Fascinating film (spoilers)

Storytelling, images and soundtrack give us a 'still of the night' sense, which is almost hypnotizing to me. I can understand that younger people can find KLUTE slow moving. It is both about mysteries going on as well as a candid portrait of a big city call-girl (which was a new approach at the time), so we have to take the time to feel what's happening.

The portrait is still fascinating, because Jane Fonda is so good. And at the same time she contrasts well with detective John Klute, almost an ornament, an enigma very well played by Donald Sutherland. His character is as 'still of the night' as the rest of the film. Only Bree (Fonda) is the lively centre of our attention - but when she trips, she can only rely on Klute's help.

Good company to the call-girl story is the crime story, about power and cruel lust. Company boss Peter Cable has a few things to hide, and he feels compelled to do so. His status justifies his actions, or so he thinks.

Glue here is the mystery, starting with the missing family man Tom Gruneman, then going to the harrassing of Bree, perhaps by that same Gruneman. Then again, Bree seems to be a mystery for Klute, who might not have much experience with women. He also seems confused by all the men surrounding Bree, like her former pimp (Roy Scheider!), or her 70-years old client Mr Goldfarb, or possibly his friend Gruneman might also have paid for Bree's services. All this darkly photographed by Gordon Willis (The Godfather, Manhattan, All the President's Men).

This is the first of director Alan Pakula's trilogy about paranoia, so I've read. In this case it's not just a hunch Bree has, but there really IS someone on the roof watching her. And her apartment REALLY gets ransacked. So Bree was right, and Klute's investigation is on the right path. Thus I don't know if this film really is about paranoia (though Bree hooked me on, at one time I was afraid that Klute was going to slap her).

But the slow suspense is great, because we know as little as our leads know, until the moment the director shows us that company man Cable has a tape with Bree on it. From then on we know something foul is going on, something more then 'just a disappeared man' (lots of people disappear in big cities). There's power and there's personal interest. Sounds like the stuff William Shakespeare wrote his amazing plays about.

And now I'm sitting here at night, writing this all. Still in the dark mood of KLUTE.



"I don't discriminate between entertainment
and arthouse. A film is a goddam film."