearable sexual tension between the two that is completely undeniable. Will they or won't they?
In what is probably the most memorable scene, which demonstrates that at one point, Jane Fonda was probably the best working actress around, she is in the act with one of her clients, madly screaming and flailing, seeming to enjoy this act of sexual passion, when she suddenly looks over to her nightstand to check the time, then instinctively, without pause, returns to faking pleasure. It is this kind of acting, subtle yet powerful, that was remarkable for its' time. Fonda's performance was the kind, for its' day, that was groundbreaking and scandalous. While Sutherland is the title character (and mind you, he is absolutely brilliant playing up to the fish-out-of-water routine without losing his essence), it is Fonda as Bree Daniels that carries this film.
Refreshingly, for a mystery, we are spared the usual hystrionics that are so common in crime procedurals these days. No gruesome slashings, no wild shoot-em-ups. Just a character-driven film that reminds us that behind a good story are terrific roles demanding to be brought to life.

Rating:
Summary: You won't believe it's 30 years old.
Review: This could be a film -about- the late sixties, done today. It's just superb. It holds up so well ... it makes you struggle with the problem of why most other older films become so dated ... Great DVD image, by the way. Very different than watching it on TV.

Rating:
Summary: The Most Memorable Movie Ever?
Review: This is a great movie - a landmark film in the history of cinema, as well as the careers of Jane Fonda and the late, great Alan J. Pakula. This is a very adult, very interesting, very strange thriller - unique. The story of a private detective forming a relationship with a prostitute to help solve a disappearance of his client's husband is interesting. However it is the attention to character that sets this film apart - and makes it a true 'classic'. Jane Fonda's first Academy Award winning performance is spellbinding - truly unforgettable. Watch out for the last scene when she has to deal with many emotions - sadness at the loss of her friend; fear for her life; betrayal of John Klute's employer; her unconcluded desire to stop being a prostitute - Ms. Fonda responds to such an emotionally cumulative scene with such artistry it is impossible to forget. Alan J. Pakula's direction never diverts attention from the characters or story - yet is vital to the eerie and interest provoking quality of the movie - quite an extraordinary feat. The use of music emphasises an eerie, desolate lonely life in the city - yet is beautiful and magical at the same time - this mirrors the contradictions in Jane Fonda's Brie Daniels character. This film never grows tiresome - trust me - watch it again and again.