Klute, pt 3: Fresh Produce, Real Tears, and a Sick Confession

In the first third of Klute (1971) we met the two fascinating central characters, a smart angry prostitute/actress Bree Daniels (Jane Fonda) and a hard-to-read detective John Klute (Donald Sutherland) investigating the disappearance of a man who might have been her client. In the middle of the picture, a volatile romance between the two blossoms just as the speculative danger becomes real. 

part 3 by Mark Brinkerhoff

01:17:20 As we left part two of this retrospective, the body of another of Bree's friends was found. Klute is putting the pieces together and it doesn't look great for Bree, the only one of the three prostitutes involved with the mystery man who is still alive. Boy does the suspense really ratchet up towards the end! So we'll keep this final installment briefer in appreciation of quickening heartbeats...

01:18:30 Before getting to the inevitable conclusion though—i.e. what did happen to John Klute’s best friend?—there are a few key moments as meek as they are mundane, like Bree stroking her beloved cat (who we haven't actually seen until now) inside her apartment. She holds him tight as she the subject of Arlyn's death comes up.

And that's what's so strange. I'm not setting anything up... something is... I mean... you obviously know what this is like... 

01:20:45 Another psychiatrist visit in which Bree is more tongue-tied than usual.. happier (?) but bewildered by it. Wishing she didn't want to destroy it.

01:23:00 Klepto Bree’s sweet, observing glances at a produce-picking Klute during a stroll of her neighborhood is the movie's most casually warm scene. This isn’t "hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold" material but rather illustrative, perhaps, of an awakening within her of a sense of calm and trust with Klute, amid the insecurity and stress of the scary, surrounding events. Fear is very much real, but then people learn to live alongside that every day, for centuries and generations, and still find pockets of peace, now don’t they?

01:25:15 Her peace is cut short returning home to a ransacked apartment, now permanently marred in her head. When the telephone rings, it's her own voice on the line, "I can be a very bad girl...  I have very wicked ideas", a threat, filtered through her own voice.

As an Urtext of the paranoia thrillers (The Conversation, Three Days of the Condor, Alan J. Pakula’s own The Parallax View) that would proliferate later that decade, post-Watergate, Klute is in an unenviable position of having been avant-garde (for its time) with character-etching scenes and story elements that, for contemporary audiences, may now seem a bit hoary and clichéd from subsequent overuse.

There's the co-dependent pimp/prostitute (sex worker) relationships, interspersed vignettes with a psychiatrist, periodic voiceover that's less expository than atmospheric. In 1971, however, Klute must’ve been an arresting experience for viewers — appropriately gritty, effectively creepy (kudos to composer Michael Small’s score), terrifically costumed (by the iconic Ann Roth—blessedly still with us!), well shot and lit. Oh, and just vulgar enough to be bracing, but not to the point of off-putting.

-Peter Cable. But you have no case. There's not even a body.

01:29:00 The killer is finally identified, with help from one of John's colleagues. John Klute has known the mystery man all along. Klute then meets with Cable to try to set a trap by fishing for more information and telling him he'll soon close the case.

"I don't want you to do this. Bree!"

01:32:00 Bree is packing, retreating to her former pimp yet again, as she does when she gets scared. She lies to Klute. 

To this day I wrestle with the question: Is Donald Sutherland… good as the titular Klute? He’s not a cipher necessarily, but the character does read a little blank at best and bland at worst. It’s certainly a choice on the part of Sutherland, an obviously gifted, criminally underrewarded actor. Coming on the heels of playing Hawkeye in the previous year’s M*A*S*H, John Klute is a departure for sure, although I do wish he would’ve brought more of a vivid interiority to the role as he did in Don’t Look Now just two years later. Regardless, he wisely is ultimately in service of Fonda, who downshifts powerfully in the penultimate scene.

01:37:00 Has a workplace ever cleared out faster at the end of the day than the garment factory in Klute?

My choice for Best Shot

01:39:30 What I love about this penultimate scene in Klute, the real climax of the film, is how deeply creepy the cinematography is —all shadows enveloping light, gauzy and moody as Nathaniel put it -- and how it makes you feel as a viewer (and also a voyeur?). It’s a strong, strange, visual sense of palpable unnerving dread, despite the fact that you know a step more than Bree Daniels does at this moment when she collides with the killer. This, my choice for the film's Best Shot,  a real marvel of mood-making and myth-making, with Fonda at the peak of her powers.

Christian's choice for Best shot - follow him on Twitter.

I've done terrible things. I've killed three people. But I don't consider myself a terrible person.

01:44:00 Bree listens to the killer's long monologue, paralyzed by fear. His confession turns, perversely, into a blaming of Bree (and her friends) for the killings as they prey on men's sexual weaknesses including his. "That's your stock and trade, isn't it?" He then plays Bree a tape of his meeting with Arlyn which ends with the woman's gruesome screaming.

Claudio's choice for BEST SHOT- read his piece

01:48:00 Much has been made of Fonda’s acting—by cineastes and the actor herself—in the climactic sequence. As Fonda has noted, during subsequent interviews/retrospectives, filming the climax brought an unexpected emotional response to this terrifying encounter between her character and the deranged serial killer who has murdered two of Bree's friends and John Klute's friend Tom Gruneman.

“I don’t think I would’ve cried that way if I wasn’t already becoming a feminist. I cried for women. I cried for the pain of women who are abused.”

01:51:00 Cable tries to kill Bree but Klute arrives just in time to stop him and the killer falls from the window of the garment factor to his death. Despite this abrupt very brief flash of violence, Klute ends on a decidedly melancholic note. It's entirely fitting for the tone and timeframe and characterizations we've been dealing with here.

01:52:30 It’s understandable that Bree's apartment empties out in the final shot (honestly, who could stand to stay there after the stalking, surveillance, and break-in) while another ambivalent contradictory therapy sesssion voiceover resumes.

I have no idea what's going to happen. I just. I can't stay in the city, you know? Maybe I'll come back. You'll probably see me next week. 

The end credits roll. Wherever our protagonists go next, let’s hope at least they’re safe and sound.

If you’re an HBO Max subscriber, Klute is available on the streaming service now. We hope you enjoyed this three part miniseries (with Best Shot sidebars)