Klute

In honor of Jane Fonda's Birthday today...

Klute(1971) Alan J. Pakula

Jane Fonda stars as a sex worker who is possibly being stalked by a former client who has gone missing. Klute is one of those movies I’ve been meaning to watch for a while, but never got around to. I think if you had told me it was a psychosexual film noir, I probably would have watched it much sooner. I’m surprised this movie doesn’t get brought up more often in the conversation of neo-noir. It also has moments that feel like a proto-slasher movie complete with voyeuristic camera work and a Giallo-inspired score. The cinematography and production design work wonderfully together and Klute is loaded with dark rooms and deep shadows. Often these stark compositions are used to frame Jane Fonda so she appears to be separated or walled off from other characters in the scene. Klute earned Fonda her first “Best Actress” award and rightly so. The movie gives her lots of blunt dialogue that could be pure melodrama in the hands of someone else, but her naturalistic performance really sells some tricky monologues. I don’t know if Klute really fits my list of underrated or underseen movies, but I think there are a lot of people like myself that have been aware of it for a while and just haven’t gotten around to watching it. I think this is probably my favorite Alan J. Pakula movie and one of the best movies of the ’70s.