I have not watched Klute for years and years. How did that happen?
Simply brilliant piece of film making. I love the lack of quick edits and the brooding menace.
Pure class from start to finish.
KBN
I had not seen it for years and it does stand up well.
Its that man again!!
I caught it on TV a couple of weeks back after not seeing it for several years. It's a stunning film; everyone involved seems to be producing some of their best work. There is no weak link. The acting is just simply flawless: Donald Sutherland was still taking pride in his work, Roy Scheider makes a bit part memorable 40 years later, and I still don't think the last four decades have produced a better actress than Jane Fonda.
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I agree. What I don't understand is why its not on TV more.
The performance by Jane when she cries is simply incredible.
KBN
Agree with all the above commments. It's a masterpiece.
When Klute goes through the dead girl's things, or when Bree flips through photos of dead prostitutes, there's a sharpness, a clarity of reality that compliments the stoned-out scenario and big-city decadence.
A stunner!
Yes, this film cannot be praised enough. I believe Klute is among the five or ten greatest films ever made in America. From the consistently astonishing cinematography by Gordon Willis (each shot is a marvel of shadow-ensconced minimalism -- it's his greatest work in a career full of great works) to the equally remarkable performances of Fonda and Sutherland (hers a triumph of extroverted, emotional turmoil, the conflicted self baring all, very messily; his, a brilliant piece of exacting, introverted minimalism, every word and gesture speaking volumes), to the gripping and chilling thriller plot-thread which is nonetheless ultimately a diversion from the real story of Bree and Klute's beautifully tentative romance. It's a film that manages to excel at so many different things at once (thriller/neo-noir/romance/NYC time capsule/etc), and that's one of the reasons why it is endlessly re-watchable for me despite its seemingly simple plot. Pakula had a spotty career, but in the 70s at least he proved himself to be capable of brilliance -- his work with actors is especially incredible in Klute, where every character down to the smallest bit part is imbued with some sense of pathos, realism, warmth or humor (or all four); the scene of former-hooker/junkie Page and her junkie boyfriend botching their score because of Klute's presence in their apartment is heartbreaking in its tender understatement. You get the feeling that nearly every character in Klute could have their own fascinating film revolving around them. Also deserving of praise is the spine-tingling yet thankfully never overused score by Michael Small -- second in his great career only to the subversive Americana of The Parallax View, Pakula's other masterpiece -- and the editing by Carl Lerner, full of startling cuts which ingeniously elide space and time or which effortlessly yet subtly link two shots/scenes together thematically.
It's a dumb cliche, but "they" truly don't make 'em like this anymore.