Production
year 1971
Directed
by Alan J Pakula
Written
by Andy and Dave Lewis
Starring
Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland and Roy
Scheider
Chosen by the winning Christmas Quiz team!
Mark Deitch will introduce the film.
Alan J Pakula is one of the most talented and interesting American directors of the 1970s. In a five-year period he produced what has become known as his Paranoia Trilogy consisting of The Parallax View, Klute and All The Presidents Men. Each film taps into a different vein of anxiety and takes us into a world of conspiracy, uncertainty and tension.
Klute stars Donald Sutherland as a detective assigned to investigate a missing persons case. The trail leads him to Bree Daniels - a high-class call girl played by Jane Fonda (who won a Best Actress Oscar for her performance). As they follow the various leads in the case Bree is being watched by a mysterious stalker whose identity holds the key to the mystery.
Klute is by turns erotic and terrifying with brilliant use of sound and silence by Chris Newman. The cinematography by Gordon Willis is edgy and outstanding. Look out too for a brief cameo from Candy Darling – the transsexual who was the inspiration for The Velvet Underground’s ‘Candy Says’ and is mentioned in Lou Reed’s landmark song ‘Walk on the Wild Side’.
Pakula’s career peaked with All The Presidents Men in 1976, although he later had hits with Sophie’s Choice and Presumed Innocent in the 80s and 90s. He died in 1998, aged 70, in a freak car accident that would not have been out of place in one of his own films…
