‘Klute’ (1971)— Evocative and Effective: An Undebatable Masterpiece

Sam Todd

Published in

1001: A Film Odyssey with Will and Sam

4 min readJun 14, 2020

Will: Sam, I think you owe me an apology.

Sam: What?

Will: You went rogue, Sir!

Sam: I did.

Will: You watched a 1001 film without me — out of the blue. How could you?

Sam: It wasn’t the first time and it won’t be the last. But never has one been so good that I insist you watch it immediately so we can discuss it.

Will: You’re a real piece of shit. This shitty town deserves you.

Sam: The world is full of betrayal. Get used to it.

Will: I notice we’ve slipped into talking like a noir crime film. How fitting.

Sam: So Klute is a neo-noir about a private investigator on the trail of a missing guy — an old friend. His only lead is that the missing friend seems to have been sending obscene letters to a high-class call girl played by Jane Fonda. Donald Sutherland plays the title character, but this is really Jane Fonda’s movie. She’s outstanding.

Will: I know it’s boring when we just talk about how much we love a film… but christ, this film was outstanding as a whole. I literally applauded some scenes.

Sam: It’s our first undebatable masterpiece, although it’s one rarely brought up in conversations about great films. I feel it was overshadowed by some of the other heavy hitters of the New Hollywood period.

Will: A real shame. Something I find remarkable as well is that the screenwriters, Andy and Dave Lewis, are total unknowns — they don’t even have a wikipedia page. They were TV writers who wrote a movie script and then vanished from the industry. And yet the screenplay is partly why the film is so incredible. The dialogue has such maturity — there are moments that feel almost like a terrific modern HBO drama.

Sam: There are some meaty psychotherapy scenes. I knew you’d like those.

Will: Phroaaaarr I do love some psychotherapy scenes. They were proper ones too — mostly in films psychotherapists say and do things they never would in real life, and exist merely as an easy device to have characters make revelations. I guess that’s partly true here too — but the scenes were written and performed with understanding and psychological depth. Jane Fonda’s character, Bree, is someone of psychological complexity — and these scenes really help us understand the extent of her emotional wounds, and the ‘unwholesome’ defence mechanisms she uses to keep herself upright amidst a hard, uncaring city.

Sam: And she’s a perfect contrast with Donald Sutherland, who is an innocent, small-town boy.

Will: ♬ Living in a lonely world ♬

Sam: He is almost a blank slate despite being the title character. His performance was subtle. You never got the sense of what was going on behind those soft, blue eyes.

Will: ♬ No-one knows what it’s like, to feel these feelings, like I do ♬

Sam: The singing. Stop it.

Will: But yes, you’re right — he gives nothing away, and that adds to the intensity of the film somehow, and means that Bree’s complexity isn’t distracted from.

Sam: It juggles an intriguing mystery and an intriguing central relationship expertly.

Will: The central mystery — where is the missing friend, and did he really have the twisted obsession with Bree — is itself interesting, but also highlights and articulates the theme. Are people/men depraved beneath the surface? Bree thinks so — when she meets Klute, she assumes the same of him. The question of the mystery and the question of theme are the same — does depravity lurk beneath the surface of even those we like and trust? And the answer is interesting in both cases. This sort of narrative/thematic cohesion elevates films into being truly great — I think the same of Thelma and Louise.

Sam: All elements of the production served to elevate the theme. Particularly the costumes, set design and cinematography. I was struck by an early scene after we first meet Bree, where she sits alone in her apartment. It’s a wide shot, she’s in the centre of the frame and there are large patches of shadow behind her. It hammered home the sense of paranoia, of someone lurking in the shadows.

Will: The cinematography was so precise, evocative and effective that it brought to mind David Fincher. That level of perfect shot composition is rare, since time is money, and films have budgets — but for whatever reason, the cinematography of Klute was truly, truly great.

Sam: Yet it felt natural, it was purposeful and precise, but not showy.

Will: Nothing was out of place. The camerawork was built around giving the dialogue space to be at its best.